Books you read obsessively as a child

[InternalDialogue]

These were my two. I must have read each ten times or more, sometimes one after the other after the other...

[MorningGlow]

1. Nancy Drew

Encyclopedia Brown, Cherry Ames (yeah my library had some oldies), Judy Blume. OBSESSIVELY. Repeatedly. Wore out my library card several times (back when they were made of heavy paper).

[InternalDialogue]

2. Encyclopedia Brown was also one of my favorites.

I'm sure the school librarian probably wished she could have just set aside a series of those just for my use.

[Rabrrrrrr]

14. I loved Encyclopedia Brown! And also the Three Investigators when I got older.

Always hated the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, though - tried reading their books, and found them unreadable.

[WCGreen]

20. EB was so cool. I wanted to be EB....

I loved the garage lab...

[The Doctor.]

25. Yep... that and "The Mad Scientist's Club".

Great stuff.
http://www.madscientistsclub.com/

[Richard Steele]

80. Yes, yes, a thousand times YES!!!

The Mad Scientists'Club made me the man I am today!

The eccentric, socially awkward man I am today.

I regret NOTHING.

[The Doctor.]

87. My favorite was when...

They went to an auction to buy an old two-man submarine. They only had a few dollars... and they managed to reverse the auction and bid the price down to 50¢.

Just brilliant stuff. I'll bet most of DU has a childhood steeped in literature.

[Richard Steele]

136. That episode, although not my favorite, mentioned a fantasy-world that I still visit in my dreams.

The "Junkyard"....

The local junkyard that they went to in that story.
The junkyard where a WWII-surplus Lexan Bomber Gun-pod cowling
was just lying around waiting to be purchased for pennies...

If there is a HEAVEN, that junkyard is just across the tracks from it.

[The Doctor.]

141. What a treasure trove!

Ah, to be a kid with some tools in a place like that.

Heck... What are you doin' this weekend?

Let's go!

[peruban]

168. Ditto here.

I use to love Encyclopedia Brown.

[Skittles]

3. anything by Enid Blyton

[livetohike]

11. "Misty of Chincoteague", and I read and re-read the Nancy Drew

series and Trixie Belden series. We didn't have a library in my town when I was young, but the county bookmobile came around every Wednesday and my dad would drive me down to it in the evenings every week :-). I loved to read.

[TZ]

57. Trixie Belden!

I loved those books..I read Nancy Drew too..AND a lot of Margarat Henry, not Just "Misty",.."Sea Star" , "Stormy" etc...

[PassingFair]

79. Do you think Trixie was gay?

She and Honey sure spent a lot of time
at the swimming hole....

[livetohike]

102. Maybe. I just loved her - more than Nancy Drew

:-)

[PassingFair]

106. I preferred her to Nancy Drew, too.

She was more my age and more of a "tomboy".
(I had 3 brothers...)

[livetohike]

101. I forgot about "Sea Star" and "Stormy" - but it was "Misty" that I wore

out :-). :hi:

[WinkyDink]

133. LOVED TB! Bought replacements on e-Bay!

[Diana Prince]

59. I loved Trixie Belden, as an adult I recently started to reread them.

My mother still has my old books. We would often spend a month at my grandparents every summer and my grandfather was a huge fan of Zane Grey. I admired my grandfather so much that I would read his collection whenever we would visit.

[livetohike]

103. That's really nice that your mom has your old books

I think my younger brothers disposed of mine while I was away at college :-(.

[AlCzervik]

4. Are you there God, it's me Margaret, Little house on the prairie books and there

were 2 my dad had, one was about Idi Amin and the other was about Jonestown, those 2 were like a car wrecks for me, i didn't want to look but i couldn't stop myself.

[Rabrrrrrr]

5. "How To Save People From Themselves" and "Not From A Jedi" by Palpatine

[Rabrrrrrr]

6. And of course, at the Ayn Rand Daycare center, we read Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged repeatedly

[InternalDialogue]

9. Were there even caretakers at the ARDC?

I imagine any type of oversight or guidance would have been frowned upon.

[Rabrrrrrr]

13. No, it was just acres of wild forest we were dropped in and in 6 months were picked up

[cemaphonic]

28. Did they have posters reading:

"A" is for "A"?

[mnhtnbb]

143. What! Ayn Rand didn't believe in children.

[Rabrrrrrr]

148. Well, it was technically "The Ayn Rand Parasite Bootstrap Pulling Parent-Freeing Survival Camp"

my therapist told me it's best to think of it as Day Care; doing so keeps on this side of the edge.

[Tikki]

7. "Tale of Two Cities"....Dickens

"The Time Machine"....Wells
"The Martian Chronicles" and "The Illustrated Man"...Bradbury
"Flowers For Algernon"...Keyes
and once a year, since 1967, I read this book to my husband....first book we ever bought together.

"The Butterfly Kid"....Anderson

Tikki

[Dr Fate]

8. I didnt really read them, and I always had to put them back under Dad's matress b/f he got home. n/t

n/t

[Rabrrrrrr]

10. And of course, "Why Are You Reading, You Should Be Working" by Blanck and Harris

[laylah]

12. My Grandmother was librarian

in our little town so it is hard to say. Nancy Drew, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, all of the Norah Lofts books, oh, and "Forever Amber", the book gram kept under the counter :rofl:

[crimsonblue]

15. I dint read...

all my nahledge cam from tht fncy televisionary machine.

[XemaSab]

16. Narnia, My Side of the Mountain, Lois Lowry, Beverly Cleary

How to Stay Alive in the Woods, Lord of the Flies, Maya: Riddle and Rediscovery of a Lost Civilization, Tamora Pierce.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head.

[Lyric]

17. Susan Cooper, "The Dark is Rising" series. Also, Lord of the Rings.

And those silly "Sweet Valley High" books, when I wanted "fluff."

:hi:

[Rabrrrrrr]

18. Stuart Little I loved a lot. Also a series with a couple kids, maybe brother and sister,

or maybe two boys - it was mostly about the one boy, but the family were generally around - and the books were about trips they made and the stuff the kid discovered. I don't remember any of their names, or the names of the books, but in book they'd gone out west and went to a river or some place where tourists could pan for gold, and he found a good sized chunk of gold.

I don't think there were any necessarily bad things that happened, like in the some of the kids' detective books - I think these were fairly plain Jane kinds of adventures.

Anyone know what books I'm talking about? I would have read those in third or fourth grade, if memory serves.

[Rabrrrrrr]

19. And my all-time favorite and most influential: Pippi Longstocking.

God, I loved her stories!

I think she had a lot of influence on me.

[XemaSab]

68. My dog is named Pippi

She killed a man once.

[Arugula Latte]

73. I loved the Pippi!

And I was extremely jealous of her because she had her own Appaloosa horse.

[WCGreen]

21. They ruined My Side of the Mountain

when they made the movie with that really horrible child actor.

I loved the book.

I also loved From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler....

And, my favorite book series Gone Away Lake...

Then, all of a sudden, I read Jaws and my whole world changed...

I forgot about A Wrinkle In Time...

[PassingFair]

27. Made my post, below, before I read yours....

:hi:

[WCGreen]

75. That was such a cool book...

Did you happen to see the made for TVmovie with Lauren Bacall?

[PassingFair]

78. YEARS later...

The way those kids were able to fend for themselves
made me feel more secure in myself at that age.

It made me feel that I had untapped resources.

[Art_from_Ark]

163. OK, this has been bugging me for a long time

Was the statue in "From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler" really a Michaelangelo?

[MrsBrady]

22. the "box car" kids series n/t

[skooooo]

90. I remember that book..

They read it to us in school. Nice memory.

[surrealAmerican]

23. Wordless Workshop.

It was a book of woodworking projects in cartoon form. I loved that book.

[mokawanis]

24. Old Yeller and The Phantom Tollbooth

read both of them over and over. Also, To Kill A Mockingbird.

[PassingFair]

26. Anything by E.L. Konigsburg...

Reading them made me feel grown-up and EMPOWERED.

[KatyaR]

29. "Karen" and "With Love From Karen" by Marie Killilea.

I loved those books (still do). I wanted to be in that family--lots of kids, big house, lots of friends and relatives. It's funny now, though, looking back, that they survived on one income and that their daughters never finished college because they wanted to learn how to be a good wife and mother (not that there's anything wrong with that, I just never knew anybody who quit college to move home specifically to learn how to take care of a house and a baby). There's a Yahoo group dedicated to these books, and the Killileas have had a lot of tragedy in the last 20 or so years--turns out their lives were not as perfect as we were led to believe.

I think I'm on my third set of these books, and I know I wore the out the ones from the public library. To this day, I actually have entire passages memorized and can recall them with no problem.

[MassLiberal]

159. OMG, I have never heard anyone else mention these books!

My grandmother was a special ed teacher back in the '60s when I was little, and she had these books as well as "Wren," which was another book about Karen. They were the only books in my grandparents' house that I was at all interested in, and I read them every time I visited. I'm going to go check out that Yahoo group -- thanks for mentioning it!

[Arugula Latte]

30. Some I read repeatedly (I was a horse nut):

[Arugula Latte]

49. and some others:

[buzzycrumbhunger]

107. Aha--horse nut also

Obviously, many of us were limited by whatever was offered at the yearly book fair at elementary school. I always bought all the horsey ones. I read everything in our library at home, though, too. By fourth grade, my brother allowed me to hide away in his room with Black Sabbath and his giant box of sword & sworcery books (i.e. Conan the Barbarian in the wayyyy pre-Ahnuld days).

The ones I read to death, though, were all things Tolkein. I had a mad crush on Legolas. I don't know what was more disturbing to me when the movies came out--that he was blond or that I was salivating over someone probably my son's age. . . Much less creepy and pathetic when I was a fifth grader. :eyes:

[Arugula Latte]

117. I used to go to the library and check out every horse book I could get my hands on.

I read most of those suckers at least a few times ... All the Marguerite Henry books, the Patsy Gray series, Black Beauty, My Friend Flicka, Smoky the Cowhorse, The Black Stallion series, etc., etc., and then some Scholastic titles I ordered like "A Pony for the Winter" and "The Flint Hills Foal,""Becky's Horse," etc. I still have some of those books, as well as my collection of Breyer horses. My daughter isn't as enamored of horses as I was, which is fine, because I had way too many scary things happen to me with horses, which I posted about here last night in the "near death experiences" thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=105&topic_id=8243175&mesg_id=8243565

[SeattleGirl]

31. Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys books.

I loved them!

[VenusRising]

32. Does age matter?

I read the same books over and over when I was in elementary school (k-4). When I got to junior high, I would only read a book once. There are actually very few books that I have ever reread.

So my repeat childhood reads:



And anything Dr. Seuss.

[libnnc]

33. Where the Red Fern Grows

Our 4th grade teacher read it to us and it became a class favorite. We made him read it to us twice.

[Arugula Latte]

50. Oh, gawd, that book traumatized me.

:cry:

[Jade Fox]

111. Me too!

:cry:

[JTG of the PRB]

34. The Boxcar Children.

I had, like, 20 or 30 of those books, and I read them all multiple times.

[Sisaruus]

125. I so wanted to be a homeless orphan.

Now I want to go visit the Boxcar Children Museum in Putnam, CT.

[begin_within]

35. This one

My parents bought it and hid it in a drawer, but I snuck it out and read it in secret.

[grasswire]

36. Little House series, of course!

Who didn't love those, even prior to the television series?

[Arugula Latte]

52. Loved those ... Read all of them at least twice.

Strangely, even though I'm a girl, my favorite was "Farmer Boy." The Wilder family was more prosperous than the Ingalls, and I loved the food descriptions. I remember when 'Manzo had the roasting potato explode in his eye, when the kids blew up the pig (or sheep's?) bladder to play ball with, when the kids ate most of the sugar stock when the parents were away, when Almanzo was training the oxen calves, and when Almanzo threw a (tar?) brush at his sister and it left a big stain on the wall, which his other sister fixed by cutting out leftover wallpaper to fit over the mark.

[susanna]

65. As a huge LIW fan, I totally agree with you re: "Farmer Boy."

And the food descriptions are the reason, just like you stated. Damn, I want some fried apples and onions. Maybe some mincemeat pie (which I actually hate, but she made it sound good) LOL.

Great vacation DH and I took several years ago. We packed up our white van and traced LIW's path, albeit out of order: Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, Kansas, Missouri. It was a great trip. DH had never read the books, so I read excerpts from her books at each stop so he got some of the history. He still says it was the most informative trip he ever took. He's not much of a reader. :-)

on edit: dangling hyphen...hate that.

[Arugula Latte]

66. Wow ... That sounds like a great trip.

The Ingalls/Wilders also liked their pie ... Just like Obama! :) (Although I do recall when Laura made a pie and forgot to put sugar in it. The hired hand had to lift the crust up and put sugar on his own piece. Laura was mortified. That must have been "The First Four Years.)

:hi:

[susanna]

67. Ding Ding Ding, you are correct - it was "The First Four Years."

And the pie ingredient, by her writing, was called "pieplant." In my culinary wanderings over the years, it seems that it translates to rhubarb. Rhubarb w/o sugar would be a lip-puckering nightmare. I can't even imagine the astringency LOL.

The trip was a last minute idea, born after re-reading a few of the books (my goddaughter was really into them at the time). I wanted to take some pictures to make LIW's history more real for her. DH and I had just gotten married, and when I gave him the general idea, he said (and I quote) "Who is Laura Ingalls Wilder?" I made my case by reading some of the better passages of books (from all targeted states) to him. He ended up loving the trip, which was good for me. :-)

on edit: another dangling hyphen, dang it

[EFerrari]

128. But the Ingalls had a better sense of humor!

:)

[LibertyLover]

37. The Lost Queen of Egypt

It was a novel about Ankhesenpaaten, 3rd daughter of the pharaoh Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti. She married Tutankhaten. I must have taken that book out of my elementary school library 10 or 12 times, at least 2 or 3 times a year from 4th to 6th grade. A few years ago I went on Alibrus and bought my own copy for $60. I haven't re-read it yet, but one of these days, I'll read it to my daughter and hope that she enjoys it like I did.

[grasswire]

38. oh, and the Beverly Cleary books

Ramona the Pest
Henry and Beezus

Etc.

[Jade Fox]

113. Loved her.....

Also her book "Fifteen".

[suninvited]

39. Softly roars the lion.

I loved that book.

[DarkTirade]

40. ... mostly Star Wars.

Yeah, I'm a geek. :P

Actually I had a lot of books I read obsessively, but that was mostly because I read ALL THE GODDAMNED TIME, and the local library was a really long walk in the Florida heat away.

[blockhead]

41. the Doc Savage series

[Lil Missy]

42. Encyclopedia Brown. n/t

[WolverineDG]

43. The Little House books, anything by Lois Lenski, Betsy-Tacy & Tib

Also the biographies that described the childhoods of famous people, which I discovered are still around at B&N, same illustrations, just different covers.

dg

[grasswire]

64. Did you ever read the Moffats books?

About children of the depression. Hard times.

[WolverineDG]

97. I may have, but can't remember

I did read a series of books about a family of Jewish kids growing up in New York City. I can't recall what the series was called though, but one of the girls was named "Sarah," & when it was her birthday, her uncle said it meant "Princess" & gave her some jewelry.

dg

[Hannah Bell]

167. all-of-a-kind family?

[DeepBlueC]

44. Robinson Crusoe; Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea; Sherlock Holmes

also Swiss Family Robinson

[sakabatou]

45. Animorphs

Any Gen-Yer still remember this series?

[gabby garcia]

46. Chronicles of Narnia

At the Back of the North Wind

David Copperfield

[reyd reid reed]

47. Mine when I was in...third grade, I think

and then, in sixth grade there were two:




and



I'd read them all over and over and over and over...read the last page, turn the book over and start it again.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

48. Bambi and Little Women

Having the same birthday as Alcott led to feeling like she was a kindred spirit.

[Lorien]

61. Did you ever read "Bambi's Children" or "Perri"?

I loved those books.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

62. I read Bambi's Children once...

but I'm not familiar with Perri. Is it another sequel?

[Lorien]

85. Perri is about a squirrel

Disney turned it into a feature using live animal footage in the 1960s. It was Felix Salten's second biggest seller in Germany, and one of my favorites as a kid.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

96. Neat!

I'll have to see if I can find a copy for my son.

[RandomThoughts]

51. Lots of books

I use to read my dads sci-fi books, especially liked short story collections. Hugo award collections, Nova short story collections. I could always find them in used book stores, lots of good stories.

And of coarse I always liked
Harry Harrison's
The Stainless Steel Rat
;) :hi:

(edit: for the interpreters, learning is taking what is good, and ignoring what you don't believe, or what goes against your morals. Being owned is excepting everything from someone. I try to do that when I read, even stories with contradictory tails.)

[RandomThoughts]

130. Its odd to reply to your own post,

but the Harry Harrison books taught me a different perspective then I believe, for me it is a rational some use to explain what I believe is something else.

For example some believe in time travel, I believe its not travel back in time, its preping things that will come. I believe God has complete knowledge of what will be, so he prepares the way for people, not by changing the past but by knowing the future. I think lots of these books teach me of what others think, more then reinforce what I think.

I also do not agree with the moral interpretations of the characters, but see some of those beliefs in the world.

[NNadir]

53. Table of Integrals, Series, and Products, Gradshteyn Ryzhik.

[luv_mykatz]

54. I still love to read.

I read Black Beauty, many times. Wore out the copy my mom gave me. The Wind in the Willows. Nancy Drew mysteries, and later Mary Stewart mysteries.

Thank you to the poster who mentioned The Lost Queen of Egypt. I borrowed it from the school library in the 5th grade. I've often tried to remember what that book's title was. I loved it too!

[harmonicon]

55. "three investigators" books

No titles in particular. I just loved them.

[Connonym]

71. Alfred Hitchcock and the 3 investigators?

I loved those! Anything by Madeline L'Engle or any of the Anne of Green Gables books. I actually still re-read the Anne books every couple years.

[harmonicon]

92. yep, those ones

Though the three investigators franchise continued after Hitchcock died. The old ones had his silhouette on the spine, and the later ones had a key hole. I don't know if they're still making new ones, but they were into the 80's when I was reading them.

I've always been to boyish to have read Anne of Green Gables, but my sister loves it, so I saw the tv adaptations dozens of times as a kid. I mean, she really loves it. She went on her honeymoon to Prince Edward Island because of it.

[UndertheOcean]

56. "Coming up for air" by orwell

I was a weird kid

[skooooo]

89. never heard of that book!

I love Orwell though, how did I miss it. What's it about?

[UndertheOcean]

104. It is mainly about a childhood in England between the two world wars

It's his best novel , in my humble opinion

[skooooo]

122. Have you read "Down and Out in Paris and London?"

...and Burmese Days?

I haven't read a lot of his essays, but I'll have to look this book up for sure.

Thanks!

[UndertheOcean]

127. Yes , I like those books much more than the more famous

1984 and Animal Farm !

[MassLiberal]

58. My Side of the Mountain

and Stuart Little (all-time fave)

Also loved Encyclopedia Brown.

OH -- and the D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Mythology!!!! ***swoon***

[Lorien]

60. The Prydain Chonicles by Lloyd Alexander

and various books by Felix Saltan.

[susanna]

63. Loved "My Side of the Mountain."

It appealed to a survival spirit in me. Of course, that leads into my other faves from that time: Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House" series. I just found stories like those compelling. How to survive in an inhospitable world. Came in handy, LOL.

[Danger Mouse]

69. Boxcar children, Chronicles of Narnia, Uncle Remus' stories, The rats of NIMH...

Charlotte's Web, Stuart Little, a Wrinkle in Time...many things.

[Arugula Latte]

76. Oh, yeah, Rats of NIMH -- good one.

:thumbsup:

I read that several times.

[Danger Mouse]

77. Very interesting and moving story, and the movie based on it is one of my favorite animated movies..

and the best one Don Bluth ever made.

[JCMach1]

70. LOTR- Confession time (read it more than 30 times)

Runners-Up

Charlotte's Web
anything by Roald Dahl (Children's stuff that is... that guy was a FREAK!)

[amitten]

72. Jenny's Jungle.

A great book about a little girl who plays in her overgrown backyard, and it's like her own private world (or jungle).

[auntAgonist]

74. Trixie Belden series.

[MrSlayer]

81. The Hobbit.

There was a time when I could recite nearly the entire book word for word. That's how often I read it. I still read it at least once a year.

[Jamastiene]

82. For me, it was Swiss Family Robinson, Treasure Island, and The Fur Person.

I cannot get enough of those stories about adventures that take you away to other places.

[Awsi Dooger]

83. The Frank Gifford Story

At least 10 times in elementary school. The section I remember the most: Frank's finger hanging from a thread after a mining accident in Bakersfield, before he went to USC.

[WCIL]

84. The Finches' Fabulous Furnace

The All of a Kind Family series, Pippi, The Little House Books. As I got a little older, I discovered my all-time favorites - A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and To Kill a Mockingbird. I also read Gone With the Wind and Green Darkness every summer for about 20 years.

For some reason I also glommed on to Dorothy Eden's The Vines of Yarabee when I was 10, and still read it fairly regularly.

[Broken_Hero]

86. The Hardy Boys,

and the Lloyd Alexander books, which featured Taran...if memory serves, there was 5 books, one of which was the Black Cauldron(which I read 3 times) And the White Mountain series by John Christopher

[The Doctor.]

88. The Anarchist's Cookbook.

JK... that was the one my mom read to me before I could read... lotsa pictures.

[Bertha Venation]

91. The Great Brain

[IntravenousDemilo]

109. That was one of my faves as well! Good call! n/m

[SurfinBetty]

93. This kid runs away and builds all these weird houses

http://www.amazon.com/Andrew-Henrys-Meadow-Doris-Burn/dp/0970739923

It's called Andrew Henry's Meadow. There was another one about running away and living in a campground area.

[stewartcolbert08]

94. The Boxcar Children LOL

The first one ha ha

[lightningandsnow]

95. All the Baby-Sitter's Club books.

I owned at least 25 of them back in the day.

[Shardik]

98. To Kill a Mockingbird...

And damn, I just realized that I never really read any real "juvenile" books except the "I was there" series of semi-historical novels.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

99. The entire "Happy Hollisters" series from Doubleday.

They covered all of the bases with this one...it was "The Brady Bunch" before "The Brady Bunch," without the "widowed mom & dad bring their two families together" angle.

The father owned a sporting goods-slash-hardware store. There were five kids...two boys, three girls...who pretty much covered the high, low, and medium age demographic of any kids who would be reading the books. They went on Hardy Boys / Nancy Drew-styled "adventures." The set-up...descriptions of mom, dad, the kids, their environment...was repeated virtually word-for-word in every book of the 33-book series.



You joined a "club" and two of these books would come each month. I devoured them, reading them both within a couple of days.

When I moved to California I gave them to a neighbor who had a pre-school grandkid. Several years ago, out of nostalgia, I bought a couple from a used bookstore. They tried bringing the series back in the 80s...four brand-new reprints of books from the series...and I bought those out of nostalgia too, but they didn't sell and plans to re-release the whole series were scrapped.

:toast:

[Auggie]

160. This is weird. Me too. I must have read

The Happy Hollisters and the Haunted House Mystery a dozen times.

[electron_blue]

100. All the "Anne of Green Gables" books

[Deja Q]

105. Little Richard

[IntravenousDemilo]

108. All of the Doctor Dolittle books and all of Freddy the Pig books.

At least twice. They are superbly written and definitely not for students on the low end of the academic totem pole.

Oh yes, and the World Book Encyclopedia that was at our local library branch. I devoured it. I was reading that when my sister-in-law informed me that my dad had died that morning.

[FloridaJudy]

114. I *loved* Freddy the Pig!

Are those books still available?

I was obsessively fixated on Sherlock Holmes as an older child: I must have read every short story and novel at least three times.

[IntravenousDemilo]

116. I assume they still are. I don't think they've gone out of print.

Or if they have, there's always eBay. I really enjoyed the illustrations, too.

What was your favourite? Mine was "Freddy and the Bean Home News", but "Freddy and the Ignormus" (sic) and "Freddy Goes to Florida" are also in my top 5.

[FloridaJudy]

121. I just checked with Amazon

The "Freddy the Pig" books were recently reissued, after being out of print for long time. I think "Freddy and the Spaceship" and "Freddy the Detective" were my favorites, but then I've always been a mystery and science fiction fan.

[LWolf]

110. My Side of the Mountain...

I'm 48, and if I could, I'd STILL go live in a tree on a mountain. I've spent a lifetime envying Sam.

And these:

Gone Away Lake, Elizabeth Enright

The Hobbit and LOTR

All of Walter Farley's horse stories

[Kutjara]

112. I was obsessed with "My Side of the Mountain."

I read the book countless times and saw the movie even more. I remember pestering my parents to buy me a pair of gloves like the ones in the cover photo, until my dad relented and got me some lineman's gloves that looked (to my young eyes) the same. I wore them everywhere, even sleeping in them, until the insides must have smelled like a whale's armpit (flipperpit?).

[musette_sf]

115. the "Shoes" books by Noel Streatfeild

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballet_Shoes_(novel)

The Ship That Flew, by Hilda Lewis
http://www.amazon.com/Ship-That-Flew-Hilda-Lewis/dp/0875990673

Edward Eager's Magic series
http://blog.wired.com/geekdad/2008/07/the-geekly-read.html

Andrew Lang's Coloured Fairy Books
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Lang's_Fairy_Books

and for some bizarre reason:
http://miracleatcarville.blogspot.com/

[krispos42]

118. The books of the "Conrad Stargard" series by Leo Frankowski

I got the first three at a church book sale read them compulsively. Picked up the 4th book later on and read those quite a bit as well.


Also Star Trek novels. I re-read those quite a bit.

Plus Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, and The Three Investigators.


Later on it was Harry Turtledove and William Forstchen.

[leeroysphitz]

119. Dune, Dragon Riders of Pern. Crap like that.

I think I read some "Great Brain" stuff when I was really young.

[midnight armadillo]

147. Dune isn't crap

I re-read it every 4 or so years, although I pass on the rest of the series, having done that once.

The Pern stuff is crap, I'll give you that.

[leeroysphitz]

154. Meh.

Yo! Gabba Gabba.

[sohndrsmith]

120. any and everything by Walt Kelly. This addiction started years earlier than

my teens, and has yet to let up. Long overdue for a fix.

[yellowdogintexas]

123. Bobbsey Twins and Nancy Drew *the OLD ones, I was born in 1948. Also a couple

of Louisa May Alcott's lesser known novels: Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom. Must have read them every summer for years. Tom Sawyer, Treasure Island,

oh and we had a big book of Scandinavian Fairy tales, "East of the Sun and West of the Moon" that I devoured, along with The Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson although his were so damn dark ...

[DeposeTheBoyKing]

124. The Bobbsey Twins, Misty of Chincoteague, War and Peace, Ulysses

Okay, just kidding about the first two. :rofl:

[Bluzmann57]

126. "Tom Sawyer" and "The Hardy Boys"

Grew up in a Mississippi River town and damn sure wanted to try making a raft to float away. It didn't work once my mom found out about it.
Joe and Frank Hardy were all American boys who solved mysteries. Sounded pretty good to me.

[tigereye]

129. Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, The Happy Hollisters

actually, I read constantly as a kid- reading was an obsession.

[SoxFan]

131. The Necronomicon

Ah, childhood memories of summoning Old Ones. Good memories...

[InvisibleTouch]

132. The Jungle Book, the Black Stallion series, anything with Dinosaurs...

...and the book I seemed to read over and over, "For Love of a Horse" by Patricia Leitch. I just found out there were sequels!! Oooh, now I have to get on the search.

I also had "My Side of the Mountain," only read it once, though. :) I always thought it would be fun to try out that adventure for myself, but somehow never got around to it.

[Arugula Latte]

144. Oh my gosh! "For Love of a Horse" -- I had that book ...

Read it several times ... Wow, I'd forgotten that one. :hi:

[InvisibleTouch]

155. That's the same version I have...

...same cover. :) Mine came from one of those book-order forms we used to get in grade school. That was always a big day, when the teacher would hand out the book order forms. I remember squabbling with my mother over which books I could order, there was a definite price-limit ... but when I found one of those forms again years later, I saw that most of them cost like 25-30 cents. Anything over a dollar was a monster purchase, and was exceedingly rare.

I eventually got rid of most of those kids' books that I ordered in school, but I kept "For Love of a Horse."

[Arugula Latte]

162. Yep ... That was probably from "Scholastic"

That's where I got mine ... Funny, my daughter was just filling out a Scholastic book order form today.

[WinkyDink]

134. Swiss Family Robinson, A Child's History of the World, & the Golden Book Encyclopedia.

[vard28]

135. Everything

I would read anything and everything. In elementary school I read Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys, but had a collection of Edgar Allen Poe stories that I wore out. Tell-Tale Heart is still one of my favorite stories.

[enigmatic]

137. 2 from age 11

[stuntcat]

138. Watership Down

I read it 3 times.. it's maybe part of why I don't respect the humans too much for killing off the rest of the planet.

I wish I could go back to being the sad little kid though.. I wish I could un-learn what I've learned since then.

[azmouse]

139. Little Women, and the Little House on the Pairie series.

[blueraven95]

140. many that have already been mentioned, and...

The Wrinkle in Time series by Madeline L'Engle - particularly "A Swiftly Tilting Planet"
anything by Diana Wynne Jones
"The Little Princess" and "The Secret Garden"
"The Hobbit"
"The Mushroom Planet" books
"Danny Dunn and the Electric House"
anything by E. Nesbit and Edward Eager
the Tripod books, particularly "When the Tripods Came"
...there's more, but that's it off the top of my head.

I was (and still am) a voracious reader, and I often re-read books. I just moved and found in storage a few boxes of books from my childhood, and I've been re-reading some - "Deerskin" by Robin McKinley (but that's really slightly later than childhood), The Shoes books (I also saw a BBC film adaptation of "Ballet Shoes" just recently that was quite good), and Tamora Pierce's "Alanna" quartet.

[mnhtnbb]

142. The Oz Books. Starting with The Wizard of Oz. I still had about 10 of them

in my library that were destroyed when our house burned down a year ago. Had those books for 45+ years.

[trueblue2007]

145. All of the LITTLE HOUSE books. Also the books by Beverly Cleary

Beezus and Ramona

Henry Huggins

Ribsy

Henry and Ribsy

[Burma Jones]

146. I read a lot......I didn't care for fiction though, well except for the first item listed.....

The King James Bible



The World Book Encyclopedia




American Heritage Illustrated History of the Civil War




The Pictorial Encyclopedia of American History


And whatever Anatomy and Disease Textbooks my Med Student Father had lying around.......

[LynneSin]

149. "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and "Fantastic Mr. Fox"

I loved those books. And George Clooney is doing the voice of "Fantastic Mr. Fox" - should be great

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0432283/

[kick-ass-bob]

153. I forgot about The Fantastic Mr Fox!

I loved the Dahl books.

Danny, the Champion of the World
James and the Giant Peach
etc etc

[SOteric]

150. Dickens

And yes, I read it as a child. I read David Copperfield the first time when I was 10. I also read anything by Asimov.

[LaraMN]

151. Weirdly, these:

(an older edition of this- I thought fetuses were really fascinating):



I also obsessively read our household A-Z medical guide, and now have a bizarre knowledge of random health ailments like strabismus, otitis media, and various disgusting skin conditions.


:crazy:

[PBS Poll-435]

166. I memorized the 1991 Physicians Desk Reference

I was 9.

[MrCoffee]

152. The Westing Game and the Foundation novels

[Mike 03]

156. The World According to Garp

I collected copies of it, and began to separate it into chapters, and then to study each chapter and what it meant, and then to count pages in each chapter, and then words in each chapter.

I never thought about that until today. Maybe there are some qualified psychologists here who can tell me what made me do that.

[RFKHumphreyObama]

157. I doubt you are going to believe this but here goes

First political autobiography I remember reading -at the age of ten



Yes, I did start my early political years as a conservative. What makes you ask?:)

[Arugula Latte]

165. That's just ... wrong.

It's funny enough that you'd read that kind of a book at age 10, but especially one about ... Nancy Reagan? :rofl:

[RFKHumphreyObama]

170. I was fascinated with the Reagans

I practically idol-worshipped them in those days -I got Ronald Reagan's autobiography given to me as my Christmas present that year. I also wrote the Reagans a letter telling them how wonderful they were and received an autographed picture in response

Mind you, that year was the same year that I was enthusiastically backing Clarence Thomas for the Supreme Court :puke: and I would briefly support Pat Buchanan's bid for the presidency a year later:puke:. Looking back on where my political views were at the time, it all seems bizarre but it made sense then

[AwakeAtLast]

158. "The Outsiders" and "Bugs in Your Ears"

Also the "North and South" trilogy.

Many of the ones listed, too.

[gemdem]

161. White Fang

and My Side of the Mountain

[PBS Poll-435]

164. The Boxcar Children

I read them RELIGIOUSLY.

Couldn't wait for the next edition...

[peruban]

169. I'm embarrased to say I used to love Judy Bloom novels.

I also read "The Hobbit" half a dozen times. Oh, and Frank Herbert's "Dune" series.