5 Books you read as a kid that you would like all kids to read

Hi,

This is a bit of a pub question.

Name 5 books that you read as a child (8-16) that you would want your grandchildren to read. Don't think, don't get all worthy, the first five that come to mind.

I'll let this run then tell you mine, and the straw poll from the pub.

I Live in the Uk, so my results may be thatway biased. It will be very interesting from other countries.

The lantern bearers by Rosemary Sutcliff. I'll have to think about the others, not sure if I read some of my favorites before or after I was 16.

The Westing Game, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, Charlotte's Web, A Wrinkle in Time, Little House on the Prairie
I'll probably think of others that would be top 5, but I went with the first 5 that came to mind.

As I hit submit I thought of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler - loved that book.

ETA from the USA

My choices, off the top of my head, would be Little Women, Anne of Green Gables, Johnny Tremaine, Little House On the Prairie series, and The Wizard of Oz.

I am from Canada.

From Anna
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
The Dark is Rising
Anne of Green Gables
Grimms' German Folk Tales

I could easily have added a dozen more.

ETA: Canada

Phantom Tollbooth and The Hobbit are the only two that jump out at me for now.

ETA: USA

The Phantom Tollbooth is on my list as it happens.

Could I ask posters to give their country please.

Cheers

IanW39

Sixteen is pretty old. I had read Gatsby, A Tale of Two Cities, and Heart of Darkness in school by then. Maybe 6-11? In addition to some of the previous entries, I'd add Lloyd Alexander's Prydain books, beginning with The Book of Three, and UKL's A Wizard of Earthsea et seq. And while it wasn't around during my youth, my sons really got a kick out of Maniac Magee in late elementary school.

ETA: from the US

I'm in the US and am in my mid-50s (just a bit of extra demographics there)

Charlotte's Web by E.B. White
The Enormous Egg by Oliver Butterworth
The Shy Stegosaurus of Cricket Creek by Evelyn Sibley Lampman
The Silver Sword by Ian Serrallier
Yellow Eyes by Rutherford G. Montgomery

First five that came to mind, books I bought through the Scholastic Book Services with my own money when I was 8-11. The next one I thought of was A Wrinkle in Time.

They're all on my shelves, although not all are my original purchases.

5 is not enough! I went with the ones that would be known outside Denmark, but I could just as easily have mentioned 5 Danish books.
Archer's goon
Ronja Røverdatter
Noisy village
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
The hero and the crown

Denmark, mid 30's

ETA: all books translated to Danish

The Door in the Wall
Star Beast
An Old Fashioned Girl
Freckles
Ballet Shoes

I could definitely think of a lot of others as well, and on a different day, might pick a different five.

I was trying to think of some non-fiction books that I loved as a kid, but all the ones I can think of (Wonderful Life, Ascent of Man, etc.) are adult books that I read precociously. I know I read a lot of science books, but none of the ones aimed at kids really stuck with me.

US. I turn 60 tomorrow.

Escape to Warsaw by Ian Serrallier (aka Silver Sword - same book)
Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
Door in the Wall by Marguerite De Angeli
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Fantastic Mr. Fox and The Witches by Roald Dahl
All of the Little House books
Any of the Johnny Dixon mysteries by John Bellairs

USA

8-16 is a pretty wide spread. Given that:

A Little Princess by France Hodgson Burnett
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Hobbit b J.R.R. Tolkien
The Children of Green Knowe by L.M. Boston
My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George

I could just as easily have listed 5 horse stories, 5 dog stories, 5 fantasy stories, 5 orphan stories -- I read so much as a kid! Of the books listed above, I've read all but two.
I'm in my 50s and I live in the US.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Mrs. Piggle Wiggle
Farenheit 451
Lord of the Flies
Of Mice and Men

You had a wide age range there...

#16 - Oooh, Children of Green Knowe - I loved that book, and I can never remember the name of it. (Scurries of to wishlist it . . . )

Part of my problem is the (too?) wide age range. I pretty much read everything I could get my hands on, but most of the stuff I read in the earlier years (say, 8-12) that I can remember I wouldn't necessarily want to inflict on posterity (Bobsy Twins, Nancy Drew, Black Stallion series, National Velvet, Mrs. Piggle Wiggle (very '50's America), Jim Kjelgaard's animal stories, anything vaguely historical fiction I could find, etc.). From about thirteen I was readying mostly adult fiction, which wouldn't necessarily be appropriate for the younger end of the age spectrum. Rosemary Sutcliff's young adult books set in Roman Britain are the ones which had the most impact on me, and which I *have* passed on (to my niece - maybe if I had had children myself I would remember more early titles). But after this long... (61 next week and live in the US, at least physically.)

Interesting topic.

The Dark is Rising
Fahrenheit 451
Charlotte's Web
Dandelion Wine
The Wind in the Willows

Uh, yeah, I probably wouldn't have listed two Bradbury's upon reflection, but that was what came to mind, probably because I'm rereading Fahrenheit.

USA, just short of 30.

The Dark is Rising
A Wizard of Earthsea
The Lord Of the Rings
Enders Game
Desolation Road

Oz-tralia.

The Phantom Toll Booth
The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe
The Time Machine
The Effects of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-moon Marigolds
Farmer Boy

Books my sister, brother and I read and then read to our children.

USA
50

From US:
Little Women
Anne of Green Gables
Daddy Longlegs
Dear Enemy
Understood Betsy

All written well before my time, but you can't beat the classics. I've re-read them as an adult and enjoyed them in a different way but just as much.

Oh! Daddy LongLegs! How could I forget? Such a wonderful book that never ages.

And the Betsy books! 5 isn't enough.

MerryMary:
I loved the Betsy books by Maud Lovelace too but Understood Betsy is by Dorothy Canfield Fisher who began the Montessori program in the US. I don't believe that it has a sequel. It's about a cossetted little girl who is taken in by country relatives who teach her by example that she's far more capable than she ever imagined. It's a delight.

MerryMary: Have you read Dear Enemy? That's the sequel to Daddy Longlegs, which you might remember was written in epistolary form. This time the letters are written to Judy of the original book by her college roomate, Sallie McBride. She's a wonderful, vibrant character who is put in charge of Judy's old orphan asylum and proceeds to institute great improvements. It's hilarious and thought provoking and although some of the attitudes are dated (it was written in 1915), it's surprisingly advanced on the subject of women and the workplace. A charming read.

Bless you, Anne. The Betsy mistake is compounded of posting before I think, and getting on in age!!

I did not know about the sequel, and I am so excited. I'm headed to Alibis right now.

The Forest Of Boland Light Railway and Tales of the Norse God and Heroes

This thread inspired me to post for the first time!
I loved any and everything by Enid Blyton but especially the Famous Five series and the Naughtiest Girl in School. My other favorites when I was little were the Little House on the Prairie books and Anne of Green Gables, like so many others have answered. Around middle school, the Lioness Quartet by Tamora Pierce was a big influence on me.

I'm from the USA but my mum is Australian, thus the Enid Blyton!

It's a wide range of ages but here are my choices most of which I read about Jr. High School age;

The Dog Who Wouldn't Be by Farley Mowat
CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS - a Story of the Grand Banks by RUDYARD KIPLING
Have Spacesuit-Will Travel and
Between Planets by Robert A. Heinlein
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Paul Street Boys Ferenc Molnar

White Fang Jack London

To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee

Tortilla Flat John Steinbeck

The Heart of the Matter Graham Greene

Hard to recall which books I read as a child, and which children's books I caught up with later. Off the top of my head:

The Wind in the Willows
The Hobbit
The First Men in the Moon
The Land of Far Beyond
Stig of the Dump

(UK)

I agree that the wide age range is a bit of a problem here - I started on adult fiction when I was quite young, and am only just re-discovering some of my childhood favourites. But in terms of books which are properly classed as "children's" books, I'd pick:

The Phantom Tollbooth

Pongwiffy (and its sequels)

Malory Towers (cheating a bit there, that's actually a series)

Scribbleboy (my favourite Philip Ridley)

Ballet Shoes

I'm glad to see so many Phantom Tollbooth fans - I can't find anybody who's read it outside of LT!

(UK)

The first five books that come to my mind (in no specific order) are,

The Secret Garden.

Seryozha: Several Stories from the Life of a Very Small Boy.

The Wind in the Willows.

Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio.

Russian Fairy Tales.

Watership Down Richard Adams
Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
To Kill A Mockingbird Harper Lee
The Worst Witch
The Story of Tracy Beaker by Jacqueline Wilson

Ok off the top of my head (because if I stop to think about this I'll be more likely to list 50 than 5).
Stig of the Dump - just read it with my 8 year old who loved it as much as I did when I was a kid.
A hundred million francs Just bought it off Abe and reread it after about 25 years
Little house on the Prairie The whole series really. Again I've recently relived my childhood by reading these to my kids and going to see Almanzo's farm!
Swallows and Amazons - reading Swallowdale as we speak.
The Outsiders couldn't leave out the book that gave me my screen-name.

(UK)

The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper
A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Nancy Drew series by Carolyn Keene
Gnomes by Will Huygen
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Really wanted to throw in Little House on the Prairie too, (instead of Nancy Drew, if I had to choose), but then I would've had three books with 'little' in the title. And if I were a child, the idea that all the books picked out for me were 'Little' something-or-another would appall me. But they are all excellent books.

Most of this list presupposes that the child is a girl. If I were picking for a boy, I'd throw out Nancy and the 'littles', and pick

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

Oops. From the US. Bet you could tell already from my picks, though.

#37 But if it was a list for boys you could add Little house back in - My son has loved those.

Flipped by Wendelin Van Draaen.
The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis
A Horse for all Seasons by ???
The Secret School by AVI
A Coal Miner's Bride by ???

Oh this is killing me now - I keep thinking of books I want to add - we need categories or something.

Cool, Sodapop. And on the other hand, I can't get my daughter to take a look at them. So much for gender stereotypes, right?

I agree about the categories. There are so many excellent books for kids.

I don't know that I would want to inflict any book on "all kids" -- as a children's librarian, I'd rather let them pick five books that they want to read. (I know, I'm getting on my soapbox here.)

At any rate, here are my five favorites from my childhood, and boy, was it hard to pick them!

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis (really, all of the Narnia books)
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery (I like everything by Montgomery, but this is my favorite)
Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast by Robin McKinley
Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott

I'm 29, and I live in the USA. And if I was going with current favorites, rather than childhood favorites, I'd have to add Harry Potter to the list . . . but I'm not sure what I'd drop in order to fit it in!

The Little Engine that could (very young)
Tom Swift Junior ( a science fiction series)
Arabian Nights (a children's version)
The Wind in the Willows
The Little House on the Prairie

Pennington's Seventeenth summer by KM Peyton
Summer at World's End by Monica Dickens
The dark is rising by Susan Cooper
Have spacesuit, Will travel by Robert A Heinlein
Andra by Louise Lawrence

UK. School library of the 1970's.

I had recentky been thinking about this topic. I remembersed a weathered set of books that had been relegated to our storage shed. I found this box of books when I was just starting school and would sneak into the shed to view them. Later, when I learned to read, they were great reading. I had been trying to remember what this wonderful set was called and began a search online. Your website had an article about these very same books! I recognized the name at once. "The Book of Knowledge: The Children's Encyclopedia" was the same set I improved my reading on. Our set had been purchased used sometime before I was born in 1952. I don't know when this set was published but I do remember it was one of the sets that was not set in alphabetical order. The stories were not really random but arranged more by type and interests. I love the pictures because they were large compared to other books and simple. There were many books, at least 16, and I would sit out in that shed in pure literary heaven until Mom got concerned about my where-abouts and began to call me. I don't think this is what you meant by 5 favorite books, but this set holds fond memories for me. Thank you for the trip down memory lane.

Male, 41, Denmark. As a kid I read danish translations. Several books had a massive impact on me and formed the reading habits of my adult life. I came into reading kind of late; I have no memory of having read before the age of 13.

"Om Om" by Stefan Stenudd which is a great youth book
More Than Human which I thought was the greatest book of all times (and sometimes still do)
Candide (no, really) by Voltaire which should be mandatory for everybody
Little Big Man
Foundation trilogy which I had read twice by the time I turned 16

Old guy in Chicago, USA

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Alice in Wonderland
Charlotte's Web
The Patchwork Girl of Oz was my favorite among the L. Frank Baum Oz books
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood

Here are mine:
Charlotte's Web - E.B. White
Lad: A Dog - Albert Payson Terhune
Anderson's Fairy Tales - Hans Christian Anderson
Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

Pippi Longstocking was one I loved that has not yet been mentioned. And she was my hero for so many reasons.
Mrs. Piggle Wiggle is probably very old fashioned, but I also loved this one.
Ramona the Pest and all the Ramona books, heck everything by Beverly Cleary
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, and, again, anything Judy Blume
Heidi, the one I considered my very favorite for years

I suppose these are all very girly, but, hey, I was (am) a girl. These were read in the US, 1970s.

50 emaestra....I was wondering if someone was going to mention the Pippi Longstocking books as well as the Beverly Cleary's. Those are very memorable to me. lol...I am also a girl who read these in the 70's. Loved Judy Blume too. I felt so mature reading those...lol.
I loved all the horsey books too...Misty of Chincoteague, the Black Beauty books etc.

#50
Dear Beverly Cleary. In fourth grade I brought home Ellen Tebbits from the library; I believe it was the first time I completely identified with a character. I couldn't wait to rush back to the library for Otis Spofford.

A couple of years ago I read Dear Mr. Henshaw and its sequel Strider and was delighted to read Cleary again. These books touch on more mature themes of divorce and loss and are the reason why I've read more YA and children's literature in the past two years than I have since my children were young. So, thank you again, Beverly Cleary!

Here's mine (in no particular order) from U.S.A.:
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Lord of the Flies
Animal Farm
Fahrenheit 451
The Girl with Silver Eyes

I'm in UK.
Prince Caspian (and all the Narnia series, but that was the first I read)
Little Women
Stig of the dump
Malory Towers (again a whole series)
Myths and Legends (Greek and Norse especially)

I still read a lot of Girlsown fiction. Nowadays my favourites are the Chalet School series by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer and the Marlow books by Antonia Forest

50, 51> oh those are all good ones that I forgot (except Judy Blume, never read her). I loved all those as a kid.

I am 51 (today, actually!) and it's hard for me to choose, and to remember what I actually read as a child, and not what I read to my kids, or what I read in my line of work (children's/school librarian), but here goes to the best of my memory.

All of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books--that's a chat I know, but I couldn't pick just one!
Little Women
Pippi Longstocking
Mrs. Piggle Wiggle
My Side of the Mountain

Happy Birthday #56 theexiledlibrarian!!
I'm gonna have to check out this Mrs. Piggle Wiggle! lol

happy birthday theexiledlibrarian! I just got through reading a chapter from My Side of the Mountain to my 7 year-old nature boy. He is loving it and I am loving revisiting it. It's surprising how much of it I remember, even though it's been nearly 40 years since I read it last.

I also started reading adult titles at a young age.

Here's the few that stuck with me that I read when I was around 8-12
The Hobbit
Little Women
Go Ask Alice
The Man From Snowy River
The Magic Pudding

late 30's
Australia

Hi again

My 5 would be

1984 George Orwell
The Phantom Tollbooth
To Kill a Mockingbird
I Am David
The Chrysalids

When I tried this out in the pub George Orwell 1984 and Animal Farm came up a lot. This might be that if you were at school in the early 80's you pretty much had to read one of these.

Others mentioned include, and I being very general here,

For men; Biggles, Just William, HG Wells, Tolkien, Htchhikers Guide, John Wyndham,

For women; Enid Blyton, Swallows and Amazons, the Railway Children, Little House on the Prairie, Ann Franks Diary

Both; Alice in Wonderland, Lion Witch and the warddrobe, Roal Dahl

I thought of some that were for younger children, that I read when I was a child.

The Eleventh Hour by Graeme Base - Awesome book. Great illustrations. Still keeps me entertained by looking for all the hidden things in all the pictures. Really fun trying to figure out all the different codes and ciphers.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll - I put them together, because, well... you can't just read one of them. You have to read both. Characters from both are put together in all the film and TV adaptations of Alice in Wonderland anyway.

The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein - Great life lessons will be taught here. Great to read at any point in your life, and see which parts you understand better.

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak - Very fun. Great illustrations. Could cure a kid of his fear of monsters in his closet/under his bed. :)

Dinotopia by James Gurney - This one's for children who are a bit older, but it's a great one that I read as a kid. Amazing illustrations, great story, and it's about dinosaurs. What kid doesn't like dinosaurs? The World Beneath, the sequel, is also recommended.

Can I have a negative vote? I read Black Beauty as a child and hated it passionately: I would like all kids to be prevented from reading it!

I have to vote against you -- I read Black Beauty many times as a kid and loved it! (To be fair, my mother couldn't understand why I liked sad horse and dog stories like Black Beauty or Beautiful Joe, so I wouldn't necessarily inflict them on all kids.)

I just realized that I said Black Beauty in my previous post. I actually meant The Black Stallion books, but, I did enjoy Black Beauty too. It was a harrowing experience as a youngster when reading the abusive parts...nonetheless...I loved it simply because it was a horse book.

I know I could name more than 5, but here are the 5 that are in my head right now.

Charlotte's Web
Chroncicles Of Narnia Series
The Box Car Children Series
Little House On The Prarie Series
The Secret Garden

I loved Black Beauty and The Black Stallion. But can we prevent all kids from reading the Captain Underpants books?

#66: No, indeed! Kids need to have a little fun, don't they? :)

I grew up in the U.S. and Germany, and these are my 5.

The Wizard of Oz (and all other Oz books)
Die Brueder Loewenherz by Astrid Lindgren
Ramona, the Pest by Beverly Cleary
Heidi by Johanna Spyri
Momo by Michael Ende

Five really is not enough. There are so many more I remember.....

Well I read these books when I was quite young and I really enjoyed them.
They are called: Araminta Spook by Angie Sage there are five books in the series and I absolutely recommend them!

Im 11 but if i were to recemend 5 books those 5 books would have to be Neil Flambe and the the Marco Polo Murders, Ortega, Frost, the Giant slayer and Rascal

When I was 8 yrs old
The Hobbit
A Wrinkle in Time
The Magician's Nephew
Misty of Chincoteague
The War Between the Pitiful Teachers and the Splendid Kids

When I was 16 yrs old
Shane
The War of the Worlds
Lord of the Flies
Dragons of Autumn Twilight
Moby Dick

Edit: woops - I'm in Canada

I must have missed this one last time round - thanks for reviving it!

Veering very much towards the "8" side of the age-range, I'd say:
Emil and the detectives
The wind in the willows
Swallows and Amazons
The story of the treasure-seekers
Alice in Wonderland

(I grew up in England)
Claiming the "Desert Island" principles, I think I'd want to add at the very least a good poetry anthology and a King James Bible or Pilgrim's Progress (I wasn't an especially religious child, but I did enjoy the sound of the language in the AV from an early age, even when I didn't quite understand it).
I'd also want to add some Roald Dahl : I'm just a bit too old to have read them as a small child, but I wish I had.

Yes, good to see this revived!

I'd like to see kids read E. Nesbit, whose books I loved as a kid. Five Children and It and The Phoenix and the Carpet were two of my favorites.

L. Frank Baum's Oz books were great, too - he wrote a number of them beyond The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

And Alice in Wonderland had a big impact on me, and still does for kids today.

Five isn't enough! Both the Winnie the Pooh books, the Wind in the Willows, the Tree that Sat Down and the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. Can I have The Secret Garden too? Looking at that list I realise they are all terribly worthy and I left off the book I read and reread throughout my childhood.Treasure Island which is a little more gender neutral.It should have been ten!

>74 oldstick:
Of course, Swallows and Amazons, which I and a lot of others put in our lists, assumes you know Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, and a whole lot of other classics before you read it. I remember feeling like some watcher of the skies when the penny finally dropped (at about the ninetieth reading) about where Ransome got Stout Cortez and the Peak in Darien from!

My transition from juvenile to YA involved a lot of scifi - Heinlein, Asimov, Bradbury, etc. - and Ian Fleming's Bond books. Above all, however, I remember a series of books by Howard Pease involving tramp steamers and a young man named Todd Moran who roved the seas and visited distant lands. Looking back, I think they must have informed my current interest in travel literature.

Only five??? Aaargh!

---

The Netherlands

Pluk van de Petteflet - Annie M.G. Schmidt
Het geheime eiland - Enid Blyton
Het oneindige verhaal - Michael Ende
De Tillermans - Cynthia Voigt
Kinderen van moeder aarde - Thea Beckman

Carrie's War by Nina Bawden
Any Fairy Tale Anthology or Fairy Tale type stories such as the Silver Curlew by Eleanor Farjeon
Classic Ghost Anthologies - The main reason for joining LT was to search for a particular story title (no luck so far though).
Enid Blyton's Mallory Towers and St Clares series, Book of Naughty Children and Secret of Spiggy Holes.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Angus the Tartan Partan by Janet Caird ...

Sorry, I know I've cheated a bit ;P.

No lashings of ginger beer for you.

Meanie ...how about just beer then seeing as I'm over twentyone ;P

What a great thread! I was able to add a book, Beautiful Joe to my 'read/unowned' list.

Five, huh? I'll try to list those that I don't recall anyone else mentioned:

1. Silver Chief books by Jack O'Brien
2. The Light in the Forest by Conrad Richter
3. The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford
4. Grimm's Fairy Tales
5. The Jungle Books by Rudyard Kipling

Honorable mentions:

6. King of the Wind by Marguerite Henry
7. Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson
8. The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf
9. Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton
10. My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara
11. Rascal by Sterling North
12. Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls
13. Five Little Peppers and How They Grew by Margaret Sidney
14. The Cricket in Times Square by George Selden
15. Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank B. Gilbreth
16. Big Red by James Kjelgaard

I could add so many more...

From the USA, and in my 50s...

>82 fuzzi:
Thanks fuzzi - I can't think how we got this far without the Jungle Books!

(83) thorold, you're welcome. The Jungle Books was one of my first 'big' reads, when I was about 8 or 9. I even have three different editions on my shelves. :D

I don't suppose anyone reads The Just So Stories any more because of the language but it was part of my childhood. I haven't tried all the Jungle Books. Once they were made into a film I lost interest. Books have to be read at the right time of life, don't they?

My four-year-old often listens to Johnny Morris reading six of The Just So Stories.

I haven't read them for decades, and it was a while before we could work out why he kept remarking "they ought to show up in this dark place like ripe bananas in a smoke-house".

(85) & (86) I read them, and have a copy on my bookshelf!

I read The Jungle Books after I watched the cartoon, and found I couldn't watch the cartoon again...the book is so much better!

I never saw any Jungle Book cartoons when I was kid. I did watch the TV series, Ramar of the Jungle, which was live action set in Africa or India depending on the episode (1952-54). This show did not conflict at all with Rudyard Kipling's books.

vpfluke, Disney came out with a cartoon about The Jungle Books in the late 1960s. It just can't compare at all to the original book.

89 - Thanks for the info. I looked up the Jungle Book on IMDB and can see that at the age of 22, I would never have considered watching it in 1967.

On another subject, I realize another book I read as a young boy was about Roman myths. Unfortunately, I don't remember the name of it. I remember playing them out with two other boys at about the age of nine. We would rotate roles of Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto, and less often Apollo. I think we invented stories for these Roman Gods (we knew of the Greek names for these Gods, and statedly didn't use them) and chased each other and fought battles on our bicycles using sticks.

At a later date, I returned to Roman mythology when taking Latin in high school, using Gayley's myths. I didn't like Edith Hamilton, who rewrote the myths as stories. Charles Mills Gayley had a more factual approach, with quotes and allusions to art and literature.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Matilda
The Westing Game
Harry Potter
The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.