Boys, books, and birth order

Different sons remember different favorites | Noël Piper

Many people have joked or generalized about birth order: firstborn, a scholar; second, a jock; third, a game-show host; fourth, a salesman. When Susan Olasky asked me to name the favorites of John and myself, I asked if I could ask our four now-adult boys about their favorites: one small test of nature vs. nurture.

Son 1 (now a poet and an English teacher) was reading before he was 4 Little House on the Prairie. Now that he's an adult thinking back, he names only chapter books, including many I didn't know (maybe he found it more efficient to read alone?): The Great Brain, The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, The Westing Game, and Good Night, Mr. Tom. He names no picture books, but I remember that the first time he heard Are You My Mother? he wept when the fledgling was scooped up by the Snort.