Revisiting the books of your yoot on your own for the first time.

The other day I started reading Hans Brinker for the first time in my life. As a toddler it was read to me (and many of my older siblings) en masse by my mother. For some reason I never remember seeing the book around our house once I learned to read. I suspect one of my eight older siblings took it with them when s/he left the roost.

Anyway I am just loving it, and a lot of things are coming back to me while I read, but I have zero recollection of some of it.

Any of you ever read something you remember fondly from your childhood after many (many!) decades? How'd it work out for you?

My mom read me What Katy Did when I was little and broke my arm. I remember being delighted with it as the main character shared my name and wasn't the perfect child. That was when I started wanting to be called Katy! I re-read it a few years ago and found it sweet but a bit preachier than I had remembered. Typical, Victorian young adult book, still a childhood favourite though, like Little Women.

You have inspired me to get a copy of Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang. OMG, I had no idea Ian Fleming wrote that! That is the one story I have vivid memories of mom reading to us. I wonder if I would find it as hysterical now as I did then? The other book which I loved when little was a version of Mother Goose, illustrated by Marguerite De Angeli. I loved the pictures and the rhythm of the words. I finally found it in a used book store a couple of years ago and loved pouring over it. My brother got the original, just because my grandma had written in the front, "To my darling Jim, on his first birthday." Sheesh. :)

#3 - I ran a weird D&D Role Playing Game once that I discussed here a long time ago, set in a post-apocalyptic alternate dimension with a Stand-type battle of ultimate good vs. evil.

I added a lot of oddball cameo's in the campaign, but none odder than James Bond flying in on Chitty Chitty Bang Bang! (That even trumps Amelia Earhart flying Pernese Dragons for weirdness, another favorite cameo).

Hans Christian Andersen stories....Mum read to me from a gorgeously illustrated book with about 20 stories, and I have since bought a huge tome, with all of his stories. They haven't lost their magic. I didn't have an edition of Brothers Grimm, it was Andersen and Oscar Wilde. I also love reading his work from time to time, and find his stories like 'The Happy Prince', The Canterville Ghost and 'The Selfish Giant' just as wonderful, and magical, now as they were back then.

Several years ago I reread The Hobbit...Mum read that to me when I was very small, and I remember certain bits scared the pants off me (Gollum riddling in the caves for instance), so it was strange to read it as an adult and have no fear!

I might try reading The Water Babies as well, because that was one, believe it or not, that I couldn't handle as a kid. It terrified me! Hehe. Same as The Wind in the Willows - who knows why they were so scary, but they really were.

eta - fixing words

#3 - Yes, I always wondered about that name Truly Scrumptious! She must be P____ Galore's cousin! ;o)

I read the Ramona and Henry Huggins books to my kids long years ago. I enjoyed reading them again as an adult. And A Wrinkle in Time, too. I was recently wanting to find a copy of Hans Brinker or The Silver Skates to reread, too. Maybe for Christmas.
--BJ

OH, I remember Hans Brinker! So good..

I have always loved Little Women, and read it many times. It lives in my daughters house now, with my collection of Alcott books. I purged out to my kids a couple of years ago.. mostly my classics collection.

#8 - I read Little Women, Eight Cousins and Under the Lilacs as an 11 or 12 year old and just adored them. I should probably revisit them too at some point.

I'm glad to know so many of you know Hans Brinker, too. I thought it might be regional or something.

I recently re-read some of the Jenny Nimmo and Alan Garner books of my childhood - it was lovely to look at the mythologies that seemed so instinctive as a child with the cynical but more widely read eyes of an adult.

I keep meaning to reread water babies too - I remember it as somewhere between pretty and frightening.
I am a bit wary of rereading the Oscar Wilde short stories particularly the Nightingale and the Rose and the Happy Prince both of which made me cry for weeks.

I loved Hans Brinker My daughter thought I'd lost my mind (she should be used to it by now) at how excited I got when I found an edition at the used bookstore last year. I haven't gotten around to re-reading it yet, but I will.

And I did re-read Water Babies a few years ago. I remember being fascinated by that when I was a child, poor abused Tom being able to "live" under the water, that really captured my imagination. Reading that as an adult I was so much more aware of the abuses than of the fantasy.

I still have all my Alcott books, I love revisiting them every once in awhile. I think Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom are my favourites of hers. Little Women was the last book I read to my daughters before they decided they were too old to be read to anymore :-(

I hadn't thought of reading Henry Huggins again, I always loved him, and Ribsy. Good memories :-)

I love the list created here. I think if I were to go back and reread children's stories I would start with Hans Christian Andersen because I want to get back to roots of his story-telling. His stories have been made more politically correct and commercialized in their re-telling. I want to read the original voice of the man not allowed to reach for his dreams and wrote them out over andover again. The son of a cobbler that wanted to dance. Many of his stories are about feet/legs, or shoes, or being worthy enough to belong.

When a pre-teen I loved Space Cadet. My first adulthood reread was some years ago, and I found it HORRIBLE. Prejudiced, glorifying the image of the strong male and mainly painting women as weak of mind and generally harebrained.
But I still reread it, at times. It's a lot like the Bond film "You only live twice" (among others, but I think that's one of the worst) - significant of their respective time, and have to be viewed/read against the knowledge of a cultural and sociopolitic backdrop ;-)

A couple of months ago I fingered a used copy of The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, which I liked very much as a kid, but reading the first page I decided it was too dated. At least for the price asked (110 SEK/US$16.6) so I put it back on the shelf.

Another book I loved as a kid and still loved as an adult was The Borrowers by Mary Norton. I've just always loved the idea of "little people".

The Water Babies disturbed me so much as an adult I had to put it down. Now I can't remember why, but I think it was the condescending tone. I just finished another book by Kingsley, The Heroes, and even that was difficult for me. I understand that it was written in a different time, but it still annoys. Also, I don't know whether I just read too many, or what, but books like Heidi, Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates and Pollyanna began to annoy me as well. The children were just so hopelessly good. I enjoyed them individually, but the collective goodness got to me.

Oh yes! The Borrowers! I found my copy in a forgotten box in the cellar recently. I tried to read it for my son, but he thought it strange.
I liked it, though. And was amazed at how much I remembered :-)

Busifer has really gotten me thinking. I never read The Weirdstone of Brisingamen. It looks wonderful and reminds me of the first book I was read and that was The Enchanted Wood by Enid Blyton. It was read to me in first or second grade. The first preteen-adult book I can remember was Flowers in the Attic by V. C. Andrews. From there I would say it was mostly sci-fi and fantasy.

#16 - Yes, I think the general culture and atmosphere in Alan Garner's books has a lot in common with those of Enid Blyton.
This is also one reason I felt The dark is rising books less than good.

Hubby & I reread The Wind in the Willows to each other a few years back and still loved it. I tried to read Narnia books a while ago and I just couldn't stand it. Loved them as a kid, now, blech.

I also enjoyed A Wrinkle in Time, The Phantom Tollbooth & the Edward Eager magic books when I reread them as an adult.

I want to reread Harriet the Spy some day.

I still love the Moomin books (books, not the comic strip). Some of them I didn't start to appreciate until I was grown up - too dark, too melancholic, too overtly discussing issues I had no grasp of as s small child.
My son thinks them scary.

He likes Emil, though, by Astrid Lindgren. I think them OK. The funny thing is a lot of the words and things in those books were no strangers to me as a child but to my son, being of the 21st century, life 100 years ago could just as well be stories form another planet. What is a scythe, really? What do you do with it?
Two days ago I tried to tell him not only was the T Rex a carnivore - we are carnivores too! Chicken? You know we eat chicken? It's a bird? *loud laugh* Crazy mum! It don't have legs or wings or a beak! *sigh* No, those are taken away before we cook it...
But to no avail. He still don't believe we are eating other animals.

He stopped eating fish after we saw Finding Nemo, though. So that one he understands...

#19 - I often wonder how many of us would still be eating animal if it actually looked like dead animal when it was served. :o/ I know I'd probably still eat some seafood, but certainly I would be less inclined to eat many other 'beasties.'

;-)
I would. As long as the animals are treated well. Something which sadly is not often the case.

Some animals, though... Close to where we used to live there was a deli specializing in the wild and "exotic". They have skinned whole rabbits, with fur still on paws, sometimes, hanging from racks. Like the city dweller I am I divert my eyes in passing. I don't eat friends. And I like rabbits.
(I like sheep too, but we keep them for wool and for meat, which for some reason makes eating them more agreeable.)

#20 I often wonder how many of us would still be eating animal if it actually looked like dead animal when it was served

me

Many restaurants have here have a little zoo in front of the door so you can choose the chicken/ snake/ bamboo rat you want to have for lunch or dinner. They will kill it right in front of your eyes. So you can be sure that the meat is fresh.

Fully skinned rabbits are frightening. Have you seen those teeth! I still eat them though. I think more people should see flesh as animals before they eat. I was always amazed at the butchers shops where they have half a cow hanging up in the back.

I too was a water babies but I haven't seen a copy for years. and many of the others mentioned, Alan Garner, The borrowers etc. I'd love to track down some the Last Legionary books by Douglas Hill and see how they compare to my very impressed memories of them. I suspect they'd be trite now, but they had me enthralled.

#20 - keeping the topic a little aside still, when we lived in Nova Scotia and it was lobster season, I would buy live lobster, come home, take my lovely, big, moving lobster, look him/her in the eyes and say "It's your own fault for tasting so damn good!" and then stick him/her in the boiling water head first, hoping desperately that he/she would die very quickly. And in deepest respect for that lobster I would relish every morsel of meat I could dig out of its shell. With butter.

Sometimes I miss Nova Scotia.

#23 - I too think it would do good if people saw the animals in their state of conversion between live animal and food on the plate.

#24 - Yes. I could never feel with the crabs and the crayfish we regularly watched going from grey/black/green to bright red while cooked.
I especially remember cleaning the crabs with a brush before committing them to the boiling water.

You think it's partly 'cause crabs, crayfish, lobsters et al aren't quite as cute as sheep, lambs and bunnies Busifer? ;-)

I like rabbit too, and lamb. I just try not to think about where it comes from. As you say, a lot of it can be attributed to our urban upbringing. My farm raised nephews and niece are pretty blasé about such things.

country boy here, have butchered plenty of my own animals to serve at the dinner table.

I grew up in a hunting family, but I never hunted. The (thankfully) rare times I hit an animal with my car, I always want to turn back and apologize to its spirit. I also apologize to mice, etc., that I trap in the house - if they would just stay outside where they belong, none of this unpleasantness would be necessary.

I am not against hunting, as long as it is done for food or in self-defense rather than just sport. If you kill it, either it should be because it was going to get you right then and there (bear, cougar, coyote, etc.), or you should be eating it.

But I have no trouble helping to clean an animal once it's been killed, so that we can eat it. I truly enjoy fresh wild game, and sometimes wish for it. But I can't kill it myself. Not sure what I would do if I had to butcher my own (domesticated) meat.

On topic: I loved The Pokey Little Puppy and The Musicians of Bremen as a child. I had them in card-back with a 45 rpm record that you could listen as you read. Unfortunately, I broke one of them (can't remember which) during show-and-tell in kindergarten. The story was never the same since.

I can clean fish, but I've never dressed a freshly killed mammal. Don't know if I could unless I was starving. I probably wouldn't have much of a problem if my kids were starving, though.

I have a wee bit of guilt about killing the mice in my house, but not enough to stop me. ;o)

Clam -- this morning I misread a menu item in a coffee-shop near here as "Savoury MICE on toast". This might just work if you're not poisoning them :D

#30 - Sounds like something Sylvester would order. ;o)

How did you all get into food when the original question was about books? This seems to be a high priority at the GD. Maybe we should talk about cookbooks.

I've noticed that most of conversations here and in real life revolve to food. HHMMM Cookie anyone?

#30 - You sure the coffeshop wasn't run by Cut Me Own Throat Dibbler, of Ankh-Morpork fame?
;-)