What's your favorite book from childhood?

What's your favorite book from your childhood? You know, that one book you never got tired of reading (over and over and over...) - or hearing. The one book you still remember vividly to this day.

My favorite is The King Who Could Not Smile by Hazel M. Hohn. I haven't seen this book in YEARS, but I can still see the pictures, and remember some of the passages.

My favorite would have to be Matilda by Roald Dahl. I love how Dahl portrays Matilda's world, especially the adults. There's humor in Matilda that you understand as a child, but there's also humor there for when you revisit this childhood favorite as an adult. A good children's book is one that can be enjoyed by both adults and children, and Matilda fits the mold.

There are many, but to name just one... I'd have to say Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome. I read it many times and I still re-read it and its sequels periodically with the same pleasure.

Other books on the short-list - A Hundred Million Francs (a.k.a. The Horse Without A Head) by Paul Berna. The Beastmaster by Andre Norton.

No question - Grimbold's Other World by Nicholas Stuart Gray. Simply the most magical and parallel of all magical, parallel, fictional worlds. And Grimbold is a cat.

This is not just my favourite childhood book, it's my favourite book, period - my Desert Island book. I figure that any book is going to become hopelessly familiar after years on a desert island so I should take the one that has already lasted forty-something years.

The smell of the pages, the weight of it, the gloss of the public library plastic cover (I have an old discarded copy as well as a naff paperback reprint) and the beautiful, perfect woodcut illustrations all contribute. I think I'd fight anyone who tried to take it from me.

...and the Jill books by RubyFerguson were great, too.

A toss up between Little Women and A Wrinkle in Time. I also loved the All of a Kind Family series by Sydney Taylor.

A toss-up between Alice's Adventures in Wonderland/Alice Through the Looking-Glass and Jane Eyre.

When I was a toddler, the Little Grey Rabbit books by Alison Uttley, the illustrations fascinated me

Sooooooo many! Winnie the Pooh, the Mrs Pepperpot books, Milly Molly Mandy, The Naughtiest Girl in the School, Pinocchio etc. But the one I loved most and still reread from time to time (and still clap my hands like mad) has to be Peter Pan - a real classic for all ages.

ETA - Touchstones doing very much their own thing right now.

The Mouse and His Child by Russell Hoban.

Oddly, as an adult, I don't care for surreal novels or movies at all. But apparently it was my thing then.

I loved Paddington (bear). The first few of them were just out in Dutch translation when I learned to read. Not sure if that series remained as good over the years.

> 8: I remember that, as a kid, I didn't like the Alice books at all. It's only after I discovered the Annotated Alice that I became an enthusiast. Now I seem to be one of the major Lewis Carroll fans here on LT. (I blame the Dutch translation available to me as a kid - I've reread it a couple of years ago and it simply strikes out on a lot of things).

As a preschooler my favourite was Hurry Up, Slowpoke by Crosby Newell. As I got older, there were many favourites. A few of them were From Anna by Jean Little, Green Smoke by Rosemary Manning, Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery, and Heidi by Johanna Spyri.

For me the Narnia books by C S Lewis.

Tarzan of the Apes, I taught myself to read because of the painting on the dust jacket. I should scan my cover, it is not one of the many avaliable for the book.

Going back to my earliest book memories I think my favorites were Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman and Serendipity by Stephen Gosgrove. Obviously this is going way back to very early childhood.

Pippi Longstocking - hands down. You can keep Alice and all the rest, just give me Pippi, Annika and Tommy:)

And Max and Moritz although I had not reread this one from ages (and I loved the film much better - you know the ones that were a series of picture that someone rolls through a machine - not the actual film).

And Elin Pelin's Yan Bibiyan - someone gave me a copy when I was 7 and I loved the story.

I needed to reread Peter Pan later (at the beginning of high school) to actually decide that I like it...

edit: fixing touchstones

Pippi Longstocking. Her own house, her own money, a monkey, a horse... she had it all!

A.A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh books, and Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books. Completely entwined with the memory of my mother's voice reading them to us - several times over the years. Read many more times on my own.

I did love Pooh as a child, but I had to grow up before I really appreciated him! One of not many books at all that can make me laugh aloud.

Of course there are loads of brilliant books that deserve to be favourite, but still, for me, Grimbold rises above them all.

At this distance, it's hard to disentangle the ones I like now, and the ones I feel I ought to have liked, from the ones I really liked as a child. I think I had fairly retro tastes, on the whole - Alice in Wonderland, The railway children, Treasure island, Tom Sawyer, Hiawatha, Edward Lear and Hilaire Belloc, The lion, the witch and the wardrobe, Swallows and Amazons. If I'd been born a little later, Roald Dahl would certainly have been a favourite too. For some reason I never really got into Alan Garner.

Many of my favorites have already been listed. I also loved The Good Master by Kate Seredy and Miss Bianca by Margery Sharp.

Favorite picture book was A Rose for Pinkerton -- I loved all of the Pinkerton books, but that one was my favorite. I wanted a Great Dane for most of my childhood because of that book (and I still love really big dogs, though I now see the impracticability of having one in my small house), and I named my cat Rose even though she looked nothing like the Rose in the book.

Favorite chapter book in elementary school was Ten Kids, No Pets by Ann M. Martin -- not the most highbrow choice of reading materials, but for some reason I just loved that book.

Favorite book in middle/high school was Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast by Robin McKinley. In fact, that one is still a favorite comfort read for me.

I also used to love the Enid Blyton Famous Five books. I wasn't so keen on the Secret Seven. I always wanted to be just like George and own a dog like Timmy. My favourites were the creepy ones, where they adventured in abandoned lighthouses and spooky old houses. I read a couple again when I was in my 30s and they hadn't lost their magic, albeit the writing was far too simplistic for me then.

I wanted Timmy too. I also loved (and recently reread) the Malory Towers books and still may re-buy and reread the Twins at St Clare's series as well. I'm sure real boarding school was never as much fun as she made it seem.

Raggedy Ann Stories by Johnny Gruelle
Richard Scarry books
and the Narnia Chronicles are among my favorite books from childhood.

I loved The Cuckoo Sister from my early teenage years, along with Paula Danziger's books.

Early childhood favourites were The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, the Paddington Bear series and Winne The Pooh.

Showing my age, but - The Ship That Flew by Hilda Lewis is the absolute number 1 for me, then, the Cherry Ames series by Helen Wells.

Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher was my favorite to read myself, but nothing beat having Redwall read to me yet again. Or one of the other Redwall books, part of the beauty was that they were all the same.

I love a High Wind in Jamaica. I was sick in the hospital in 9th grade and my English teacher brought the book to me. I loved her--but I loved the book even more!

Caroline Leavitt

The Wizard of Oz and the other L. Frank Baum Oz books, and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass. Fantastic imaginations.

The book I remember the most from childhood is Aliens Ate My Homework by Bruce Coville. It was a really big hit in my elementary school, it seemed like everyone read it atleast once and I loved it. Remember most of it to this day.

The Pippi Longstocking books get my vote too!

The Beverly Cleary books.

All of the horsey books, The Black Stallion, Misty, Flicka etc.

Of course (a little older then) Nancy Drew mysteries

Judy Blume books

#28 - I had completely forgotten about the Cherry Ames books - I used to love those! Thanks for giving me an unexpected flashback to 40 years ago ...!

#33 Oh yes, Flicka! And anything by Pat Smythe.

It's got to be one of the Babar books, but who can remember the titles?

Oh, City Under the Back Porch, about two kids who shrink to the size of ants and go live in a colony for a summer. I loved it, and I still remember the ants milking the aphids and getting in a fight with the red ants!

I loved those Golden Field Guides to Birds, Mammals, fossils, rocks, etc.

I also read The World We Live In and The Sea Around Us over and over and over...

#28 - "Showing my age"... The Ship That Flew is my 21-yr-old son's number one favourite childhood read! I can't remember where he got his paperback copy from, but it has been read to bits. Have often meant to read it myself, and now I really will.

Oh yes! The Cherry Ames books: looking back, perhaps they were why I became a nurse. My mother gave them away during one of our many house moves, and I still mourn them.

For a while, maybe ten years ago, I was (freelance) copyediting Nancy Drew, for Pocket Books. But that seemed a pale imitation of the original Nancy, though maybe not--I never read them as boy, but rather, the Hardy Boys, Joe and Frank.

I loved The Borrowers series of books for a while, I would have loved to have been able to hide in a mousehole when my mum was looking for someone to blame for something!

The Giving Tree and If You Give A Mouse A Cookie. And of course, as I grew older, The Castle in the Attic, The Indian in the Cupboard. But the one book that best encapsulates my childhood would have to be The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

And thank you, everyone from avidmom to Carrotlady. You've reminded me of so many books that I'd forgotten. I kept going, "Oh! I remember that one." "And this one!" "I can't believe I didn't remember you, Jeremy Thatcher." And "Matilda! Am I glad to see you again."

Speaking of rediscovering old friends, I've been really enjoying this countdown of '100 best children's novels.' It was just a survey of blog readers, nothing official and critical. But some great memories.

http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/1790000379/post/1190052519.html

Absolutely, Pippi!

Pippi! I won the first one as a prize in a reading contest when I was a wee lad. What a great character she is!

The Story of Tracy Beaker, The Horse and His Boy, The Butterfly Lion and embarrassingly enough The Pony Pals.

You picked two of my favorite stories, as well. Heidi is simply a classic!! And Anne of Green Gables is so heartwarming.

I read about Pippi so much that it wasn't even funny. I had Villa Villa Kulla memorized.

That was the best.

I didn't like Heidi, but for some reason Heidi Grows Up (by a completely different author) was a great favorite. Mrs. Piggle Wiggle certainly got read to death, but I didn't even bother to scare up a copy for my own kids.

Citizen of the Galaxy is one I read over and over and over, and have returned to not only in my thoughts but to read multiple times as an adult. I have to keep buying it too, because I give it away.

Thanks everybody for stopping by and sharing! There are some books here I have not heard of; some are fond memories from my childhood, and some are fond memories from the days I used to read to my little ones (who aren't so little anymore!) Are You My Mother was/is an all-time favorite. The fifth grade class I was in had "library" day every Wednesday; we were required to go to the school library where the librarian gave us a little lesson about how to use the library (remember index cards?). It was a requirement to check out a book. I was teased mercileslly by my classmates because 9 times out of 10 I would choose Raggedy Ann Stories. Had my own Raggedy Ann doll and I loved her, of course, but by fifth grade I had kind of outgrew dolls. The books were another matter. What I remember loving the most from those books is the rivers of soda pop, candy forest ... etc.

Thanks for reminding me of the Raggedy Ann stories. They were among my regular choices at the library. I'll have to add them to my read but not owned collection. I still haven't outgrown the dolls. My daughter has one that I keep trying to kidnap.

I remember that my dad would read Amos Tutuola's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts and The Palm-Wine Drinkard at bedtime, and I was SO OBSESSED. For picture books to read on my own, I liked Eloise and The Story of Little Black Sambo (which I would carry around town with me, much to my parents' dismay... I think I'd probably opt for a sanitized The Story of Little Babaji now if I had any children).

Later, Roald Dahl, of course. I was especially charmed by Boy (the raw shrimp!! the school!). And also: Cheaper by the Dozen, and My Family and Other Animals, and My Life and Hard Times, and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

Obviously I'm having a hard time narrowing it down to one book!

ETA: And Three Men in a Boat. How could I forget Three Men in a Boat? Touchstones not working, by the way; sorry about that.

Beautiful Joe's Paradise.

When I was a young girl, I adored the Trixie Belden series by Julie Campbell

Trixie had the best family and friends and was always solving mysteries even though she was only a child. Her life was so exciting.

There wasn't much money for books in my family and our small town library didn't stock Trixie. So I only owned 2 books of the series but must have read them a dozen times.

I see there are now 34 books in the series. Maybe I'll try one and see if Trixie and her friends have aged over the last 60 years.

>53 avidmom:

At least I can tell my mother from a snort!

I loved Are You My Mother as well as Go Dogs Go!, which by the way, am screwing up the touchstone/title.

>58 Sandydog1:
The "snort" part was my favorite part of the book; I laughed out loud every time I read it. Back then I thought it was the funniest thing in the world.

Yes! Go Dogs Go.
Do you like my hat? ;)

I loved Island of the Blue Dolphins a true story set on one of the Channel Islands off of Santa Barbara, CA. We used to camp near SB and I could see the islands and with that book in hand, with a girl about my age, well it was swell! Had me dreaming of being alone and managing my life (a recurrent theme it appears).
Great book.

So many - and it varied with age. Through the Looking Glass, Seabird, Snorri the seal, A Wrinkle in Time, A hole is to dig, Harold and the Purple Crayon come to mind. All were read many times.

That's a very very difficult question with which there could be many possible answers. I looked thro some of the posts & was so surprised to see Little Black Samba mentioned (that's my MOTHER's favourite!) To be honest, I don't know if 'd be able to choose. . .Tom's Midnight Garden? Charlotte Sometimes? A little Princess? Or anyone for Anthony Buckeridge's Jennings?
I was also surprised by some of the other books mentioned by readers; I wouldn't give a 9 year old either Jane Eyre or Little Women or Prince Caspian! And as for Anna Karenina; I mean, honestly, are they trying to be funny? Why not just add War & Peace?! I don't really consider any of those children's books because they can be read on so many levels. But oh, I'm getting all nostalgic now; oh yes, Milly Molly Mandy. . . Anne of Green Gables. . .the Chalet Girls. . .Nancy Drew. . .ok. There really is no possible answer to that question!

Treasure Island - I lived , breathed and wallowed in it.

oldstick.

#62 -- I think Anna Karenina is an incorrect touchstone -- I don't see it listed in anybody's actual post. As for the others you mention, "childhood" covers much more territory than just age 9. I read Jane Eyre and Little Women between ages 10 and 15, I'd say. As for Prince Caspian, my father read us all of the Narnia Chronicles when I was 7 or 8, and then I read them again on my own many times.

Children will read all sorts of stuff, some things that are way above their perceived "level," and some things way below it. Sure, a 9-year-old may not grasp all of the complexity of, say, Jane Eyre, but if one wants to read it, I say go ahead!

#42 - I loved all of The Borrowers books, too. I didn't own them, had to get them at the library.

#52 - did you ever read Heidi's Children? I think it was by the same author as Heidi Grows Up. I loved both of those, but Heidi was one of my absolute favorites, along with Little Women

#57 - After seeing Nancy Drew and Cherry Ames mentioned, I wondered if anyone else remembered Trixie Belden.

But what about the Bobbsey twins?

I agree with #62 - there is no real answer to this question, I LOVED so many books I couldn't possibly pick only one.

#64 - so true. I was about 11 when my mum bought me 'Watership Down'. She assumed a book about rabbits was a children's book. Didn't tell her til years later that it might possibly have been a teensy weensy bit less suitable than she imagined. I didn't care - I loved it!

Nobody has mentioned The Little House on the Prairie Books yet. ;

The Tree that Sat Down. I'm just going to put it in my catalogue to see if I get a reaction. I lost this thread so I put it somewhere else and they didn't know what I was on about. Oh dear!
oldstick

An interesting question and not one I've ever considered before. I don't actually have any childhood favourites that I still read, but ...

We had two books at home (in the 'fifties) that I remember nostalgically and rather sadly as they are now lost to me - disappeared long before I was an adult. They were real doorstops and of that old type that apparently never had dust jackets but had those lovely embossed colourings to the covers (if I remember the fly-leaf inscriptions aright, they were given as presents in the 1890s). One was a collection of tales of King Arthur and had full-page illustrations in the Pre-Raphaelite style (hindsight, there); the other was a very similar book of the Arabian Nights tales. They were almost certainly the start of my voracious reading habits of later life. Over recent years I've kept an eye out in second-hand bookshops, but I've yet to see the exact same editions. Perhaps my memory is gilding the lily a bit and I'm not recognising them when I see them; perhaps, without childhood eyes, they wouldn't be anything like as impressive if I did find them. Perhaps it's best that I never find them ("sigh").

As a postscript: As a child I never particularly liked Alice in Wonderland or The Wind in the Willows - yet now I quite like the first and I'd put the latter in my list of all time favourite novels.

Post-postscript: How could I forget Richmal Compton's 'William' books? Absolutely adored 'em (US members might not know what I'm talking about as I understand that the USA is the only country in the world where the books never caught on).

Post-post-postscript: Sorry for not sticking to one book - just couldn't.

My favorite bedtime story was The King, The Mice, and The Cheese by Nancy and Eric Gurney. I would beg my mother to read it to me every night. By the time I could read it by myself, I had it memorized!

I had many other loves when I was younger. I had most of the Nancy Drew, The Boxcar Children, and The Babysitter's Club books, plus a few Hardy Boys books. The early start on kids' mystery books fueled my love of more mature mystery novels as I got older.

>69 alaudacorax: Don't give up hope, I found a copy of the book my mother used to read from to us when we were children in a dusty bin in an antique shop. My mother cried when I gave it to her so she could read to the grandchildren.

I loved Erich Kästner´s Parent trap (Das dopfelte Lottchen), Astrid Lindgren´s Children from Bullerbyn, Arthur Ransome´s Swallows and Amazons and The three musketeers. Oh, and Anne of Green Gable. I still love and read all of these.

Johnny Tremain. I still choke up when I think about Rab.

I adored the Little House on the Prarie Books! I wanted to go travel across the prarie in a covered wagon when I was a child. Also, I loved the Ramona Quimby books and Little Women.

Oh dear, I loved me some Heidi and Anne of Green Gables. I'm still holding out for my own Gilbert Blythe.

I also read a lot of the Hank the Cowdog books. I read one a night to earn the Accelerated Reader points. Did anyone else have that? I still have five very large trophies for winning my school's contests.

I have fond memories of Runaway Ralph, the story of a mouse and his motorcycle. His helmet was half a ping-pong ball.

Deniro, it doesn't sound like little Ralph's helmet met any criteria set forth by the American National Standards Institute, the Consumer Products Safety Commission or any other safety institute, consensus standard or regulatory authority having jurisdiction...

In response to #64, sorry, I may have actually got Anna Kerenina confused with another list - @ least, I hope so! But I still wouldn't give a 9 year old Jane Eyre. Oh, and yes of course, I forgot Just William. . .

Oh, rats Scarlett, I thought you were serious, and I was just going to suggest Master and Margarita. I mean, what 9-year old doesn't like a story about flying witches and 5 foot 6 inch tall, machine gun toting black cats!

:)

#62 - "I was also surprised by some of the other books mentioned by readers; I wouldn't give a 9 year old either Jane Eyre or Little Women or Prince Caspian!"

Interesting. Is there really any harm in letting a child have something that challenges them a bit, as long as they're able to read it and interested? I'm afraid I'm going to fall back on that terrible old 'never did me any harm' cliche, here.

50 years or so ago when I was growing up I remember Jane Eyre as being regarded, if not actually as a child's book, at least as a book for teenagers. The same goes for the other Bronte books and Jane Austen, Dickens, George Eliot. This is a little odd when you think of some of the subject matter and considering how much more uptight adults were then about what children were allowed to read (I remember at my grammar school being forbidden to read sci-fi novels - yet they wouldn't have given a second thought to attempted bigamy and madwomen in the attic). And it's not as if these books were actually written for youngsters.

In my particular case, I probably read most of these as a pre-teenager simply because, having older siblings, the books were there in the house and I much preferred their stuff to that 'more suitable' to my age. The thing is, as I look back I'm pretty sure that, being by some years a youngest child and thus having access to all this 'older' stuff, I was given an educational advantage compared to a lot of my school mates. And, no, I don't think I grew up too fast - I still went out to play with the other kids - I just read this stuff when it rained.

I remember The Borrowers vividly!

Mr. Bass' Planetoid Science fiction for us kids in the 1950's.

Jane-Emily
The Disappearance of Leon(I mean Noel)
Anya
A Wrinkle in Time
It's Like This, Cat ...hard to choose

I just remembered Harold and the Purple Crayon. What magic there was in that crayon!

My absolute favorite was a book about a dysfunctional family of foxes, sort of a "Married with children" in the animal kingdom. It's called Csilicsali Csalavári Csalavér. It was written by a Hungarian author, Mora Ferenc about a hundred years ago. It was my mom's favorite book as a child and it's still a family favorite now. I couldn't find any English edition though. I loved it because it was so different from the moral tales we were fed up with as children. This family of foxes is absolutely amoral. They're always full of get-rich-quick schemes and other wicked stuff. The parents and the children are greedy, selfish and don't really love each other. The adventures of this family include: posing as the heirs of a rich bear and taking over his estate, opening a school for rabbits and eating all their pupils and getting the best of all those who try to stop them from getting what they want. It's a very funny book but not at all politically correct. It was my favorite because it was so different from all other books. I just loved the way the "bad" characters always won instead of getting punished in the end. And the relationship between parents and children, who pretended to love each other while in fact caring only about themselves, was really interesting and funny.

I was so happy to see what your favorite childhood book was - Hazel Hohn was my mother. She would have been thrilled to hear that!

majacarol,
What a thrill and an honor to "meet" you (so to speak)!

The King Who Could Not Smile certainly was (and still is) my all-time favorite book from childhood. I loved the story and the pictures. I can still see the King with his long, curly hair. And I loved the part when the King rode the bus and met the little boy. I read that book so many times over I am surprised it survived! It ended up - along with my other childhood books - being handed down to some younger cousins of mine, who are grown now with children of their own. I plan on replacing my copy. (I would love to see it republished. When my children were little I looked everywhere for a copy and came up empty handed.)

I had never done any research on your mother so I looked her up. I had no idea she was such a fascinating woman!

And I bet it's pretty safe to say she had a terriffic sense of humor too!

#80- I first read Jane Eyre when I was about four - but I was somewhat precocious - and I didn't go out and play with other kids, as reading always seemed much more enjoyable! I have to admit that the scene in the Red Room scared me witless, and still does ...

My sister and I read and re-read Nancy and Plum so so many times.
It was a library book, and we would walk home arm in arm with me on the right hand side because I could read a little bit faster than Mary.

It was one of the first things I searched for when I was introduced to the Internet, and I surprised Mary with her own copy that Christmas.

#82 I remember Mr. Bass. Though it was undoubtedly the 60's before I read any of it.

#75 I didn't do Hank the Cowdog, but one of my sons sure did. And they were great for getting him able to read more and faster.

#65 I think I read Heidi's Children at some point, but it is Heidi Grows Up that really grabbed me for some reason. Bobbsey Twins? Absolutely. I read massive amounts of them from my mother's childhood. Also almost the entire Honey Bunch series first, though I wouldn't class either of them as "favorites". They were there, and they taught me to read and keep reading--but when I finished them I moved on to other things. Favorites are ones I came back to.

#62 What is wrong with Prince Caspian for a nine year old? We read our way through those with our kids as soon as they were old enough to sit still for a full chapter. Probably 6 or 7. I don't know when my kids started reading them for themselves (not at 9--the older two were dyslexics and my youngest was a reluctant reader until 10 or 11), but it happened. We went through Narnia many times. Now I will admit that I was 8 or so when I tried to read The Screwtape Letters and my mother told me I was too young for them. Which made me absolutely determined to read them. She was right, and I did not understand them, through I read them all the way through. They didn't harm me, but I was too young to know what was really happening. I got the idea that demons were writing to each other and that is about the limit of it. But I read them later, at which point they were helpful.

Beatrix Potter stories

I liked The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins. My favorite was The Story of Mankind. It started me reading history and I haven't stopped.

#90 - My sister did the Honey Bunch books, too, and loved them. I think I was a little old for them by the time my mother found them at a used book sale, although I probably read them because I read everything I could get my hands on.

I read and re-read any Louisa May Alcott I could get. Besides Little Women I especially liked Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom.

Another early love was Black Beauty, which my mother read to us when I was four.

When I posted first on here (#69), I completely forgot about Tom Sawyer, which I absolutely loved as a kid and practically knew by heart. You lot reminded me and started a chain of events.

1. I thought it was daft me forgetting as, for some reason, I remember the illustrations of that edition every time I see Lou Diamond Phillips on screen.

2. I started hunting online to see if I could find pictures from the edition (it turned out to be the Heirloom edition from the 1950s with illustrations by Geoffrey Whittam).

3. I quite incidentally came across a fairly cheap, paperback '10 books in 1' edition of Mark Twain's novels.

4. I couldn't resist buying it.

5. It arrived yesterday afternoon.

6. I was up till way past midnight last night reading Tom Sawyer. It's you lot's fault.

It was like unexpectedly meeting a well-loved old friend - every sentence was as familiar as if I'd read them yesterday though I can't have read the book in over forty years. The only thing, I don't remember laughing so uproariously over it when I was a kid! I think I'm going to start it again, today.

Thanks everybody.

I felt like that about Treasure Island but I've never thought about reading it again now I'm ancient. What if it isn't as good as I remember?
I used to day dream about it, imagining I was Jim Hawkins ( I know - what a tom boy!)
I wonder if I dare go back to it?
oldstick.

I bought myself a copy of The King Who Could Not Smile a few months ago. Couldn't resist. The same thing happened to me, I remembered everything. It was as good as I remembered it. Better maybe, because I got to share it with my kids. They liked it too.

#96 - Marvellous!

#95 - So, oldstick, did you read Treasure Island again? I see you're handy by the sea there for a bit of the right atmosphere.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is my greatest memory of childhood reading; I enjoyed other books from Baum's fantasy, such as The Marvelous Land of Oz and The Tin Woodman of Oz, but the first is my favorite.

As for people marking on Anna Karenina, I have heard that some Russian children read Tolstoy's novels as early as sixth grade; he did write in the layman's language, did he not?

Not sure where we're drawing the line at childhood (some, including myself, would argue I'm still enjoying mine!) but here are some of mine.

Before Grade School:Paddington Bear series
Eearly Grade School: Anything by Judy Blume
Later in Grade school: Where the Red Fern Grows
Early Middle School: The Outsiders and the rest of the the S.E.Hinton books (although I don't like her adult stuff now.
Late Middle School: The Stand by Stephen King still one of my all time favorites
Current favorite children's book I love to read for myself: Harold and the Purple Crayon
Current favorite children's book I love to read to my Kindergarten: My Little Sister Ate One Hare

As a small child-Corduroy by Don Freeman and the Raggedy Ann books by Johnny Gruelle

As I got a little older-Black Beauty by Anna Sewell, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, and Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery

rankamateur - no I didn't. I will when there's nothing else in the house to read.
I think it is a great book to read out loud to children.
I don't buy vidoes either, once seen that's enough - on to the next thing!
I think it's a personality trait.
oldstick.

My favorites were Three on the Run by Nina Bawden, the Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken, and I also loved the Shoe books by Noel Streatfeild.

Edited because how could I forget the Anne of Green Gable books by Lucy Maude Montgomery?!

I would have to say Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Little Women was read so many times that I can still recall certain passages ("A bird sang blithely on a budding bough...and everyone thanked God that Beth was well at last")

Every "Little House" book was also read multiple times; Pippi Longstocking, and my favorite Beverly Cleary book was Otis Spofford

Trixie Belden series was also a favorite, along with Cherry Ames. There was another nurse series I like too, but I can't recall the title.

I went from children's books to adult books fairly early; I probably read Jane Eyre at 13 or 14. I also read a lot of other adult books pretty early on, particularly Victoria Holt. At the time, there was very little "young adult" published.

Interestingly, the only picture book I can recall is Harold and the Purple Crayon, and that I remember Captain Kangaroo reading on TV!

106>
Could your other nurse series have been Sue Barton? They would have fit right in with the rest of your choices. I read all the books you listed many times myself, only switching Georgette Heyer for Victoria Holt.

107, Sue Barton was it! Thanks, I've been racking my brains trying to remember.

# 94 rankamatuer! If you laughed at Tom Sawyer you ought to read Penrod and Penrod and Sam by Booth Tarkington. They are delicious.

#110 - Thanks for the tip, MAJic.

maybe this should be a new thread.
Children's books you can recit from memory:

The B Book by Stan Berenstain

Big Brown Bear, Blue Bull, Beautiful Babboon blowing bubbles biking backwards bumb black bug's banana box's and bop billy bunny's bread basket and bam brother Bob's baseball bus and Bing Buster's banjo bagpipe bugle band and that's what broke baby birds balloon.

Whew....did I get it right?

When I was very young, I absolutely loved Momotaro, the story of a childless Japanese couple who are overjoyed when an infant boy is born from a peach that floats down the river. I knew I looked a bit like Momotaro, thanks to my Japanese heritage....

Ex Lit Prof
www.the-reading-list.com

#112

Great book, as was Minn of the Mississippi.

I long for those simpler times and stories. Now I read The Road.

#112 and #116 -
Paddle and Minn are both good, but my favorites of Holling's were Pagoo and Seabird. There is also Tree in the trail

Tree in the Trail was always my favorite Holling

I can still remember passages from the book I read in my first storytime in library school in 1979...I practiced for weeks. I read to kids in the university lab school, the local Montessori school, and the Head Start program.

"Hand, hand, fingers, thumb
Dum ditty dum dum dum dum dum"

Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb by Al Perkins

Probably The Hobbit.

Arrrghh! You brought it back! I had finally banished Hand, Hand Fingers Thumb from my head, and now it's all back!

Actually, it is an excellent book to read aloud with small children because you can use actions as well as the words and rhythm.

Charlotte's Web by E.B.White

The Railway Children - and I enjoyed the film, and the recent theatrical dramatisation as well.

mine is the phone book that i still read because i am still a kid.

124/125: I live in a small town, and it seems all I can ever find around here are abridged versions. :(

#69 - One was a collection of tales of King Arthur and had full-page illustrations in the Pre-Raphaelite style ... kept an eye out in second-hand bookshops, but I've yet to see the exact same editions.

#71 - >69 alaudacorax: Don't give up hope ...

King Arthur's Knights by Henry Gilbert:



Found some of Walter Crane's illustrations first - so familiar - then tracked down the cover. Unfortunately, at the moment I really can't afford the copy I found - £100 - ouch! Someday.

Incidentally, it must have been the Arabian Nights that was a present in the 1890s as this wasn't published till 1911. Narrows the search down a bit. Also, this is not one of the door-stops I remembered them as - so that must have been the Arabian Nights, too. I remember it as at least three inches thick.

ETA - The weird thing is that I remember the jacket design - yet I don't remember my childhood book as having a jacket - crossed wires somewhere - unless the front cover has the same design. Or that picture's inside, somewhere.

Norman the Doorman and Swimmy when I was very little, The Hobbit and The Wind in the Willows later on.

I wish my kids liked these books too, but so far they show no interest, even my daughter, who's reading at a middle school level right now and could tackle them if she wanted to. She's really into the Warriors series and Harry Potter. My son doesn't read much for pleasure, but when he does he likes the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, Bad Kitty series, and Big Nate series. They and their friends don't seem to be interested in anything that doesn't come in a clearly delineated series. I wish they liked the older stuff too, because I think the sophistication level of the writing is higher, but I suppose that they read anything at all is better than not, given the stiff competition for their time with television and video games and whatnot.

Bad Kitty is pretty funny, though, I have to say.

>128 Tigercrane: Tigercrane

My kids are both avid readers, but they read very few of my books. I think it is a matter of independence for them. My son will occasionally read one of my recommendations, but my daughter absolutely will not. When I give her books as gifts, they have to be ones that I have not read.

Sometimes, when I have replaced a paperback edition of a book with a hardcover, I will donate the paperback (if it is in good condition) to their school. Not infrequently, my kids will read a book that I gave to the the school, and that I have a copy of at home. I think they want to make the discovery themselves, rather than listening to me tell them what I think they would like.

Oh, and I've fallen for Bad Kitty, too.

I fell completely in love with all of the Green Forest books when I first started reading. Even now when I see one I know I missed at the time, I'm hard pressed not to buy and read it. Same with Hardy Boys - although I did pick up and read one of those a few years ago, and discovered they'd lost their magic hold on me. Fantastic when I was seven or eight. Still love the quaint 1950s-ish setting, though (original series).

I own a complete collection of the original Choose Your Own Adventure series in their original covers, volumes one (The Cave of Time) through seventy (Invaders of Planet Earth), which was when they changed the classic cover style. There was an enormous fight for those when they debuted in our school library, it was very hard to borrow one.

Meanwhile there was Misty of Chincoteague, The Hobbit, Narnia books, Little House books, Ramona the Pest and sequels (hilarious, I thought) ... I missed a lot of children's classics and I'm still making up for it today when choosing bedtime reading for my own kids (still haven't made it to The Phantom Tollbooth). But in seventh grade I read Moby Dick and consider it one of my favourites to this day. The anticipation of reaching the end was overwhelming. I think I consulted the table of contents at the end of every chapter, wondering what was in store ...

#130 - I missed a lot of children's classics and I'm still making up for it ...

Considering the amount of reading I did in my childhood, it still surprises me how many well-known titles I haven't read.

Strangely, I seemed to miss the most well-known titles of various authors. With RLS, for instance, I read The Black Arrow and Kidnapped many times (and Travels with a Donkey) but it was only well-on in adulthood that I got round to Treasure Island. There are quite a few others like that - not sure why.

>131 alaudacorax:, I just read Treasure Island a month ago. In my case the delay was because of a school production of the novel I was forced to participate in, in fifth grade, that I despised anything to do with it for a couple of decades. And ...

>129 SylviaC:, I think I had the same attitude as your kids, at that age. Too many people hawking the classics so I couldn't make them my own. I didn't want to just read everyone else's favourites - I wanted to strike out and find my own. Otherwise I'd never have discovered Two Little Savages or Little Men or At the Back of the North Wind or a few others that nobody happened to recommend - else those would have been doomed to my ignoring them as well.

>128 Tigercrane: My son introduced me to Diary of a Wimpy Kid when he was in grade school. I didn't really know what it was about but he begged (nicely) for the book so I bought it for him. One day he got sick and had to stay home from school so I read it out loud to him. I could barely get through it, it made me laugh so hard! This is the same kid who a few years later comes home from his freshmen HS English class and insists I read Of Mice and Men.

Grinny - I read this when I was about 7 and was properly freaked out - this opened my eyes to the power of literature to shock, disturb, and voyage into the dark areas of imagination I hadn't experienced before. I had a similar experience with cinema when, a few years later, and well below the 18 certificate age limit, I watched Alien for the first time.

The Wind in the Willows. I still have my original copy with tattered DJ, 40 odd years later.

Black beauty or the Wizard of Oz or the Harry Potter books

My favorites were Heidi by Johanna Spyri and Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman. I loved the description of Sambo's clothes and when his mother served the pancakes with the melted tiger butter!

The "adapted" version I had of Lorna Doone.

No one has mentioned Grimm's Fairy Tales, which I read and reread all throughout my childhood. I know the stories so well that I have entertained scouts at a "sleepover" retelling them. I also read Anderson's Fairy Tales, but didn't care for most of them, aside from "The Tinderbox".

How about Just So Stories? "I am the cat who walks by himself..."

As a child, if there was a dog or a horse book in the library, I'd read it: books by Walter Farley, James Kjelgaard, Jack O'Brien, CW Anderson, Marguerite Henry, etc, etc, etc. I read so-called "adult" books just because they had a dog on the cover such as "Rex" by Joyce Stranger.

And I loved the stories in the My Bookhouse series, from my father's childhood. I'd love to have those again...

Okay, that wasn't one story...sorry. How can I choose? Oh, this is hard...

The Jungle Books

>139 fuzzi: fuzzi

I used to read The Grimms' German Folk Tales over and over again, all 600+ pages. And they were gruesome! No Disneyfication there.

Especially Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Witches and Mathilda by Roald Dahl and I was also madly in love with fairy tales and folklore. I still have my enormous volumes of non-disneyfied (those were the best ;)) fairy tales by The Brothers Grimm and Anderson and I don't think I'll ever be able to part from them. The illustrations are stunningly beautiful :))

(141) Singota, I didn't see Grimm's Fairy Tales listed in your library. Which edition do you have? The one we had when I was growing up was illustrated by Fritz Kredel. I don't have the original copy, but a more recent paperback reprint.

fuzzi, you're showing your AGE!

(55) My favourite was Little Black Sambo (I loved his shoes) closely followed by Rumplestiltskin neither of which were particularly well received by any of my kids who thought they were terribly boring.
I remember very well reading The Silver Sword which transported me from hot,dusty, country South Australia to freezing,War torn Europe. What a journey it was.

(142) I don't include all my books here in my library :)
I have 5 fairy tale books which were my absolute favorites when I was younger;

One is called "Gouden Sprookjes" which, translated would be "Golden Fairytales". This one's just a red book with a golden title on it and no illustrations but it has lots of fairytales that were new to me when I first read it like "The White Snake", "The Golden Bird", "Sikku", "Tulak the young eskimo", "The tiger, the eagle and the ant", "Li-Sin and his grandfather" etc. (482 pages)

One is called "De Sprookjes van Andersen" ("The Fairytales of Andersen
(I don't know how to insert an image so I'll just put a link here :)) (480 pages)
http://img.literatuurplein.nl/blobs/ORIGB/17224/1/1.jpg

One that hasn't got a lot of illustrations but I really like the ones it does have is called "Sprookjes van alle tijden" ("Fairytales of all times") by the brothers Grimm (non-disneyfied versions ;)). (320 pages)
http://img.literatuurplein.nl/blobs/ORIGB/19057/1/1.jpg

The fourth is called "Het Groot Sprookjesboek" ("The Big Book of Fairytales") with stories by Grimm, Perrault and others. Again, not many illustrations but the ones the book contains are very beautiful (illustrations are by Warwick Goble, if you look him up in Google pictures, you'll see :))) (383 pages).
http://www.klondyke.nl/new/images/extra/extra_114664_01.jpg

The last one is a book which I once found in our garage covered with dust. My dad told me it belonged to him and my grandmother used to read to him from this book so I'm particularly fond of keeping it. It's called "Het Beste Sprookjesboek" ("The Best Fairytale book") and it has the rather peculiar shape of a long, horizontal rectangle. The date of publication is 1969, not incredibly old but seeing where it came from I don't think I'll ever sell it or throw it away. I want to be able to read to my future children (If I'll ever have any :)) from this book. (427 pages)
http://fotos.marktplaats.com/kopen/6/ed/ygYNGMl41x0D51lIwt16Yg==.jpg

Those were the fairytale books that I read over and over again when I was young :)
I'm still really into fairytales nowadays although I prefer to call it "folklore" this time ;)

I never did like Grimm's tale that much
Road Daul i still read now ages 16, he is great!!!!!!!

(143) I am showing my age? Horrors!

I was the youngest of three girls, 4 and 5 years behind my sisters, so I read a lot of 'older' books...that must be it. ;)

(144) I remember Little Black Sambo, which was about an Indian boy (from India). It's too bad it had to be used as a racial epithet and ruin the joy of the story for others. I liked how the tigers turned into butter. :)

And I also read The Silver Sword, and have it on my shelves. It's a good book for adults, too. I believe it is based upon a true story of Polish refugees during and after World War II.

I tried to post the code for embedding pictures, but it won't show on my post, rats!

I still have some of my books from childhood, although the majority of them were ruined while being stored in a damp basement...sniff, sniff. I hope that I can read what books I do have left to my grandchildren, whenever (if ever) I have any. :)

And I'm 51, I'm not old!!!

can i say how young I reckon 51 is? i want to be that age, i hate being 16

When I was 16, 30 was old.

When I was 30, 50 was old.

Now I am 51, 70 is old.

Just you wait, you lil' whippersnapper! :D

seriously I would love to be your age, like brooding and sorted

Don't rush it, enjoy it.

I don't want to be 16 again, but if I could have the muscle tone and stamina of youth, ahhh...that would be nice. :)

>139 fuzzi: I didn't even know Just So Stories existed until I took an English Literature class during my glory days at the community college here. The teacher read "The Elephant's Child" to us (a class full of adults). Eventually a hardcover copy of the book ended up in my little library just because I loved that one little story so much.

>151 fuzzi: I don't want to be 16 again, but if I could have the muscle tone and stamina of youth, ahhh...that would be nice. :)

Ain't it the truth!

#129, #132, #133 -- Sounds like I have nothing to worry about! I'll try to lighten up. ;)