Mad Libs
much madness is divinest sense to a discerning eye
favorite books as a kid 
1st-May-2008 08:32 pm
So let's get nostalgic, shall we? Over at Romancing the Blog, Jennifer Estep talks about her favorite books as a kid. Which made me want to talk about my favorite books as a kid. These are all the books I reread a billion times. I loved the Narnia books. And the Little House on the Prairie books. And Nancy Drew and also the Three Investigators. I loved the Black Stallion Books and the Anne of Green Gables books. And the Madeleine L'Engle books. Oh, and the Marguerite Henry books. I was a voracious reader. I know I'm forgetting some of my favorites.

But tell me, what were your favorites? The books you cherished and reread when you were younger?
falling cow
Comments 
2nd-May-2008 02:50 am (UTC)
Noel Streatfeild's Shoe books. All the Anne books (plus LM Montgomery's short story collections.) The Little House books. Alice in Wonderland. The Secret Garden and The Little Princess.
4th-May-2008 04:58 pm (UTC)
I don't think I've read Streatfield. The Secret Garden! Man, how many times did I read that one? And the Wolves of Willoughby Chase. I'd forgotten . . .

Di
2nd-May-2008 03:10 am (UTC)
Hmm... I read Matilda by Roald Dahl at 6 then devoured the majority of his works. Then it was on to anything Shiel Silverstein. And at 15 my dad hands me this 1500 page book called The Dragonriders of Pern. That's when I found fantasy and I have gotten sick of it yet! :) Oh, and The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley. All of these books named here, I've read probably 15 times each or more. I'm an addict. :)

I actually didn't read the Narnia series until I was like 19. It was New Year's Eve and my boyfriend (at the time) decided to be a dickhead and cancel on me. So after crying my eyes out, I read them in the order they were written. All that night. I think I didn't go to bed until late into the night of Jan 1st. Seriously... miss that kind of stamina!
4th-May-2008 05:00 pm (UTC)
I can't even remember when I dug into the Dragonriders. I remember the Amber Series by Zelazney having a huge impact. And I remember reading a lot of Piers Anthony. I didn't read the Tolkein series until . . . well, It was much later than 19. I don't even know why it took so long.

Di
4th-May-2008 07:02 pm (UTC)
I've been meaning to pick up Zelazney b/c Jane Lineskold (I believe) lists him as a major influence. I believe she also finished one or two of his writings after he passed... He's Russian, right?

Piers Anthony I've read a few of his Xanth novels, but after so many, the puns start losing their funniness (that a word?). *shrug*

Tolkein... I read the Hobbit in college and liked it. I also read through the Fellowship and the first half of the Towers, but then the movies came out. I know they don't follow the story exactly, but the books were rough to read. I'm an ubar-nerd (as you know) and have watched every extra on all the extended DVD sets and there was one piece talking about the books being published. First of all, it wasn't a trilogy. They made him break it up. Secondly, the expert (of what, I can't recall) said that if we looked at writing standards of today, Tolkein's book most likely would have been ripped apart and completely rewritten. A fact that I find amusing but kind of poignant since I had such a hard time reading it. Ah well... some day I might even finish it and read the Simirilian since that's where the majority of the romance between Aragon and his elf chick is. :)
2nd-May-2008 03:14 am (UTC)
Jane Yolen's Dragon's Blood and Heart's Blood. Grace Chetwin's Gom on Windy Mountain series. Diana Wynne Jones' The Lives of Christopher Chant. Brian Jacques' Redwall series. Mary Stewart's Merlin books. And, yes, L'Engle (especially Many Waters), all the LM Montgomery books, the Little House books, Narnia, Indian in the Cupboard, Where the Red Fern Grows, The Yearling, Black Beauty, Bunnicula, Secret Garden, Little Princess, and at least a dozen more.
4th-May-2008 05:01 pm (UTC)
I didn't get to the DWJ books until I was in my 30s. WtRFG always breaks my heart.

Di
4th-May-2008 07:03 pm (UTC)
Oo- I second the Jane Yolen series. I read them in high school. Good stories... hmm... I need to buy those for my collection. *headdesk*
2nd-May-2008 03:26 am (UTC)
Well, Nancy Drew and the Hardy Brothers. There was Encylocpedia Brown and that one with the vampire bunny. Black Stallion I think I read every one I could find. There was also David Eddings books and, um, Xanth (<= #10 or so). So You Want to be a Wizard, of course. Wind in the Willows, Wizard of Earthsea. I grew up in a house that had a library that covered three floors. My penalty chores was sorting them, which always took too long since I kept finding books I wanted to read. :)
2nd-May-2008 03:15 pm (UTC)
I'd forgotten about Eddings and Wind in the Willows. Those were some of my favorites too. Still really enjoy Eddings.
4th-May-2008 05:02 pm (UTC)
I remember reading the Eddings books, though they annoyed me when there was that repetition thing. But I loved the first series. And the Shannara books! I forgot them. I didn't get to the Earthsea books until my twenties though. And I don't want to tell you when I started reading Jack Chalker, though that may account for a great many things . . .

Di
4th-May-2008 07:04 pm (UTC)
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=bunnicula&x=0&y=0

Bunnicula, baby... I remember stealing my sister's copies to read. :) I wonder who has them... her or me. Hmm...
2nd-May-2008 03:37 am (UTC)
One of the series I loved as a kid was Judy Blume's Fudge series (I recently got a boxed set for my 42nd birthday and am now wandering down memory lane with it.) Another one was the Lucky Starr series by Isaac Asimov. I found Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids in my school library one day and I remember happily parking myself during lunch there to read it and all the other ones I could find. The Hobbit was also a favorite and I wore out my copies of McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern and Harper Hall trilogies. (I think the first fanart I ever did was a drawing of Masterharper Robinton's fire-lizard Zair.) White Fang was another one I read quite a few times as a kid. (Really need to reread that one.)

Then came Narnia, and Shannara, and the Land and a bit of hitchhiking with a copy of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy...
4th-May-2008 05:03 pm (UTC)
White Fang! That's another one I forgot about. Man, all the memories. I love your icon. That is awesome.

Di
2nd-May-2008 04:16 am (UTC)
Where do I start?

Narnia, of course. Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain which I bought - one at a time - through the monthly book order forms my 5th grade teacher handed out. Astoundingly, I just looked at my shelves and discovered I still have those original five books. I recall reading the Black Stallion series (at a time when I was the only 2nd grader allowed into the upper grade section of the school library - after I'd methodically read through the entire lower grade section). I read the original Boxcar Children stories laying on the floor of our church library. L.M. Montgomery's heroines (Anne, Emily, Sarah and Pat) still occupy honored spots on my shelves. I also loved Barbara Bartholomew's The Time Keeper trilogy. Alcott's Little Women trilogy holds a special place in my heart, as does Dickens' David Copperfield (although my copy is long gone - lent out over fifteen years ago and never replaced). I reread Barbara and Scott Siegel's Firebrats books more times than I can count (and I still mourn that the series ended at four books). Bradbury's classic short stories were another favorite. Asprin's Myth series sat next to the Xanth novels (though my enjoyment of the latter has faded considerably). Encyclopedia Brown and Bunnicula held court with Fudge and Ramona for a time. And I don't think I ever quite forgave Scott O'Dell for the ending of Zia, especially after Island of the Blue Dolphins.
4th-May-2008 05:05 pm (UTC)
I still can't believe how many people say they weren't allowed into sections of the library. I mean, crap! I went where I wanted and read what I wanted. Little Women, yes! Never heard of the Firebrats or the Time Keeper books. I always loved the first three books in any of Piers Anthony's serieses. I mostly gave up on the series after those three, though.

Oh! Scott O'Dell! Island of the Blue Dolphins! Wow, I read that one to tatters.
5th-May-2008 04:20 am (UTC)
I had to really shock the school librarian to get access to the upper grade section. I think the half inch thick stack of 3x5 cards with my check out record was part of it.

Some days, I think I'm the only person who ever read the Time Keeper books, but they're a wonderful time travel story. (May reread them when I finish this month's batch of short story magazines.)

Firebrats was a post-nuclear war series about two teens making their way across the US, chasing a rumor that California wasn't as badly hit as the rest of the country. The books inspired me to evaluate the freshman campus of my High School as a nuclear bomb shelter since we had a basement level.

I managed the first twelve Xanth novels, IIRC, and still think On A Pale Horse was a great concept. I could never really get into anything else he wrote, though.
2nd-May-2008 04:33 am (UTC) - My answers
Understand first: Both my parents are teachers. My great-aunt Lydia was a famous librarian. Our house is full of books -- like, more than a small-town library's worth. And I learned to read when I was so young that I don't remember learning it, so twoish or earlier.

My mother read me _The Hobbit_ when I was four.
My father read me _The Yearling_ when I was six. Also that was the year I read the home veterinary manual intended for farmers.
I read _The Lord of the Rings_ when I was in third grade, which led to an interesting incident in reading class.
Other favorites included the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, Narnia, the Black Stallion books, Black Beauty, Treasure Island, Where the Wild Things Are, The Just-So Stories, every Golden Guide I could find, a dinosaur book I don't remember the name of that was heavy on translating the Latin and Greek names, dictionaries, and encyclopedias. Dad's history books made a big impression, like _Son of the Morning Star_; I didn't get along well with whitewashed history in school, but it was worth the fuss to know more of what really happened.

I read everything I can get my hands on. I'll read the back of a cereal box if there's nothing else in reach.
4th-May-2008 05:07 pm (UTC) - Re: My answers
Oh, now I want to hear about the interesting incident in reading class. I got into horror books in something like the fifth or sixth grade, reading Pet Cemetery and John Saul's books among many others. Weird.

But now, back to that reading incident . . . do tell!

Di
4th-May-2008 05:35 pm (UTC) - Re: My answers
Considering that I was reading at an adult level when I was six or earlier, "reading class" was miserably boring. (If I hadn't learned to love reading before I learned to hate reading class, I never would've discovered it.) Other classes often fared little better; I'd read the whole textbook in a week and then be bored. So I took other books to keep myself busy. A lot of fights started over teachers taking books away from me. (Bored genius - book = destructive genius.) But occasionally I had clue-filled teachers...

One morning in third grade, I had just started reading The Two Towers. In reading class the teacher had people reading aloud. I was quietly engrossed in TTT, and when called on to read the textbook, made no pretense of knowing where the class was in it. The teacher came back and took the book out my hands ... did a double-take at the title ... and said, "You can't possibly be reading this!"

Whereupon I launched into an exuberant description of "The Departure of Boromir," complete with orcs and arrows and kidnapped hobbits and poor mind-ripped Boromir going down like a hero. Next thing I knew, all the kids were staring at me with eyes the size of saucers, and the teacher handed the book back saying, "Here. If you're reading this, you don't need the class. Just keep quiet." And that particular teacher never bothered me again about reading something other than the textbook in reading class. It was wonderful.
2nd-May-2008 05:32 am (UTC)
I still have a lot of my Scholastic book club stuff from grade school, and I have The Blue Willow Plate, which just impressed me to the point I have a set of 12 of the dinnerware and a lot of the extras.

Not to mention any SF or Fantasy in the school library, I read it all, several times over.
4th-May-2008 05:07 pm (UTC)
I never heard of the Blue Willow Plate. What's it about?

Di
4th-May-2008 05:35 pm (UTC)
its (she types embarassed) "Blue Willow" by Doris Gates, my copy is dated 1963. Its set during the Depression with a family that doesnt have rent, or a place to stay, and the only thing they have left is a blue willow plate.

One of the things I loved about this book was the story in the story, about the blue willow pattern.
2nd-May-2008 07:32 am (UTC)
Everything by Edgar Rice Burroughs, everything by Fritz Leiber, Mary Stewart's Arthurian books, A Wrinkle in Time, Red Moon Black Mountain, and the adventure tales by Dumas and Sabatini and R.L.Stevenson, or course. The 'colour' fairy compilations of Andrew Lang. Various works of H.G.Wells and Jules Verne,...

... and 'Uncle Scrooge' by Carl Barks, and 'Tin-Tin' by Herge.
4th-May-2008 05:08 pm (UTC)
I still have a bunch of the original paperbacks of the ERB Tarzan books and John Carter books. I forgot I read all those (they are packed away at the moment). Wow. What memories. Thanks for the reminder!

And I read a bunch of the fairy stories too. I haven't heard of Uncle Scrooge. Hmmmm.

2nd-May-2008 10:51 am (UTC)
The Tom Swift sci-fi lite books.
2nd-May-2008 03:19 pm (UTC)
Another great bunch of books I'd forgotten about.
4th-May-2008 05:09 pm (UTC)
I never read those. But now after reading all these posts, I'm itching to go back and start reading.
2nd-May-2008 01:56 pm (UTC)
When I was young, my mother would give me $5 whenever we drove to Richmond to go shopping. I would usually spend it on a Marguerite Henry horse book. They were the size of hardcovers, with a thick paper binding that felt like treated fabric. (Back then, I could buy a book with my $5 and come home with change. I'm quite old.)

The Narnias, the Happy Hollisters, Nancy Drew, Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising sequence... shucks, I still reread The Dark Is Rising on a regular basis.
4th-May-2008 05:10 pm (UTC)
Those are the Marguerite Henry books I have. Still have them. They are packed away though. I need to dig them out for my kids.

I can't remember if I read the Susan Cooper books or not. Apparently I need to look those up.
2nd-May-2008 03:12 pm (UTC)
Hoo boy... here we go. My all time favorite is a novel called The War Between the Pitiful Teachers and the Splendid Kids, by Stanley Keisel. Beyond that, the Chronicles of Narnia, Christopher Pike The Chronicles of Prydain, The Hobbit, Madeleine l'Engle, the Hardy Boys (well, some of them), the Boxcar Children, and the Tripod trilogy by John Christopher. I also somehow came into possession of certain pen & paper games early on, specifically one by Palladium Books called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Although I wasn't ever really big on playing them, I would create countless scenarios and characters specifically for them along with my brother. Good stuff.

I'd also consider Stephen King to be a childhood favorite, since I think I picked up Firestarter when I was nine or so. Same with Michael Crichton. I think I picked up his stuff when I was about that age. Other adult-ish books sort of fell in line after that, so unfortunately, I moved on pretty fast from children's novels.

Today, I'm still fascinated with War Between PT & WK. It's quite an amazing novel in its own right. Darkly comedic with a shocking bit of an apocalyptica-type twist, I still like to read it occasionally. Just found out there was a sequel a month or two ago, and will be ordering it soon. And also, just read the Amber books for fun a year or two ago. Great stuff for juvenile-aimed novels.
4th-May-2008 05:11 pm (UTC)
Never hear of Keisel. Now I want to know what it's about. Amber books? As in Zelazney? Or someone else?

Di
5th-May-2008 12:10 am (UTC)
Hmmm... I think those are the Zelasney books. I'll check soon.

Keisel's book is essentially about a boy, Skinny Malinky, who is transferred from school to school for being a nuisance to teachers. He's eventually sent to a school where all the students are supposed miscreants, and the teachers are more like prison wardens. Skinny and some newfound friends go to war against the teachers, playing prank after prank. Though really, some of the pranks are bizarre and violent - for example, the students fill a tub full of raisin pudding or some such, put a shark inside, and lure a teacher into it. I can't even really do justice to some of the surreal things that happen - there's a tournament between the students and teachers, including golf carts versus lawn mowers among other very odd contests. Anything more than that would spoil the novel. It's definitely worth a read.
2nd-May-2008 08:25 pm (UTC)
my 1st fave was when I was about 4.. my aunt used to have a cabin near the lake where we lived.. it was a big deal for me and my sister to get to stay with her... She would read us Fantastic Mr. Fox by the fire.. it was awesome... and my sisters fave was Mr. Poppers penguins.. later I was hooked on David Eddings series the belgariad and mallorean... I've had to buy several copies over the years of those...
4th-May-2008 05:13 pm (UTC)
There were so many books I read about the time I read Eddings, but I still loved those. And the Riddle Master of Hed books. And the Ray Feist books . . . Oh, dear. I have this urge to go visit the old favorites. Not that that's a bad thing, except all those new books waiting to be read . . .
2nd-May-2008 09:42 pm (UTC)
When I was a kid? It's hard to remember back that far...

Okay, I know I was a huge fan of Tin Tin and the Asterix and Obelix books... though I guess those were more 'graphic novels'.

ZOMG, you read the Three Investigators!!1! I didn't think anyone else had even heard of those. Man, I loved those books. Those were read-all-in-one-sitting deals for me. I loved the Mystery of the Screaming Clock and the Mystery of the Silver Spider the best. Ooh, and the Talking Skull and the Ghost Train...! Ahem. 'Scuse me. Moving on.

My first true fantasy novels were 'Red Moon, Black Mountain' (Joy Chant) and 'Jirel of Joiry' (C.L. Moore), both of which are very hard to find nowadays. I think I might have read The Hobbit, but I know for a fact that I didn't tackle the Lord of the Rings until I was in my late teens-- I didn't 'get it' when I was a kid. Sad but true.

Once I hit my pre-teens, I was all about Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series. Madeline L'Engle's Wrinkle in Time, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, and A Wind in the Door. I think I read the Narnia books, but I can't say as they were a favourite. And then there was...

Well, anyway. I actually have to thank growing up poor for my literary education: we couldn't afford a TV but my folks would spare me a dime or two as a weekly allowance for me to spend at the used book store. Good times... good times. Great, now I'm all nostalgic and need to go drown my tears in a vat of Wombat Chow.