Your favorite books of childhood

[Demo]

Corduroy and Danny, Champion of the World are two of my faves as well as everything by Shel Silverstein. BTW Shirley, I love The Velveteen Rabbit too.

[Globe-trotter]

I remember a book called "Mr. Popper's Penguins" which I simply loved. I can't remember the author, though!

Also :

Anne of Green Gables series (8 of 'em!) - L.M. Montgomery
Little House on the Praire
Dr. Seuss
Charlotte's Web
Little Women
Pollyanna (although she got on my nerves after a while LOL)
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (which resembled Pollyanna somewhat)

Harriet the Spy
Judy Blume novels

There are many more but I can't for the life of me remember them right now.




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Sex appeal -- Give generously

[WIGGUM]

Four words.........A Winkle in Time

Sorry, I don't know how to underline in my posts.

[Dirty Devil]

Does anyone remember the Mrs. Piggle Wiggle series? They were short, funny stories that had a little bit of magic thrown in. My mom used to read them to me and my sister just before bed. Man, I lived for thoses stories.

What's really great now is reading all those old books from my childhood to my own kids. We have lots of current stuff on the bookshelves, but they like the old junk better, like I Am A Bunny, Goodnight Moon, and most of the Dr. Suess books.

[Arnold Winkelried]

La famille Robinson suisse(Johann Wyss)
Les Trois Mousquetaires, Vingt Ans Apres, Le Vicomte de Bragelonne (Alexandre Dumas)
The Famous Five series (Enid Blyton)
Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
Call of the Wild (Jack London)
The Adventures of Robin Hood (compilation of different texts)
The adventures of Tintin and Milou (Herge)
Asterix and Obelix (Goscinny / Uderzo)
Nancy Drew (Carolyn Keene)
Hardy Boys (Franklin W. Dixon)

I have to admit that the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys mysteries didn't hold up their initial fascination for me when I re-read some as an adult.



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J'ai assez vécu pour voir que différence engendre haine.
Stendhal

[UncaStuart]

Stuart Little & Charlotte's Web, of course.

The first fifteen OZ books. Mom and Dad would read from them each night to my brother and me, and then when we were old enough we read them ourselves innumerable times. The fun part was that the earliest ones were the ones Mom had read in the 20s (too bad she and her sisters crayoned in the illos).

Winnie the Pooh, The House at Pooh Corners.

The Laura Ingels Wilder books.

The Seven Wonders of the World, by Richard Halliburton. Really opened my young mind to history, archeology, and the diversity of cultures.

Horton Hears a Who.

The Babar series.

[ChrisCTP]

Oh, man...

-Charlotte's Web
-Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
-The Ramona books
-The Ralph S. Mouse books
-Little House on the Prairie set
-Little Women
-Stuart Little
-The Boxcar Children
-any of those mystery books that had the reader decide what happens next
-Encyclopedia Brown
-Judy Blume stuff
-Sweet Valley High (geez, Louise...)
-And, though I didn't really understand much of it at the time, I tore through my mom's cheezy Harlequin romances and my grandma's Ellery Queen magazines when I ran out of my own stuff to read.

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"Excrement. That is what I think of J. Evans Pritchard, PhD." --Robin Williams, Dead Poets Society

Chris' Homepage: Domestic Bliss (http://www2.crosswinds.net/~domesticbliss/)

[ChrisCTP]

This is what I get for posting before I read all the responses. A lot of the ones that others have mentioned should have been included in my list as well.

What a fabulous thread! I'm going to be in a great mood all day now.

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"Excrement. That is what I think of J. Evans Pritchard, PhD." --Robin Williams, Dead Poets Society

Chris' Homepage: Domestic Bliss (http://www2.crosswinds.net/~domesticbliss/)

[TubaDiva]

I re-read "Wind in the Willows" quite a bit; I also got a copy of the sequel, "The Willows in Winter."

There's entirely too many Toads in adult life, ya know.

your humble TubaDiva
Of course, sometimes they're funny.

[Drain Bead]

How in hell did I forget the Anne of Green Gables series? And Encyclopedia Brown, for that matter. I still use a saying I ripped off from an Encyclopedia Brown mystery:

I trust him about as far as I can throw a cheesecake under water.

There's a book called Wishbringer that I loved as a kid. Can't remember who wrote it. It was sort of a comic fantasy story, based on a guy who was forced to be a postman in a town that turned "evil" after six in the evening. There was an Infocom text adventure game with the same plot, but I don't know which came first. I loved the game and the book, though.

[Stoid]

"A Little Princess" - hands down, far and away, no question my #1 book of childhood, which I still take out and read every 10 years or so.

It was made into two completely sucky movies, although the second was slightly better than the perfectly awful Shirley Temple mostrosity.

A gorgeous, gorgeous tale... I can't remember the author, though it si the same on who wrote "The Secret Garden", which was made into a lovely movie a few years ago.

I'll love that book when I'm an old woman....

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*************
This is a non-smoking area. If we see you smoking, we will assume you are on fire and act accordingly.

[mouthbreather]

Two come to mind,

From the Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, by E.L. Konigsberg, and also

James and the Giant Peach, by Roald Dahl....come to think of it, I LOVED just about all the Roald Dahl stuff. What was that guy on, anyway?


Mouthbreather

<insert clever catchphrase here>

[Drain Bead]

I LOVED just about all the Roald Dahl stuff. What was that guy on, anyway?

Ditto! Did anyone read the one about the guy who studied for years to train his psychic energy so he could sense what playing card would come next from the deck? I can't remember what that one was called, but it was at once uplifting, funny, and crushingly sad, which is the best anyone can ask for from a book--or anything else, for that matter.

[Stevie Rave On]

Two words: "Encyclopedia Brown"

[kknick34]

The Hardy Boys series

The Hobbit - LOR

The Three Investagators, another Mystry series, I can't remember the author

[Globe-trotter]

kknick, I'm having a flashback concerning the Three Investigators... was one of the kids called Jupiter Jones?

And how could I forget "A little princess"!

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Sex appeal -- Give generously

[Yankee Blue]

We read The Bookhouse a series of 8(?) books of collected tales ranging from fairy tales in vol 1 to adventures and mysteries in vol 8. These were outstanding books for kids, but I bet they are out of print now since no one I know has ever heard of them.

The Happy Hollister series

A Child's Garden of Verses --R.L. Stevenson

James and the Giant Peach
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
The Great Glass Elevator --Roald Dahl

The Cricket in Times Square (I'd almost forgotten that one, thanks, michelle.)

Winds of Chance --Jeffrey Farnol

Elfquest series --Pini

The Boy Who Stole the Elephant
Snow Treasure
Shadow Castle

Loved these but I can't recal the authors -- who looks when you're nine?

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~tomorrow is promised to no one~

[Athena]

Oh, there's so many! Most of which are already mentioned. Stoidelia, I'm right there with you on A Little Princess. I LOVED that book (still do!) and I was so upset the first time I saw the Shirley Temple movie. I mean, come on! We can deal with her Dad being dead!

Off my rant now.... let's see, kid's books.

#1 all favorite still read 'em at least once every couple years - The Chronicles of Narnia

A Little Princess, The Secret Garden, Little Lord Fauntleroy - I had one book that had all these in it so I think of 'em together.

All the Dr. Suess books, with the Lorax at the top of the list. Go Dog Go is next.

A book called "Are you my Mother?" Don't know the author. This is a young kid's book.

I read Little House on the Prairie. Liked it fine, but it wasn't on the same level as A Little Princess and the Narnia books.

Anne McCaffrey's Pern trilogy for kids... let's see, that's Dragonsinger, Dragonsong, and ... one more... I think.

Little Women
Judy Blume novels
Charlotte's Web
The World Book Encyclopedia (I loved reading these!)
The entire contents of the Peter White Public Library children's room. My dream was to live next door.

[Amazingrace]

I just went through my so-called childhood reading stage (I'm 14, and I think it ended well before I was 13). My favorite book was probably Boy, by Rhoald Dahl. I read it when I was about 9. It's Dahl's autobiography. The things he talks about are funny, sad, and strange, much like Dahl's books. What a life that guy had. Of couse to write like he did, he must have.

[Yankee Blue]

Oh, I remember the Three Investigators. The smart, fat kid was Jupiter Jones and he lived in a junkyard. He and his two buddies (names? one wore a leg brace, I think) ran around solving weird crimes. I think the series was written under the name of but not by Alfred Hitchcock.

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~tomorrow is promised to no one~

[Otis]

Without a doubt "Moominland Midwinter." This book totally took me to another world as a child, and still has the same effect on me as an "adult". It's the "comfort food" of books.

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"Stop the rope and let me in or I'll go out and get some gin"

[pldennison]

Shirley, I could kiss you just for mentioning "Flat Stanley." NOBODY else I ever talk to remembers that book, and it was one of my favorites.

"The Great Brain" series is good. It's similar to "Encyclopedia Brown" except it's set around the turn of the century in Utah and the Great Brain is a member of the LDS church. Good stuff, though.

Other faves were:

Charlotte's Web (of course)
A Cricket In Times Square
The Little Prince
The Hobbit

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"Argue with what I said, not what you think or hope I said." - Me

After reading everyone else's posts I don't know how I could have forgotten some of those books! I LOVED Judy Blume! Harriet the Spy was also great. And now they are making a movie out of Stuart Little. Wrinkle in Time was fantastic, wasn't that actually part of a set? I also read just about every Nancy Drew book, but I wasn't really thrilled with them, so I left those off my list.

[GLWasteful]

Oh, yeah, Flat Stanley! I just explained that book to a friends daughter a few weeks ago. So she read it and loved it. Made me feel great.

Actually, almost everything that has been mentioned. Read 'em, loved 'em, still read 'em.

I just finished reading the first chapter of Charlotte's Web to my daughter last night, and it's great watching her get into it.

::sigh::

Waste
Flick Lives!

[TVeblen]

Wow, what a lot of great memories. Thanks, guys! I was a real fan of: Narnia, Secret Garden, Little Women, Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys (agree: they are pretty yucky reading them as an adult).
Two of my absolute favorites, that I've bought to keep forever: The Tough Winter and Rabbit Hill by Larson.
Then I got into Ellery Queen and Conan Doyle, even though a lot of it was over my head. Some combination, huh? Sherlock Holmes and The Witch of Blackbird Pond.
Nostalgic sigh,
Veb

[Shadowfox]

So many of my childhood favorites have been mentioned (Nancy Drew series, Dr. Suess, Little House on the Prairie, Narnia Chronicles, etc), but I think my all time favorite was "Where the Red Fern Grows". It has kind of a sad ending, but I loved this book when I was about ten or so.



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Shadowfox
"Most people would succeed in small things, if they were not troubled with
great ambitions."
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

[Ukulele Ike]

Phil, the Great Brain and his family weren't Mormons...they were part of a small minority of Catholics in the Utah town.

Not that this had anything to do with the stories, really, (and excellent stories they are, too) but I'm fussy about my children's lit facts.

Otis, MOOMINLAND MIDWINTER is on my to-read-to-daughter shelf. We're currently on FINN FAMILY MOOMINTROLL. Glad to know that there's another good 'un waiting.

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Uke

[divemaster]

The Three Investigators:

--Jupiter Jones (the smart stout one), Bob Andrews (the bookish one), and Pete Crenshaw (the athletic one). IIRC, Pete had a leg brace in one story, but it wasn't a permanant condition.

--several authors contributed to the series; Hitchcock was a mentor to the boys in the original editions (not in the current reprints, however. I guess they are afraid kids won't know who Hitch was.)

I loved the Great Brain books, too.

[PunditLisa]

The Narnia Chronicles, the books about the little people that lived under the floor called The Borrowers, Beverly Cleary books, Encyclopedia Brown, Little House books, A Cricket in Times Square, What the Witch Left. Great books, all of them.

When I was a really young, I loved the Amelia Bedelia books and Clifford books.

[Persephone]

Laura Ingalls Wilder and Nancy Drew were huge faves. I also really liked the "Choose Your Own Adventure" books. A couple other standouts were "The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles," by Julie Edwards (Julie Andrews, using her married name), and "Charlie & the Great Glass Elevator."

My all-time favorite book when I was a really littler kid was a book about an Easter bunny who was late for Easter. I think that was the title, in fact, "The Easter Bunny Who Was Late," or something like that. There were pictures of EB dressed up in all kinds of holiday outfits, trying to offload the eggs he hadn't delivered at Easter time. If anyone else knows of this book and where I can get a copy, please let me know!

[AWB]

Harold and the Purple Crayon, with accompanying 45 record.

For you young-uns, a 45 record is a 7" vinyl disc that could record about 5 minutes of music. :) :) :)

[Yue Han]

The Giver by Lois Lowry.
The Nancy Drew Mysteries.
The Hardy Boys.
Encyclopedia Brown, as has been said, is wonderful.

And my personal favorite, The Golden Book Encyclopedia. (Yeah, the volumes themselves)

*shrug* So I was a weird kid.

-John

[CanadianSue]

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Charlottes Web

my all time favourite was Little Black Sambo which now has been pulled from all libraries because of the racism factor.. I never thought about it that way.. it was just a great story

[torq]

Some of mine I've seen already:

The Great Brain books
The Mixed-Up Files etc.
Encyclopedia Brown
Pretty much anything by Dr. Seuss
Some of the Choose Your Own Adventure-type books
Charlotte's Web

Things I didn't read as a child but would have liked if I had:

The Hobbit (and Lord of the Rings for older kids)
Chronicles of Narnia
The Oz books
The Tarzan books (and most of the other series by Burroughs), again for the upper end of your age range; some of them would be somewhat racy and/or frightening for young kids

Others I haven't seen mentioned yet:

The "Two-Minute Mysteries" books
The Danny Dunn books (these are great if the kid in question has any interest in science)
The Sword in the Stone from The Once and Future King (the real one, not the Disney version)
A Wrinkle in Time
Half Magic
Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates
Tom Sawyer (and Huckleberry Finn)
The King of the Golden River

[metroshane]

The giving tree
How to eat fried worms
freckle juice

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The only way to rid yourself of temptation is to yield to it--Oscar Wilde

[jazzmine]

Oh you guys! [i]Flat Stanley[\i] No one I know has ever heard of this book and I even thought for a little while that I had made it up. I loved that book!

My list, many have been mentioned before:

Beverly Cleary Books (all of them)
Nancy Drew Series
Charlotte's Web
Wind In The Willow
Man O' War (Walter Farley)
Big Red (Jim Kjelgaard)
My Friend Flicka
Chronicles of Narnia
Black Beauty - LOVED this book
Wizard of Oz
Little Women (the whole series)
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farms
Watership Down
Misty of Chincoteague (Marguerite Henry) (loved the whole series)
Black Stallion series
Phar Lap
Island of the Blue Dolphins

I could go on and on. What a wonderful thread, Shirley! My whole day feels good now.

trisha

[torq]

Left this out because I couldn't remember the names:

The "Trick" series by Scott Corbett. The two I remember specifically are "The Limerick Trick" and "The Lemonade Trick".

[Manda JO]

A couple more--Lloyd Alexander's _Westmark_ trilogy--which is a thousand times better than th better known _Black Cauldron_ set, Robin Mckinly's books, any of them (Although the _Hero and the Crown_ is probably the best place to start) and Jim Kjeelgard's various dog books, especially _Snow Dog_.

[Persephone]

One more that I forgot--"The Westing Game." Wasn't that one just made into a movie recently?

[krish]

Let's see,

Cam Jansen
The Boxcar Children
Miss Mallard
Arthur
Roger Hargreaves's Mr. Men and Little Miss series
Choose Your Own Adventure series (a little different from the others, but it was interesting.)

If I think of more, I'll add them.

[PurpleCrackwhore]

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Winnie the Pooh
Pipi Longstocking
Nancy Drew/Hardy Boy Mysteries
Green Eggs and Ham


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"Only when he no longer knows what he is doing, does the painter do good
things." --Edgar Degas

[capybara]

I agree that the Great Brain and Lloyd Alexander stuff was great. I'm remembering a book I read when I was 11 or so called "The Teddy Bear Habit" about a kid in the beatniks era trying to learn to play guitar-- it was hilarious.

[Random]

God, does this thread bring back memories. I read most of these. The Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E Frankweiler was great. I liked Encyclopedia Brown, the Danny Dunn series, the Three Investigators, the Beverly Cleary books (Ramona/Henry Huggins/Beezus), and many of the others mentioned. The Great Brain series I especially enjoyed. The stories were actually semi-autobiographical. The author really did grow up in Utah. He also wrote some nonfiction about his family's life. (The author was the model for the little brother in the books. The older brother (Tom?) was the Great Brain) Although the family was Catholic in the children's books, as someone pointed out, apparently part of the family was Mormon in reality. (I think one of the parents was Mormon and one Catholic.) I though the nonfiction books were actually better than the kid's books, even when I first read them in my very early teens. Anybody remember the author's name?

[leafrog]

Pretty much my whole list is here so far, but what about

Where the Wild Things Are by M Sendak?

Way cool book.

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Make it fit.

[Minxsmom]

Oh, Boy, what great memories lie in this thread! I LOVED Encyclopedia Brown - I forgot about him! Gee, where do I start?

A Wrinkle in Time
The Hobbit
The Iceberg Hermit
Watership Down
The Velveteen Rabbit
Call of the Wild
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
The "Little House" series
The - Red, Green, Brown, Yellow, etc - Fairy Book
Stories of King Arthur
Adventures of Robin Hood

I'm sure I'll think of more.

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WARNING: I cannot be held responsible for the above as apparently my cat has learned to type. =^..^=

[Arnold Winkelried]

Reading through the list reminded me of several books I've loved because they were mentioned by other people
(special kudos to pldennison for mention of "Le Petit Prince" by "Antoine de Saint-Exupery")

But then I remembered
Treasure Island by Stevenson
I still love that book!

Fifteen men on the dead man's chest, yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!

And then Jules Verne of course:
Deux Ans de Vacances
De la Terre a La Lune
Voyage Au Centre de la Terre
Vingt Mille Lieues sous les mers
L'Ile mysterieuse

and H. G. Welles
War of the worlds
The invisible man

And how about Conan Doyle's series with Professor Challenger?
The Lost World et al.

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La franchise ne consiste pas à dire tout ce que l'on pense, mais à penser tout ce que l'on dit.
H. de Livry

[Arnold Winkelried]

Wait wait wait!
And also

Alice in Wonderland
Alice through the looking glass
by Lewis Carroll

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La franchise ne consiste pas à dire tout ce que l'on pense, mais à penser tout ce que l'on dit.
H. de Livry

[mr john]

OH great, I been away a while and they STILL don't remember my pass word. Who's euchy? Is (s)he cool? Hey, shirl, who's been here since I been gone? I read these when I was around ten or eleven, HUCKLEBERRY FINN ( i am a southren boy) taught me all I know about racists, nasty thing to be, avoid if you can Most of Poe ( scared me!!) Conan Doyle , damn wish I could be that logical bout things,(cept for that spiritualism)Asimov, didn't make me 'think' stead i just was glad somebody ELSE was thinkin that way.OH yeh, for fun there wad the Hardy Boys!! Made me jealouse " Hey, Pop, can we borrow the helecopter tonight? We want to visit our friend in Alaska." Yeh right.

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"Pardon me while I have a strange interlude."-Marx

[Fretful Porpentine]

Ha, the ex- children's bookstore clerk finally gets to show off her knowledge...

Drain Bead: IIRC, the Roald Dahl story you're thinking of is called "The Marvelous Story of Henry Sugar."

Random: The author of the Great Brain books was John D. Fitzgerald.

Looks like people have already mentioned most of my favorites. A couple of others that bring back warm memories:

The All-of-a-Kind Family series by Sydney Taylor. (Kind of an urban version of Laura Ingalls Wilder, about five little Jewish girls in turn-of-the-century New York.)

Adam of the Road by Elizabeth Janet Grey.

Bunnicula and Howliday Inn by James Howe.

The Bruno and Boots books by Gordon Korman. Absolutely hilarious.

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"The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us."
- Bill Watterson

"Half Magic"

"Ben And Me"


And Tove Jannisson's Moomintrolls series.

Also I collected almost all of the Tom Swift Jr. series. Loved that Sub-Ocean Geotron gadget of his.....

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YO-HO, ME HEARTIES! ALL HANDS ON DECK FOR THE MUSICAL BATTLE AT SEA!

[AuntiePam]

The Boxcar Children! Thanks, ChrisCTP and Krish -- I'd forgotten about that wonderful book. Was there more than one? Gonna have to check.

Little kids are having fun now with something called the "Dumb Bunny" series -- I've read a couple and they're pretty good.

Too bad kids' books are so pricey -- but usually the illustrations are worth it.

"The Geranium on the Windowsill Just Died" was a favorite of my kids' too.

[whitetho]

According to Christi: My all-time favorite book when I was a really littler kid was a book about an Easter bunny who was late for Easter. I think that was the title, in fact, "The Easter Bunny Who Was Late," or something like that. There were pictures of EB dressed up in all kinds of holiday outfits, trying to offload the eggs he hadn't delivered at Easter time. If anyone else knows of this book and where I can get a copy, please let me know!

Sounds like "The Easter Bunny that Overslept": "Having slept past Easter, the Easter bunny tries to distribute his eggs on Mother's Day, the Fourth of July, and Halloween, but no one is interested. At Christmas time it is Santa who gets him back on track."
www.addadd.com/Used/ (http://www.addadd.com/Used/) lists numerous copies. "The Easter Bunny That Ate My Sister" also looks interesting...

[whitetho]

Corrected URL: www.addall.com/Used/ (http://www.addall.com/Used/)

[SterlingNorth]

These are stories I grew up on in no particular order:
A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L'Engle
A Cricket in Time Square, George Selden
Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
The original 19 Boxcar Children series
Tom Sawyer
To Kill a Mockingbird, Haper Lee (I read it at age 10 not knowing that I'd have to read it every year between 7th and 10[sup]th[/sub] grade.)
Maniac Magee, Jerry Spinelli
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Dahl
The Mixed-Up Files. . .
Socks, Beverly Cleary
Indian in the Cupboard, Lynn Reid Banks
The Ramona the Pest series of stories by Beverly Cleary
A bunch of stories by Bruce Coville
Sideways Stories from Wayside School, Louis Sachar
Island of the Blue Dolphin

[Melatonin]

Every Astrid Lindgrin (sp?) book I could get my hands on. Pippi was great, but "Brothers Lionheart" and "Ronja the Robber's Daughter" left more of an impression.

Three cheers for the Phantom TOllbooth.

I remember at least one other E. L. Konigsburg book- the title was a string of girl's names and it was about becoming a witch.

I, too, remember Mrs. Piggle Wiggle. I remember trying to convince my parents that it was *really* worth their while to read those books.

"The Endless Steppe," by Esther Hautzig. About a family deported to Siberia from Poland during WW2, told through the eyes of the young daughter.

One I can't remember the title of: a boy who used to watch Walter Cronkite every night on TV stayed up late one night, past the time when they broadcast the national anthem, and out of the fuzz, the TV began receiving wierd signals. The next day he woke up in a parallel universe where everyone he knew and loved was the same, except one thing: they were all giant lizards (maybe dinosaurs.)

I also really enjoyed the Guiness Book of World Records. 1977 edition. I was a wierd kid.

[sunbear]

I have new hardbound Pippi waiting for my daughter's 5th birtday.

Like many Europeans, my favorite as kid was Walt Disney comic books. It came every week and if I was sick at home I would leave a door open to hear the mail drop through the slot and rush out to read it. I taught myself to read from comic books.

The Disney comic books can be ordered in the US from Bruce Hamilton/Gladstone in Prescott AZ.
Each one of the European countries that still carries it, sells more than the US.

Moomintrolls I also read in the comic albums, never the longer text.Tove Jansson and her brother Lars made both versions. She's still alive, must be in her late 80's or older.

[SterlingNorth]

Melatonin, thank you! You've reminded me of another book, but not the one you're talking about.
(I don't know what book you're talking about.)

There was this book about (I think) a boy who learned to travel the fourth dimension (assume it's a spatial dimension and NOT time).

The Boy Who Reversed Himself by William Sleator

The Westing Game! Oh my! I loved that book! It is funny that it got mentioned because I was just thinking about it the other day and I couldn't remember the damn title. Have they really made it into a movie? If so, I know I will have to go see it! I love this thread.

[Johnny Angel]

I was particularly fond of the Danny Dunn series, Alvin Fernald, that other kid whose stories were written by Robert McCloskey. I even used to like Encyclopedia Brown, but the older you get the more contrived Encyclopedia Brown begins to seem.

But my absolute favorite all time writer was Daniel Pinkwater. I read Pinkwater book I could get my hands on. He seemed to have as good a sense as anybody in the world what it was like to be a smart, alientated kid growing up in the city.

[Johnny Angel]

Melatonin wrote:

One I can't remember the title of: a boy who used to watch Walter Cronkite every night on TV stayed up late one night, past the time when they broadcast the national anthem, and out of the fuzz, the TV began receiving wierd signals. The next day he woke up in a parallel universe where everyone he knew and loved was the same, except one thing: they were all giant lizards (maybe dinosaurs.)

Lizard Music by Daniel Pinkwater.

[Shirley Ujest]

WOW, I really started something here! I posted at noon and thought, "Oh, I'll check back after dinner for a look." and when you have a toddler, there is something called a time warp and 10 hours and 65 responses later..... It's great to relive all the warm and fuzzy memories that the companionship of an excellently written character gives us.

Everyone's lists ( partial or not) have brought back long forgotten memories of many dear books. I have printed this thread out and fully expect everyone to continue their contributions. ( Consider yourselves properly ordered :) )

PLDENNISON Phil, I completely and totally forgot about Flat Stanley
( except when making jokes about someone fatter than whatever they are trying to squeeze through) until I was leafing through one of the purest joys of my childhood, The Scholastic Book Magazine. I spied Flat Stanley ( by Jeff Brown) and had to order it. With the exception of my sister in law, no one I've ever met has ever heard of this fabulous book. I thought maybe I made up this kid.

I had forgotten what a thrill it was to chose one or two books, order it, forget about it for a few weeks and THEN I WOULD GET MY BOOKS! My sister in law teaches 1st grade and lets me order from it and I relive this excitement all over again. Only it's not one or two books, uh huh, it's like 10 -25 books at a crack ( she gets several book catalogs) and I think my highest bill was something like $75. Today's order that I just placed was whittled down from $62 to $33 and it just about killed me to have a book not make the cut.

I have really only one serious addiction in my life and it is books. My son's (and TBA daughter's) library is so loaded right now that I have the 1st grade on up books in storage in the basement and it's just killing me to introduce them to them. It will go something like this:

"Books, meet Carsten and Baby X."

"Baby X and Carsten, meet Books. The Books will be your friend no matter how grouchy, grumpy, sick, tired, crabby, dorky, lonely you feel. They just want to please you. They want to be read. They will comfort you when you are sick. They will make you laugh when you are crabby. They will give you everything and expect nothing in return except for you to treat them well and pass them along to your children."

[Shirley Ujest]

I have found a couple of great books for my kids that I found through the Scholastic Books Magazine or by chance browsing at the bookstore.

Chrysanthemum - A girl ( mouse) learning to love her odd name.

Lily's Purple Plastic Purse - The excitement of a new purple plastic purse causes Lilly ( a mouse) in school and how she hates her teacher (that she just loved)for making her put it away until the proper time..( I think that's the story line...it's been awhile.)

Both are by Kevin Henkes.(He has great books, btw.) For 1st and 2nd grade readers.

Another book that is just wonderful and made me tear up the first time I read it was:

The Christmas Miracle of Johnathan Toomey. ( I don't have the author handy.)
A little boy and his widow mom ask the grumpy village woodcarver ( a widower) with help to carve a nativity scene for XMAS which is only a few days away. The little boy tries to be good while helping out, but touches the dead wifes stuff and gets into trouble. The woodcarver gets less grumpy and it has a nice ending. A great book about healing, forgiveness and warm fuzzy stuff.

[Babar714]

Where the Wild Things Are
The Scrubious Pip
The Digginest Dog

[Kat]

Oh, man, I almost went to bed before reaching this thread. Some of these have already been mentioned.

Jenny and the Cat Club series
Misty of Chincoteague
Stormy, Misty's Foal
King of the Wind
101 Dalmations
Mary Poppins series
The Incredible Journey
James and the Giant Peach
Paddington books
Frog and Toad stories
White Fang
Socks
Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing
Superfudge
Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great
A Wrinkle in Time
A Wind in the Door
A Swiftly Tilting Planet
Many Waters
Where the Sidewalk Ends
A Light in the Attic
Kidnapped
Peter Pan (full version, not Disney version)
Bambi (ditto)
Bambi's Children
The Westing Game
The Dark is Rising series
Henry? & Norma Fox Mazer novels
Oliver Twist
Jungle Book
Kim
Pippi Longstocking books
Bobbsey Twins books
Smokey the Cow Horse
Silver Chief
and one I do not remember about a witch and a bumblebee

I'm sure there are more, but that is enough for tonight.

[JimOfAllTrades]

Oh man, there's some good stuff mentioned on this thread!

Some of my old faves, in no particular order.

A Wrinkle in Time
Space Cadet
Winnie the Pooh
Yertle the Turlte
The Jungle Book
The Hobbit
Lord of the Rings
Island of the Blue Dolphins
Pippi Longstocking
Old Yeller
The OZ Books (My dad read these to me and my sister beginning when I was about 5. Some of my fondest memories.)
Tom Sawyer (Huck Finn came a little later)
To Kill a Mockingbird
Any Dr. Suess book

And many others that don't come to mind now. Thanks for the memories, everyone!

Ugly

[Shirley Ujest]

Inspired by WWW.scholastic.com/parents.younger.html (http://WWW.scholastic.com/parents.younger.html) and their list of their own books for the Booklist of the Millennium, I was wondering what are some of everyone's favorite books from their childhood ( preschool - 13 years)

I am also looking for some inspiration for buying books for my ever growing library of childrens literature, so there is a selfish side to starting this thread. (But it's a good kind of selfishness :) )


Some of mine ( but not all)

Cat in the Hat
Go Dog Go (Dr. Suess)
Charlotte's Web - EB White)
Little House on the Prairie books (LI Wilder.)
Never Miss a Sunset ( Jean Something or another)
The Dog who came ( or who stayed) for Christmas - ?
Flat Stanley
The Littles - Series books
The Velveteen Rabbitt

I'll add more later.

Gosh, I read non-stop when I was a kid...it'll be hard to remember all the good books...let's see:

Little House on the Prairie series
Cricket in Times Square
Charlotte's Web
Chronicles of Narnia
Watership Down (you said up to age 13)
Green Eggs and Ham

That's allI can really remember off the top of my head. A lot of the books I read are still in print. Now I have to go to the bookstore so I can take a trip down memory lane!

------------------
"Love given when it is inconvenient is the greatest love of all. Kindnesses that are shared at a high cost to oneself are the most dear."

Don't know who said it, but I like it.

[Max Torque]

I have a bunch I haven't seen mentioned here....

Sir MacHinery. A scientist holes up in a Scottish castle to build a robot. Brownies (not the junior Girl Scouts) discover the robot and, seeing "machinery" printed on nearby crates, think he's a knight of Clan MacHinery. Adventure ensues.

Though it's for a somewhat-older child, I remember reading Space Station Seventh Grade before reaching grade 7....very humorous.

I'm surprised no one's mentioned "The BFG" by Roald Dahl....heck, just about everything the man's written is gold.

Also, I don't recall anyone mentioning Shel Silverstein's poetry books, like, "Where The Sidewalk Ends" and "A Light In The Attic."

Anyone else remember books called "The Ape Inside Me", "Do Bananas Chew Gum?", "The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death", "Gowie Corby Plays Chicken", and "Sometimes I Think I Hear My Name"?

Lets see. Oodles of Noodles. Billy and the Number Line(war between the evens and odds). Most books I didn't remember the title. Also The Thing at the Foot of the Bed.

These are a mix of books I read as a kid & books my kid enjoyed. They've almost all previously listed:

Walter Farley - Black Stallion series, Island Stallion series, Man O' War

Marguerite Henry - Misty series & many other stand alones

Madeleine L'Engle - Wrinkle in Time & others.

Sherlock Holmes - way cooler than Encyclopedia Brown...

Jules Verne

weird book called The Silver Crown, can't remember the author - fantasy/mystery mix.

NOT Charles Dickens.

Good "transition" books (10-14):

Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit
Mary Stewart mysteries
Watership Down
Earth's Children series by Jean Auel if you don't mind the sexual content.
Dick Francis mysteries set against horse racing background if you don't mind violence.
Xanth series by Piers Anthony if you don't mind bad puns.


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Sue from El Paso
members.aol.com/majormd/index.html (http://members.aol.com/majormd/index.html)

[divemaster]

The Enormous Egg
Runaway Ralph and other Bev. Cleary
Narnia Chronicles
Lassie Come Home
Tunnel through Time (Lester del Rey SF)

Tons more, but I'll stop for now.

[Drain Bead]

The Little House and Black Stallion series.

Choose Your Own Adventure books, or anything even remotely similar, like the Lone Wolf series.

Bridge to Terabithia (waaaaaah!)

Island of the Blue Dolphins

All of the Ramona Quimby books

Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret

Superfudge

I KNOW there are more, and I'll post again when I can think of them.

[Ukulele Ike]

THE THING AT THE FOOT OF THE BED by Maria Leach was a WONDERFUL book of scary folktales and urban legends! Good luck finding a copy...been OP for years. Another book well worth searching for by folklorist Leach is THE RAINBOW BOOK OF AMERICAN FOLKTALES AND LEGENDS.

My childhood faves are fairly common choices, PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH, WIND IN THE WILLOWS (also try Graham's THE GOLDEN AGE), anything by Roald Dahl.

Preschool...this is also out-of-print (the vagaries of (hildren's book publishing make it difficult to keep anything but best-sellers in print), but I taught myself to read at the age of three with I CAN'T, SAID THE ANT. Picture-book about a defeatist ant who is urged on to great things by an anthropomorphic kitchen. ("It doesn't matter," said the platter..."Be of good cheer," said the root beer.)

THE OXFORD BOOK OF AMERICAN CHILDREN'S POETRY should be owned by every household.

Have you ever heard of the Moomin books by Tove Jansson? Great Finnish fantasy.

------------------
Uke

[Earl Snake-Hips Tucker]

I had three books that I really liked (not including the standard "Dr Seuss" fare):

"Bring 'em Back Alive" by Frank Buck
He was a real-life Indiana Jones type who went around capturing critters for zoos. (I think he embellished a lot.)

"All About Strange Beasts of the Past" by Roy Chapman Andrews
Part of this book is about fossils and extinct critters, and Andrews' adventures in the Gobi Desert. Years later, I found out why (according to Steven Jay Gould, IIRC) that he was in the Gobi looking for evidence of "early man," since the scientific types had a hard time accepting an African origin.

"The Sinking of the Bismarck" by William L. Shirer.
This was the surreal story of the WW II fates of the Hood and the Bismarck, and the mind-boggling loss of life. (Hood, 1400 men, 3 (THREE!) survivors. Bismarck, 3000 men, a little over 100 survivors.)

[sunbear]

Shirley U: about Baby X and Carsten. Just don't name baby X Bentley or any of those current fads. Does Carsten have a nck name? My rule for kid names is no more than two syllables.Otherwise they get a nick name anyway.

[PunditLisa]

Sue, you'd recommend the Earth's Children series to ages 10-14? I can't get some of my adult friends to muddle through the long, meticulous passages on things such as flint knapping! And, yes, I do believe the sexual content is too mature for that age group. I highly recommend them for adults, however.

[Atrael]

Great thread...unfortunatly, most of my favorites have already been mentioned. :(

I'm a huge fan of the Tom Swift Series.These are the books that first grabbed me and made me interested in reading. I'm working on collecting the entire series, and those will be passed down to my children. As a side note, the series has actully been written by three generations. Victor Applenton the I, II, and III. I have some if the First edition by the original author dated around 1921.
The Black Stallion Series
The Hardy Boys
The 3 Investigators
Little House series
Robinson Cruso(sp?)
Swiss Family Robinson
Lad of SunnyBrooke
Call of the Wild
At the upper end of that reading scale is possibly the Xanth series by Piers Anthony
Tom Sawyer
Huckberry Finn
Mary Poppins
Dr. Sues
That's all I can think of now....Think I'll call my Mom and ask her what I read.....

------------------
"Love thine enemies...it really pisses them off."
-Anon

[jazzmine]

Where the Red Fern Grows
Old Yeller

[Derf]

Wow, it feels like I'm visiting old friends. . .

Don't think I saw The Rescuers or any others in that series. . .

Anything by Madeline L'Engle rocked, the whole Wrinkle in Time series. . .

All of the Pern books by Anne McCaffrey, but of course Dragonsinger got me hooked. . .

Sterling North wrote several books that I loved as a kid, there was also a book (I forget who wrote it, My Side of the Mountain

When I was really young, I loved Richard Scary books. . .

But my all time faves: The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings Wow. This is a great thread. . .


------------------
"To be great is to be misunderstood" -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

[Chef Troy]

Wow, I haven't thought of "The Three Investigators" in years! "Red Gate Rover, come over, come over..." I loved that series as a kid because I was a plump, bookish, too-smart-to-be-popular kid, and I would have given ANYTHING to be Jupiter Jones.

I can't believe only one other person in this whole thread has mentioned "The Phantom Tollbooth." I went out and bought a copy when I was in college and I've read it to my son.

"Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," of course. (How many of you have read the sequel, "Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator"?) Roald Dahl was the greatest.

I also read my copies of the Chronicles of Narnia, the Oz books, and the Lord of the Rings to tatters.

------------------
Live a Lush Life
Da Chef

[Ukulele Ike]

This thread is just getting better and better.

Thanks for mentioning the danny Dunn series...God, I haven't thought about those in YEARS. DANNY DUNN AND THE ELECTRIC HOUSE, man, I'd love to read that again from a 1999 perspective!

Daniel Pinkwater. EVERYONE HERE who has not yet read Daniel Pinkwater should go out now and read Daniel Pinkwater. Daniel Pinkwater is not just for kids. His YOUNG ADULT NOVEL, just read it to my daughter...we were both on the floor laughing.

(Gives you an excuse to explain the Dada art movement, too. There is NO nine-year-old in the world who is not charmed and delighted by the concept of Dada.)

------------------
Uke

[Shirley Ujest]

Sunbear I was going to email you so as not to throw the rthym off on this great thread, but you don't have an email listed in your profile.

Carsten does not have a nickname. We picked it so it could not really be broken down to something like Robert to Bob syndrome.

All indications point to Baby X being a Girl and naming her Bentley would really be an eyebrown raiser. We haven't decided on a name yet. That will be a thread in the future when/if we get desperate for suggestions. :)

Anyways, back to the subject on hand. BOOOKS!

[torq]

Couple more:

When I was very young I liked the "Big Little Books" ... about 4 inches square and an inch thick; IIRC they had illustrations on every other (or maybe every fourth) page, and there were dozens if not hundreds of them on all kinds of topics. Mostly they were sort of longish stories about popular cartoon characters (for instance, I remember one where Tom and Jerry were detectives, and there were lots where Mickey Mouse went on some adventure or another).

Another set, again for the very upper limit of that age range: Heinlein's "juveniles". Rocket Ship Galileo, Between Planets, Tunnel in the Sky, "Red Planet" (I'm not positive about that last title, but it's something close to that). Red Planet is interesting to read or remember after reading "Stranger in a Strange Land" ... though I would NOT recommend the latter book to kids under 13.

Star Bridge, by Williamson and Gunn.

I'd be a little wary of the McCafferey books too. Some of them are fine but some have a bit more sexual content than some parents would be comfortable with for preteens.

My grandparents had a book I liked called something like "Hurlburt's Stories of the Bible"... more narrative and less "so and so begat so and so, who moved to this place and changed his name to that before begetting this other guy." It was kind of like Cliffs Notes for the Bible. If you're very nonreligious (or religious, but not Christian) you might want to skip this one.

[KSO]

A few more:

The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth Speare

The Twenty-One Balloons--I can't remember the author but it's about a retired professor who sets off for a year in his balloon and then crashes on Krakatoa right before it blows up--great story

The Little Witch??? The Little Broomstick??? Can't remember the author but it's about a little girl in England who goes to witch school (they're good witches)

The Wolves of Willoughby Chase

The Katie John books

The Cherry Ames series--does anyone else remember this? I know, I know, it sounds like a porno movie but it's actually about a girl who goes to nursing school right before or during WWII and all her adventures--it's basically Nancy Drew as a nurse.

And finally, I hope someone can help--I remember reading these great books about a girl in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin--she's in high school and then goes off to college--they must have been written in the 50s and that's all I can remember (this was more the 11-14 age group).

[Ukulele Ike]

THE 21 BALLOONS...William Pene DuBois. Wonderful book. So's his PETER GRAVES.

How about THE VOYAGES OF DOCTOR DOOLITTLE? Hugh Lofting. The only one in that series I could stand, but it's a good 'un!

------------------
Uke

[Fretful Porpentine]

I remember at least one other E. L. Konigsburg book- the title was a string of girl's names and it was about becoming a witch.

And a couple of boy's names. It's called Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth.

------------------
"The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us."
- Bill Watterson

[phouka]

I can't believe how many of the same books we share. :D

In order of appearance:

The Little Big Books
Nancy Drew
Encyclopedia Brown
Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing
Superfudge
Anastasia
Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander
Westmark
The Little Princess
A Wrinkle in Time
A Wind Through the Door
A Swiftly Tilted Planet
A Light in the Attic
The Sidewalk's End
Peter Pan

And tons, tons more.

In sixth grade, I discovered comicbooks. I read X-Men, Spider-Man, and Fantastic Four religiously.

Now here's my "name that book". In sixth grade, I came across a book that I loved, but I can't remember the title of the book or the author. It was compared to Lord of the Flies. The story centered around a young girl and her little brother. A plague had swept through, killing all the adults, and the kids were on their own. No one over the age of twelve had survived. The girl eventually rallied all the children of her neighborhood. They created a fortress at the local school, and she became their leader. Does this ring any bells?

My other favorite from that time, The Missing Persons League, is out of print. Don't suppose I'll get a chance to re-read it.

A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, and A Swiftly Tilting Planet and others by Madeline L'Engle, especially A Ring of Endless Light.

The Great Brain Series

Sprockets the Runaway Robot (OP) A. Key

The Shades (Betty Brock? not sure, but that name comes to mind)

Curous George was always a fave.

Beverly Cleary's books.

Note to Yankee Blue.. I grew up with the My Book HOuse series, too. I believe the 12 volume set accompanied the purchase of a set of Encyclopedia Americana or some such. The set we had when I was a Kid was from 1965, and I hadn't seen them in years. Recently I found a FULL set (publ. 1971)at a yard sale for $3. They are all in perfect condition, save for a scribble or two in the nursery rhyme one. I just had my first child, so I was ecstatic!
CanadianSue: Interestingly, Little Black Sambo was in the 1965 set of these books. In the 1971 version, though, the story is renamed Rama and the Tigers (An Inidan Tale.

[Athena]

Funny what are considered kid's books and what aren't. Numerous people have mentioned the Tolkein books... man, I couldn't get through those as a kid, I can't even get through them now. I must have some allergy to Tolkein because I like virtually everything else in that genre, but for the life of me I can't read one of his books.

OTOH, I think I read Jane Auel's Clan of the Cave Bear when I was 13 or 14. I still think this is an excellent book, even if the other ones in the series turned into some sort of prehistoric soap opera.

The little witch... I think that's the name of it. I read that one, too!

[Yankee Blue]

Yay, Smeggy. You're the first person in forever who not only heard of Book House but loved it as much as I did. Our set was a hand-me-down c. 1948 or so and was several fat volumes. I've seen much thinner single volumes since in used book stores, I think they split the original volumes up.

I can't believe I forgot the Misty of Chincoteague books - <smacks self in forehead> we went to the bloody island every summer when I was growing up.

Reading the lists here I was reminded of one called What the Witch Left about a couple of little girls discovering some magical items. Ring any bells out there?

Does any one remember The Littles series. Much like the Borrowers, they were little people who lived inside the walls of a house, but they had furry tails.

Terrific thread.

In roughly chronological order, as we got older:

Winnie the Pooh
Beatrix Potter (Tale of Tom Kitten, Mrs Tiggywinkle etc)
Rudard Kipling (but only the animal stories - The Jungle Books, Just So Stories)
Sherlock Holmes, especially the scary ones, like the snake that used to crawl down the bell-pull in the night
Babar the Elephant
Rider Haggard (there are a lot, most of which I think are even better than King Solomon's Mines)
The standard fairy stories - Grimms, Han Christian Andersen
The Hobbit, but not the Lord of the Rings until we were in our teens
Alan Garner (perhaps he hasn't travelled - but really worth reading - The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, The Owl Service and there must be others too)
and anything by Agatha Christie
I cd never ever read school stories or war stories, though, not even Biggles - I cdn't ever get into them
I almost forgot Alice

Your lists are wonderful - there are lots of books I've never heard of, which I'll order a few at a time from the library.

i have a mystery book as well - apparently, before I cd read for myself, my favourite book of all time was sth about Squidgy the Lazy Watervole, who was eventually nearly drowned by the great flood - my grandmother used to tell me about it because she had to read it over and again until she was totally sick of it - never been able to trace it since

[Guy Propski]

Stone Soup--I still remember when Captain Kangaroo read that (and when I met him, I told him just that)
101 Dalmatians--it's 101,101,100 times better than either one of the Disney movies.
Mike and his Steam Shovel--not sure if that's the title, but I saw it recently in a "Signals" catalog.
I'm impressed at how many people read Encyclopedia Brown. I devoured those books as a kid. It was the first book I read with a smart kid as the hero.

[Rincewind]

Phouka: The book you are trying to remember was called "Girl Who Owned a City"

Geez, you could have called and asked me. You didn't have to post.

[ruadh]

Was my family the only one in the world that read My Father's Dragon? An absolutely wonderful book that no one, and I mean no one, I have mentioned it to has ever heard of.

Sue, you'd recommend the Earth's Children series to ages 10-14? I can't get some of my adult friends to muddle through the long, meticulous passages on things such as flint knapping! And, yes, I do believe the sexual content is too mature for that age group. I highly recommend them for adults, however.
- PunditLisa


Clearly these are not right for all pre-teens. But the sexual content in the book can also serve as a starting point for discussions about sex, and choosing partners, and respect, and all the things that the 5th grade "health" class doesn't have time for, what with all the discussion of the relative merits of lambskin and latex condoms, and spermicides with Nonoxyl-9 ::sigh::
As for the long descriptive passages, my kids were pretty adept at skimming past the descriptions of sedgegrass.


------------------
Sue from El Paso
members.aol.com/majormd/index.html (http://members.aol.com/majormd/index.html)

[Persephone]

Whitetho, I could kiss you! Thank you for finding my Easter Bunny book for me!

Chef Troy, I've read "Charlie & the Great Glass Elevator," and loooooved it!

Phouka, I remember that story you spoke of. I think someone else had the title, "The Girl Who Owned a City."

My goodness, this thread is jerking me back to childhood so fast I'm getting whiplash! It's great!

[SterlingNorth]

derf, thanks for reminding me about My Side of the Mountain.
I don't know how that got left off my list.
Jean Craighead George wrote it, as well as On the Far Side of the Mountain

Also in the same vein
Julie of the Woods, same author
Hatchet, Gary Paulsen
The River, " "

Now some books more obscure
The Boy who Lost his Face, Louis Sachar
Seven-Day Magic, Edward Eager

Before there was Harry Potter, ther was Nita of
So You Want to be a Wizard and its two sequels, all by Diane Duane
The Black Cauldron Lloyd Alexander's, not Disney's
The Fudge series, by Judy Blume I think
Sugar Bee, Rita Micklish
and finally the most influencial literary work in my life:
Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson

[SterlingNorth]

Oh, Shirley, the link you gave (the OP) didn't work on my end. The dot should be a slash, I think.

Try: http://www.scholastic.com/parents/younger.htm
http://www.scholastic.com/parents/older.htm

Oh yeah,
The People Could Fly, Virginia Hamilton
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, and others by Mildred Taylor
Half Magic, Edward Eager
I could remember my dad saying, "Please, don't order so many books!!!"

When the orders came every month, I'd have these huge piles of literature on my desk.

[krish]

AuntiePam:
The Boxcar Children! Thanks, ChrisCTP and Krish -- I'd forgotten about that wonderful book. Was there more than one?

Yes, there was. In fact, there were several Boxcar Children books.

Thanks, Fretful Porpentine. I completely forgot about the All-of-a-Kind Family series.
I remember the Encyclopedia Brown series, as well.

Here are some series that I just remembered from when I was really young--

Amelia Bedilia
Curious George

[TubaDiva]

This is a wonderful thread! Made me a little misty eyed. In these days of video everything and the five-second atttention span, this is very refreshing.

And it kicked off a memory . . . of the very first stories I ever read for myself . . . after I had them read to me.

My mother loved the Raggedy Ann and Andy stories . . . and the first books I ever owned for myself.

I still smile when I see the books in the store.

your humble TubaDiva
Don't forget, she has "I love you" written on her heart.

[Narile]

Lord of the Rings
The Hobbit
I've gone through about four editions of these since I first read them at 5, reading them to shreds. :)

Danny, Champion of the World is Dahl's best and one of my favorites.

Any Suess is great.

Used to read a lot of the Three Detectives series as a kid.

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&gt;&gt;Being Chaotic Evil means never having to say your sorry....unless the other guy is bigger than you.&lt;&lt;

---The dragon observes

This thread's already listed alot of childhood favorites; The Oz books, The Hobbit, Danny Dunn, the Heinlein juveniles, The Twenty One BalloonsEncyclopedia Brown, The Phantom Tollbooth, A Wrinkle in Time, Jules Verne. One that hasn't been mentioned in The Magic Chalk. It was about a boy who had a piece of magic chalk with the power that anything he drew became real. I had a copy when I was a young lad and about ten years ago I saw a copy at a garage sale and bought it for a friend who had young children. Unfortunately, I don't remember the author's name but I believe he was Scandinavian (the book was a translation).

I'll add a few esoteric one's:

Christmas books:
The Year Without a Santa Claus by Phyllis McGinley
The Littlest Angel

Every-day books:
Anatole
The Red Balloon

and not so esoteric, but good for boys who might find reading a chore:
Matt Christopher has about 20-30 sports-themed books out, appropriate for 3rd-6th grades, I'd guess.


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Sue from El Paso
members.aol.com/majormd/index.html (http://members.aol.com/majormd/index.html)

[Sam Stone]

Did anyone read "The Mad Scientist's Club"? That was one of my favorites.

I loved Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.

I was also addicted to all of Heinlein's Juvenile books, like "Starman Jones", "Between Planets", "Citizen of the Galaxy", "Time for the Stars", etc.

[PatrickM]

A Shel Silverstein book called "Lafcado, the Lion Who Shot Back." I'm butchering spelling the names, but it was a hilarious book about a lion who ate the hunters, learned to shoot their rifle, went on to great acclaim in the human world as a trick shot artist and who then went back to the jungle, dressed as a hunter, and couldn't figure out why his old lion pals didn't recognize him and weren't happy to see him.

[Sealemon88]

And to think I thought I was the only one to have read A Wrinkle In Time.

The sequel to A Wrinkle In Time was pretty cool to.

A few others:

Encyclopedia Brown
The Hobbit
I, Robot by Issac Asimov
Various Mad Magazine mags and paperbacks
Star Trek novels
Farenhieght 451 (sp)
The Martian Chronicles
Various other Bradbury short stories
A shit load of DC comic books like Batman, Superman, and The Justice League of America

A bunch of "Ask me why" books, especially the ones with the Peanuts characters. and 20 years later, here I am, still visiting places that answer questions ;)

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You say "cheesy" like that's a BAD thing.

[Snark]

ANYTHING for young adults by Enid Blyton. I think I must have read "The Circus of Adventure" 50 times. Love her!

[Rilchiam]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Okay, I'll stop shrieking long enough to post a reply. I have hardly anything to add; I can second almost everything that's been named here. Just let me clarify, though; Anastasia Krupnik by Lois Lowry and Half Magic by Edward Eager were each the first in their series. What the Witch Left was one of many, although not a series, by Ruth Chew. The story about the witch and the bumblebee was The Witch Family by Eleanor Estes. All her stuff is good, and I also recommend Elizabeth Enright (the Melendy family and Gone-Away). Also, Richard Peck, Susan Beth Pfeffer, Norma Klein, Lois Duncan, Maurice Sendak, Ellen Raskin and Anne Alexander.
Once I was in a Borders and a kid was asking if they had any books about people being shrunk. I was a customer, but I overheard and recommended Danny Dunn and the Smallifying Machine. Would you believe it wasn't in print?! I hope he found a library copy. Once I was waitressing and the soup of the day was chicken with rice. I served it as Maurice Sendak soup. Some people knew what I meant; some didn't.

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Remember, I'm pulling for you; we're all in this together.
---Red Green

[thirdwarning]

Wow, a lot of my favorites here, though I read a lot of them when I was older than 13, some of them very recently.
Ben and Me, Mr. Popper's Penguins, and the Black Stallion series were great, also the Miss Pickerell books. I recommend them to all the kids in the school library where I volunteer. IMO, the best of the Seuss books are the Horton ones.
Probably my favorite from those years is The Plain Princess, by I don't know who.
My daughters, who are both in that age range, love The Bridge to Terabithia, and Tuck Everlasting.
Now, I have two "mystery books". One of them is about a young girl who lives with a witch who she thinks is her mother. At some point she finds out that her real mother is imprisoned in one of the witch's bottles of potions, or something like that, and at the end of the book, the witch turns into an anteater. Oh, and the little girl's name is Minx.
The other is set in England, and is about three(I think) friends or siblings on holiday in the country, staying with someone they are not totally familiar with. Distant relative, or something. They discover a cloak that makes people invisible, a magic ring, and some sort of maze or magic temple. I know that isn't much to go on, but those are the visual images I remember.

Oh, and Zenna Henderson's books about "The People" are wonderful. No Different Flesh, and another one. I wanted to find those people and be one of them.

[Ukulele Ike]

Well, as long as someone's mentioning Natalie (TUCK EVERLASTING) Babbitt, lemme throw in a plug for THE DEVIL'S STORYBOOK and THE DEVIL'S OTHER STORYBOOK.

Excellent, witty, and thoughtful Devil stories.

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Uke

[egkelly]

Anybody remember the "LITTLE GOLDEN BOOKS"? I'm trying to locate a copy of a volume called "PERRI and PORRO"
Anybody out there know where I can find? -AMAZON doesn't have it.

[Eissclam]

You all have mentioned so many. As I *skimmed* through, I didn't see:

A Fish Out of Water (little kid's book)

The "Tom Swift" series

All the Bill Peet books (more stuff for little kids)

"Freddie the Pig" series (Walter R. Brooks)

As for Natalie Babbitt: I wrote to her once to tell her how much I loved "The Search for Delicious" and "Kneeknock Rise" and she answered me -- personally! She asked me to send her a copy of my first book. What class. I had framed a quotation from "Delicious" :

"Facts are the barren branches on which we hang the dear obscuring foliage of our dreams."

Words to live by.

Eissclam.

[Rick Kitchen]

Hardy Boys. I'm currently re-collecting all of them, and they cost a lot more than they used to. :-)

The Black Stallion.

The Madelyn l'Engle books.

[Shirley Ujest]

I talked to a friend of mine and asked him what his favorite book of childhood was and he didn't hesitate ( and I've never heard of it)

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Jester.

[SterlingNorth]

Surely you jest!!

Are you telling me (us) that you've never heard of The Phantom Tollbooth??

For Shame, Shirley!! Get to reading!
(I know at least Mike King has heard of it.)

Anybody remember the "LITTLE GOLDEN BOOKS"? I'm trying to locate a copy of a volume called "PERRI and PORRO"
Anybody out there know where I can find? -AMAZON doesn't have it.


The following commercial sites are provided as an informational service. I have no financial ties to these sites (except I buy a fair amount of books through them.) If this is a violation of the board policy, please delete this post, and let me know...
http://www.abebooks.com/ http://www.addall.com/ http://www.bookfinder.com/


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Sue from El Paso
members.aol.com/majormd/index.html (http://members.aol.com/majormd/index.html)

[dougie_monty]

The Beverly Cleary books: Ellen Tebbitts, Otis Spofford, and the Henry Huggins series through Henry and the Clubhouse. (I turned 14 the year that one was published.)
Mr. Popper's Penguins (author's name was Atwater)
Big Tree (about Wawona the redwood tree)
Pepper (about a raccoon)
The Shy Stegosaurus of Cripple Creek
Sorry, I don't know the names of these three books' authors.)
Building Blocks of the Universe by Isaac Asimov

[eden]

Oh my gosh, I thought I was the only person in the world who'd read the Finn Family Moomintroll books! They're wonderful.

So many of my faves are here already, but I notice no one is mentioning...

Goodnight Moon
(I used to laugh hysterically, my mom told me, at the "Goodnight nobody" page.)

The Peter Churchmouse books
("I could listen and listen and listen!")

Albert Payson Terhune books, notably Lochinvar Luck, which made me a huge Collie fan.

[eden]

And KSO: I think I remember Little Witch...was her name Little Minx, or something like that? Did bad children get turned into flowerpots? Whatever it was, I loved it too.

[Shirley Ujest]

I was at Borders today and saw copy of Phantom Tollbooth and I have seen it, but I don't remember reading it. I have added that to my book wish list..excuse me...my children's book wist list :D

I have a couple of books I want to add that are recent publications. Anyone with kids in their life might want to check into them.

Say Please. (By Virginia Austin, Candlewick Press, 1994, ISBN:156402833) Great for preschoolers with soft pictures. Teaching a little boy to Say Please through the animal's in his life. " The dog said, Throw my ball, woof woof. Please.." ($4.99)

Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star (By Iza Trapani, Whispering Coyote Press, 1994. ISBN:1580890156) A wonderfully new variation on the familiar poem with lovely illustrations. Very lyrical. Parents will enjoy it as much as the kids. ($6.95)

[Shirley Ujest]

I was booted off. Where was I?

Imogene's Antlers (By David Small, Dragonfly books/Crown Publishing. ISBN:0517562421) Young Imogene wakes up one morning to discover she has grown antlers on her head. She takes the entire ordeal in stride, but her family is in an uproar. A good book to teach about the differences we all have. It is a Reading Rainbow Featured book. ($6.99)

This one I purchased through Scholastic Book Fair and it has a disclaimer on the back of "This edition is only available for distribution through the school market." So, there may or may not be another version of it out there. It is a keeper in my bookshelf.

Edward and the Pirates (by David McPhail, 1997, Trumpet Book Club/Scholastic.
ISBN:0590639056. A young boy that is addicted to reading finds an old pirate book that has the secret to hidden treasure and the crusty mean old Pirates want it back! Edward won't give it to them because it is checked out on his library card. What will happen to Edward? (I don't have a price, but worth every penny.)