JIM BENTON, BEST SELLING US CHILDRENS' AUTHOR/ILLUSTRATOR

Jim Benton has been brought to my attention by my grand-daughter who loves Benton's Franny K. Stein series.

This is how the fifth book in the series, Franny K. Stein, Mad Scientist, Frantastic Voyage (Aladdin) starts:

The Stein family lived in the pretty pink house with lovely purple shutters down at the end of Daffodil Street. Everything that is, except the upstairs bedroom with the tiny round window.

Behind this window was Franny's room which was also her laboratory.

On reading two further titles I found that all the books in the series have the same opening paragraph.

Another series of books to which she is addicted is Dan Gutman's My Weird School Series (Harper Trophy). These are first chapter books and there are 24 in the series so far and here they are:
Miss Daisy is Crazy!
Mr. Klutz is Nuts!
Mrs. Roopy is Loopy!
Ms. Hannah is Bananas!
Miss Small is Off the Wall!
Mr. Hynde is Out of His Mind!
Mrs. Cooney is Loony!
Ms. LaGrange is Strange!
Miss Lazar is Bizarre!
Mr. Docker is Off His Rocker!
Mrs. Kormel is Not Normal!
Ms. Todd is Odd!
Mrs. Patty is Batty!
Miss Holly is Too Jolly!
Mr. Macky is Wacky!
Ms. Coco is Loco!
Miss Suki is Kooky!
Mrs. Yonkers is Bonkers!
Dr. Carbles is Losing His Marbles!
Mr. Louie is Screwy!

And soon to be published:

Ms. Krup Cracks Me Up!
Mr. Sunny is Funny!
Coach Hyatt is a Riot!
Officer Spence Makes No Sense!

On the bookshelf here there are already 18 of these titles.

The love of series of books by kids interests me. As a child I well recall reading all the Milly Molly Mandy titles, and the JustWilliam series, and of course various Enid Blyton series. Finally at 11 years of age Miss Fisher introduced me to Arthur Ransome's Swallows & Amazon series of seven titles and the quality of what I was reading took a giant leap forward. Tolkien soon followed.

Even today I enjoy series of books which I guess may partly explain my fondness for crime fiction titles which usually come in series featuring the same protagonist in each title - Adam Galbraith, Kinsey Millhone, V.I.Washawski and Inspector Rebus are just a few of my favourite characters. I feel as if I know them personally. One of my very enjoyable tasks these days is reviewing crime fiction for the Sunday Star Times.

My daughter here in New York still has from her childhood her boxed sets of C.S.Lewis' series Chronicles of Narnia and Susan Cooper's wonderful The Dark is Rising series. So the love of series of books is passing down the generations. Excellent.