What were your favorite books as a child?

[Left Is Write]

Every now and again, I get nostalgic for books I read and enjoyed as a child. I recently bought an old copy of "What The Witch Left" by Ruth Chew. Does anyone else remember that one?

I loved the Trixie Belden books. My sisters had every one in the series, and I remember sneaking downstairs to their bedroom when they weren't home and sitting by the bookcase, reading their books. When my second oldest sister discovered I was doing this, she turned their books into a library. She put card pockets on them and everything - requiring me to "check out" the books I wanted to read. (Not surprisingly, she grew up to get a Master's degree in Library Science.)

I also read Nancy Drew (a good afternoon was finishing two Nancy Drew's under the willow tree), Encyclopedia Brown, The Great Brain, Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, and other series.

I wanted to be Harriet The Spy.

I must have read From The Mixed Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler two dozen times.

Old forties and fifties teen romances fascinated me too. I especially liked those by author Anne Emery. Did anyone else read them?

Someone somewhere along the line gave me a copy of The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright, and that became another enduring favorite of mine.

What books do you remember happily reading?



edited typo.

[notadmblnd]

1. The Brothers Grim

Grims Fairy Tales, my absolute favorite.

[yewberry]

2. I loved "James and the Giant Peach."

"The Little Princess" was another favorite when I was little.

Yeah, I chewed through the Nancy Drew books, too.

"The Letter, The Witch, and The Ring," "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe."

The Earthsea trilogy, Tolkien, L'Engle's "Wrinkle in Time" series.

My early reading habits were shaped by older sibling & friends, too.

[fluffernutter]

3. were we twins?

your list is exactly what mine would be.

[FourStarDemocrat]

47. I missed Roald Dahl books as a child, but have enjoyed several now as an

a parent of children and an elementary teacher. James and the Giant Peach are one of our favorites from Dahl. Also,the The Witches, the Fantastic Fox, the Twits ,a nd so many others.

[shawn703]

4. Well I was a strange kid

So I liked reading Stephen King when I was young. Before reading him, I had read every ghost story in the library for the most part (well, everything in the children's section.) But I also liked the Dragonlance books too.

[Left Is Write]

17. I liked ghost stories too. We had an old anthology of ghost stories

when I was a child. I have no idea how old it was or what happened to it, but I remember reading several of the stories.

We also had a book called Tales To Tremble By.

[BelleCarolinaPeridot]

5. " The Lion , The Witch , and The Wardrobe "

and " Sleeping Beauty " .

[supernova]

6. Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates

About a Dutch boy who enters a long distance ice skating contest.

The Flight of the Doves, about two English children who run away from an abusive home.

Treasure Island , well you know the story.

The Island of the Blue Dolphins about a girl who get's left behind on her island after the others leave the island, (natural disaster, can't remember). Anyway, she grows up having to fish and hunt for herself.

I often turned to stories about kids left to survive on their own, because I often felt that way myself.

[Left Is Write]

18. We had Hans Brinker also, and the Island Of The Blue Dolphins.

I remember the homemade book cover my sister made for Island Of The Blue Dolphins, but I don't remember reading the book.

[Arugula Latte]

36. Pippi Longstocking fits this genre.

Did you like that book? She was the strongest girl in the world and she had an Appaloosa horse. So cool.

[supernova]

37. Yes, I loved Pippi

:D

[ghostsofgiants]

7. I was a big Encyclopedia Brown fan

I was addicted to that shit.

[izzie]

8. Will James books on horses

--

[MrScorpio]

9. Here are mine

"Our Children's Children" by Clifford D. Simak
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~brams007/simak/writings.html#children

"Slaughterhouse Five" by Kurt Vonnegut

"Catch 22" by Joseph Heller

[Call me Deacon Blues]

10. Too many to count, but . . .

The earliest one I can remember is "The Biggest Bear" by Lynd Ward. I liked it so much I bought it for my kids (who are grown now). A simple story, beautifully told.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0395148065/qid=1117930104/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/104-8134812-8764744?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

[TheDebbieDee]

11. Pippi Longstocking, Henry Huggins and his friends,

Encyclopedia Brown mystery stories and the Danny Dunn science/adventure books.

[Left Is Write]

19. Danny Dunn!

I had a few Danny Dunn books myself. I liked them quite a bit.

And remembering older series, I also had a few Vicki Barr, Flight Stewardess mysteries from the 40s that my aunt gave me, and a few Ginny Gordon books my mother gave me.

[hippywife]

33. Yep...Henry Huggins books!

Also liked Blueberries for Sal and Make Way For Ducklings when I was really young.

My Gran gave me Little Women when I was about 8 and I loved it, too. Time to give that one to my neice.

[shanti]

71. oh yeah

i read the pippi and henry huggins books too, you boomer, you!;-)

[skygazer]

12. Lots of them

The Narnia books

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (great book)

Watership Down

The White Mountains series by John Christopher (The White Mountains, The City of Gold and Lead, The Pool of Fire)

The Black Stallion books (and any other horse books I could get my hands on)

The Little House books

I still like to read kids books. The best ones are just as enjoyable for an adult as they are for kids. As a matter of fact, I've introduced my hubby to a lot of them that he never read as a kid.

[Left Is Write]

20. How I could I forget Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH?

I loved that one.

[Eurobabe]

13. Pablo the Cold Blooded Penguin

Goonight Moon, Alexander's Horrible Terrible, No Good Very Bad Day, series, Little House on the Prairie.

[Pied Piper]

14. The Phantom Tollbooth

by Norman Juster

Charlotte's Web
The Hobbit (in jr high - I wasn't ready for LOTR until late high school)
plus the others mentioned above

on edit:

forgot "The Pushcart War" by Jean Merrill

[sundog]

15. The Chronicles of Narnia

[cally]

16. My very favorite were the Little House series.

I saved all of them for my kids who hated them. sigh. I read other books but those were my favorites.

In HS, I worked at the library. I was occasionally assigned to the children's section and I would sneak the books and read them during work. I ended up reading many books I had missed when I was younger.

[RevCheesehead]

21. Ramona the Pest.

Amelia Bedelia.
All the Nancy Drew books.
Little House books.

I loved to read. I was always the #1 spender when the Scholastic Books were for sale at school (once a month, I think). After getting bored with the "girls books," I started reading about sports - mostly football.

Other favorites:
Mike Mulligan and the Steamshovel
Curious George
The Little Red Hen
Christmas on the Farm

[tedoll78]

29. Ramona.

I read all of the Ramona books in grade school. And in the future, I will have a cat just like Picky-Picky. :)

[bertha katzenengel]

22. Island of the Blue Dolphins, a Newberry winner, by Scott O'Dell

and of course, Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh.

[Pithlet]

26. I loved that book.

I recently re-read it as an adult. I can't wait until my boys are old enough to start reading books like that.

For early childhood, I loved The Country Bunny and the Little Golden Shoes, and all the Dr Seuss books. When I was older I loved Little Women, The Little House Books, anything by Madeleine L'Engle, Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card... too many to list them all.

[auntAgonist]

23. Beatrix Potter .. all of them

[xmas74]

24. Little Women and Anne of Green Gables

were two of my favorites. I had the strong willed female characters, the sense of a girl could be something more than what was common at that time, romance to sigh over and deaths to cry over.
That pretty much explains why I loved them so much.

And Nancy Drew. I just wanted to be like her. Or biographies about famous women.

[gollygee]

25. A Wrinkle In Time, the Chronicles of Narnia

There were some other kiddie sci fi books I liked. There was one called The Octagon House and there was one about these kids who went on a rocket to another planet with some weird guy. I'll have to see if I can remember what those were. And there was a book called Half Magic I liked (and all the books by that author.) I'm going to have to remember all these!

Edited because I remembered the books about the kids in the rocket - Voyage to the Mushroom Planet, and related books.

Good question!

[gollygee]

28. Also, The Far Away Tree and anything by Enid Blyton

I read tons and tons when I was a kid. I'm having fun remembering these books. I can't wait till my daughter is old enough to read these!

[qnr]

32. Heheh, I'm reading the Cronicles of Narnia right now, just for the heck of

it. I'm on The Horse and His Boy right now.

Edit: Reading them again, that is.

[KaliTracy]

27. The Color Kittens!

"Once there were two color kittens with green eyes, Brush and Hush. They liked to mix and make colors by splashing one color into another. They had buckets and buckets and buckets of color to splash around with. Out of these colors they would make all the colors of the world.

The buckets had the colors written on them, but of course the kittens couldn't read. They had to tell by the colors. "It is very easy," said Brush.

"Red is red. Blue is blue," said Hush..."

- The Color Kittens
by Margaret Wise Brown



even wrote about it once in a "literacy process" paper (what events shaped your literacy development...)

edit:clarity

[hyphenate]

30. There are so many!

I was an avid reader as a child.

Some of them that I can remember are:

The Witch Family by Eleanor Estes

Harriet the Spy

one that I can't remember the title of, but it was about a broomstick that two siblings brought to life and who reminded them of one of their teachers.

the Rick Brant series (which I recently re-discovered) which were supposedly "boys" books, but I loved them)

the Hardy Boys Mysteries

Sherlock Holmes

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn

The Call of the Wild

science fiction of almost any kind

I can't think of anything else right now, but rest assured I was a glutton for reading anything and everything I could possibly read.

[kskiska]

31. Struwwelpeter

more…
http://www.naughtykitty.org/struwwelpeter2.html

[Ann Arbor Dem]

39. OMG...my best friend gave me that book when I was in grade school...

An all time favorite and I still have it! I think that it is one reason I am a warped person. ;-)

[kskiska]

73. My grown daughter says pretty much the same.

We got it out yesterday and looked at some of the "merry stories and funny pictures." I have a German landlady who remembers it well. It's a classic book for German children (through written by a Dutchman).

[Enraged_Ape]

58. I didn't read Der Struwwelpeter until I was in college...

and it gave me nightmares for a week.

How in the heck do little kids tolerate it?

[sparky_in_ma]

34. The "Lucky Starr" series

I think they were written by Issac Asimov. A children's sci-fi book. That got me hooked on reading, mostly sci-fi, for years.

[qnr]

35. Ugh, no way to say, I read so many as a child. But among others, I liked

the Tom Swift series, and the Edgar Rice Burroughs books about Pellucidar. Also, White Fang and other Jack London books about dogs and the north.

[Ann Arbor Dem]

38. I started reading the Bobbsey Twins in 2nd grade...

That ignited my passion for mysteries. I moved on to Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys not long after...they were like candy. By the end of the 6th grade I had read all of the Ellery Queen books and a good chunk of Agatha Christie's oeuvre.

[Left Is Write]

41. I shouldn't have forgotten about the Bobbsey Twins either.

I read my first Bobbsey Twins book at around second grade also. They were in Florida for that one...The Lakewood Mystery? Something like that. Anyway, I read several more after that.

[SarahB]

40. The Wrinkle in Time series.

:loveya:

[shanine]

42. Nancy Drew here n/t

[Demonaut]

43. Watership Down, The Hobbit, Lord Of The Rings, Shardik

[shesemsmom]

44. The Box Car Children's books

I tried to get my daughter interested in them. But it was no go....lol

[Ann Arbor Dem]

49. I forgot about the Boxcar Children.

I loved them, especially the first one, too.

[shesemsmom]

64. Yes wasn't that great reading for that time

I miss those carefree days:shrug: :cry:

[RebelOne]

45. Nancy Drew mysteries. n/t

[FourStarDemocrat]

46. I liked all the Judy Blume books

Are you There God? It's me Margaret, and about 5 or ten others of hers that I read.

[joneschick]

48. Judy Bolton by Margaret Sutton

my mom had lots of them from her teenage years.
When I was even younger I was fascinated by some Poe. My g'mother found what she called a "bride doll" at a rummage sale that I promptly named Annabelle Lee.

[Redstone]

50. I never read childrens' books when I was a kid, but have really

enjoyed reading them to / with my sons.

My all-time favorte is Roald Dahl's "The Twits."

Oh, no, it's the Dreaded Shrinks!

Redstone

[musette_sf]

51. Noel Streatfeild's "Shoes" series

"Ballet Shoes", "Circus Shoes", "Theatre Shoes", "Movie Shoes", and I am sure there are more. British classics set in time from the 1930s through the early 1950s, of plucky young folk and the performing arts.

[JVS]

52. The encyclopedia set

[Spirochete]

53. Tom Sawyer/Huckleberry Finn

Old Yeller/Savage Sam

The Little Eddie Series
Mrs. Coverlet series
Anything that scared the living shit out of me when reading it under the covers with a flashlight, so as to avoid motherly detection, late at night. hehe

[Left Is Write]

54. I forgot about Mrs. Coverlet.

I only read one of the books - While Mrs. Coverlet Was Away - but I enjoyed it.

I've also just been put in mind of Henry Reed's Babysitting Service. I enjoyed that one too.

[MountainLaurel]

55. Anything by Judy Blume, Harriet the Spy

Stories about kids from New Yawk and Jersey that reached a girl in a dead coal-mine town in West Virginia.

[Left Is Write]

56. Did you ever read From The Mixed Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler?

A girl and her brother run away to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

[MountainLaurel]

59. Loved. That. Book.

Wanted to run away there myself, except without the brother.

E.L. Konigsburg is still writing children's fiction today, and still winning awards. Check out "Silent to the Bone," "The View From Saturday," and "The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place."

[cestpaspossible]

57. 'Banner in the Sky' is one I remember liking...also 'White Fang'

I also had hand-me-down copies of 'The Hardy Boys', some from my brother, but also from my dad... I thought those old books were so cool...


But the first book that came to mind when I read your question is 'A Wrinkle in Time'...

[livetohike]

60. Trixie Belden series and the Nancy Drew series

and Misty of Chincoteague were my all time favorite children's books. I read the Hardy Boys too :-).

[undeterred]

61. Trixie Belden and Nancy Drew here too!

It always bothered me that Nancy Drew blacked out so often. I hope she's seen a doctor about it!

[BrotherBuzz]

62. Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel

by Virginia Lee Burton

Mike Mulligan was sure that his steam shovel, Mary Anne, could dig more in one day than 100 men could dig in a week!

[CRK7376]

63. Mike Mulligan

and his Steamshovel Mary Ann!
I also loved the Hardy Boys Series....

[VelmaD]

65. King of the Wind...

I still have my copy and re-read it periodically. I loved books about horses. I also had the Little House books...I've been known to read Little House in the Big Woods when I'm sick to this day...it's like comfort food for my brain.

And I still have the hardback of Planet of the Apes that my mom got for me when I was about 11 or 12. Got me really started on a lifelong love of scifi. :)

[Left Is Write]

66. Comfort food for your brain...

I like that. And I understand. Sometimes I reread childhood books for the same reason, and that includes the Little House books. Little House In The Big Woods and Farmer Boy were my favorites. I loved the vivid descriptions, especially of meals and holidays.

[medeak]

67. Black Stallion series by Walter Farley

am old and that's about all there was... (predating movie) besides the boring Bobsey Twins

[R. A. Fuqua]

68. I loved all these books!

I read all the time as a child (I was a rather sickly child--so I stayed in and read a lot--now that I am an adult--I am a hunky athletic type to make up for a childhood spent indoors).

My favorite book of all time (children's) Anita Feagle's classic "KC the utterly impossible horse"

[enigmatic]

69. I loved the "Afred Hitchcock And The Three Investigators" books..

Had them all any read them many, many times. I started collecting the Whitman "teen mysteries" books that came out in their heyday from 45-70; I originally got sucked into the "Brains Benton" books a couple of years ago and it started my quest!

[Chauga]

70. Where The Wild Things Are

[shanti]

72. i was a bookworm

and had lots of favorites. some were:

three little horses, whitey, blackie, and brownie (lol)

the boxcar kids
the red, green, blue, purple, etc. fairy tales
the oz books, all of 'em
edgar rice burroughs - tarzan, john carter of mars (yes, i was an escapist)
the mary poppins books
tolkien (as a teen)
little house on the prairie series
black beauty series
misty of chincoteague series (i was a horse lovin kid too)
trixie belden, nancy drew

so many more....