books books books

[mrstotten]

Ok anyone who knows me, knows that I have a love affair with books that is almost unhealthy :P but the last couple of days have gotten me thinking of the books of my childhood. My son loves books almost as much as me and has always had a story at bedtime, now that he is getting older, we are moving onto the more fun books, Roald Dahl, the Chronicles of Narnia etc. At the moment we are reading the BFG and that is what is prompting this post.

I LOVE IT, as in i'm getting excited at bedtime to get to the next chapter, for the first time EVER he is getting to con me out of more than one chapter each night. I love Sophie, I love the BFG, his nonsensical words, his down to earth attitude to giants eating human beings or as he calls them beans. Every single night we are laughing and getting caught up in this story and it is like falling in love with a book and I remember that as a child (as an adult there have been a couple of books, Frankenstein, the HP series, the Demons Lexicon series, persusaion etc that I have fallen in love with) but as a child I devoured books like food. I fell in love with the worlds of Narnia and Middle Earth and with characters like Pippi Longstocking and Anne Shirly.

So my question to you my dear flist is

What books did you adore as a child and why? what made them special, have you reread them as an adult, are they still as good?

Comments

[macbyrne.livejournal.com]

I loved the Narnia books, and Charlie & The Chocolate Factory, but probably my favorite was White Fang. I don't know how many times I read it, or how many times I forced my poor beleagured beagle to play the part of White Fang, as we traversed the frozen North (my neighborhood playground, LOL). I've re-read it as an adult, and love it just as much now as I did then.

[mrstotten.livejournal.com]

White Fang, for some reason I remember that in comic form? no idea why.

What age group is it for? as my son may like it, he loves Narnia and Charlie and the Chocolate factory and omg loves the Great Glass Elevator

[goth-clark.livejournal.com]

I was a big fan of horses growing up so anything with horses like Black Beauty, Misty, and the Black Stallion. I read them a lot and I still own my copies. I liked animal stories a lot.

[mrstotten.livejournal.com]

BLACK BEAUTY!!!!! OMG LOVE LOVE LOVE

that was one of my favourite stories EVER

[captainpixie.livejournal.com]

As a child The Narnia book's, my Mum and Grandad used to read them to me and The Hobbit. My Mum got me hooked on Tolkin at a very young age and even re-reading both set's of book's as an adult I adore them.

[mrstotten.livejournal.com]

I loved the hobbit but dont think I read it till my teens, the Narnia books god I loved them, Do you have a fav? I loved Prince Caspian and The Last Battle

[just-ruth.livejournal.com]

I still have a much battered Dover Books copy of "The Wonder Clock or Four & Twenty Marvelous Tales being one for each hour of the Day" by Howard and Katherine Pyle. These are old tales, romances, beast fables and quests that I still love.

I recently had a chance to find another copy of a wonderful book I enjoyed as a child - Robin Hood: Prince of Outlaws by Alexandre Dumas pere.

I never could wrap my head around the French court politics of the three Musketeers but I adored Robin Hood. Always have.

[mrstotten.livejournal.com]

oooooo haven't read any of these, think I might look them up hon :D

[cowboyangel.livejournal.com]

I loved The Shoe Books (Ballet Shoes, Theatre Shoes...) I was also a big fan of Judy Blume and Bevelry Cleary.

BOOKS!!!

[mrstotten.livejournal.com]

omg the Shoe stories!!!!!!! I just recently found copies of them in my local charity shop, aren't they the ones they made a film about with Emma Granger?

LOVED those

[autumn-lilacs.livejournal.com]

Hmm...I read a lot when I was a kid, but the book that sticks out most in my mind is A Wrinkle In Time. It could be that I had to defend it to my 6th grade English teacher who had seen it and made a disparaging remark that it wasn't a "classic" and sent me home with Little Women to read in its place. I didn't like it as much as my book :P

I would read anything, though. I used to read my mother's college textbooks if I ran out of good books to read, lol.

[mrstotten.livejournal.com]

your icon has captivated me with it's prettiness!!!!!!

You have mentioned that book (and as you can see down below so have others) definately going to look this one up

Was never a Little Woman fan really, it's good and all but still so many better books

[autumn-lilacs.livejournal.com]

Dita, FTW!

Little Women was my Mom's favorite book. I thought I'd like it because she said that's where my name came from, but then I really disliked Amy and was offended. She said her favorite was Beth or Jo (can't remember) but she liked Amy's name best.

[luveskane.livejournal.com]

I remember loving Brer Rabbit and Harold and the purple crayon all through grade school .Then I read a lot of Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys as well as Boxcar kids.I also remember having The Neverending Story and read that more then once before it was made into a movie, My copy was very well used and I think I still have it to this day.

[mrstotten.livejournal.com]

I loved the never ending film but dont think ive ever read the book, does it end ? :P

oh and also in other news as you are watching Glee I think I should watch TWD, thoughts?

[luveskane.livejournal.com]

The book is excellent, I highly recommend it! Sadly its misleading since it does end lmao.

Ohhh That sounds like a great idea ;) Now I just need to find Glee online to watch somewhere lol.

[tabularassa.livejournal.com]

Where The Wild Things Are was a standout for me. I remember my kindergarten teacher reading it to us in class one day, and after that, it was love:) ♥

Also, A Wrinkle in Time. MAJOR standout;)

[mrstotten.livejournal.com]

A second shout out for Wrinkle in time, definitely going on the list. Where the wild things are is a classic and so funny my friend ames (autumn_lilacs) mentioned a Winkle in time and I know she is also a fan of wild things, you two should pow wow also like us, she loves maharet_83 :D

[autumn-lilacs.livejournal.com]

Ha, actually my first tat was going to be a 'Where the Wild Things Are' one. My brother has 3 of the scenes on his back :-)

[tabularassa.livejournal.com]

*butts in* Wow, I bet that is one amazing tat your brother has!

[mrstotten.livejournal.com]

yay you found each other :)

Of course that is because awesome gravitates to awesome :) and the person who also loves Ames is Margareth who is also awesome :D

[tabularassa.livejournal.com]

Hee! Thanks, lovely;) And you are VERY awesome yourself! ♥

[autumn-lilacs.livejournal.com]

LOL, there is no such thing as butting in, just joining the conversation ;)

My brother is a really big dude, and it's actually 3 tattoos (kinda like a comic strip). When he got married we had to force him to keep his suit jacket on because they kept showing through both his suit shirt & a tank. "I know it's hot, but The Wild Rumpus just doesn't match the beautiful white flowers that your wife picked to grace the altar. I promise you can take it off right after the ceremony." :D (I'm a lying liar who lies because I made him keep it on until after pictures.)

I want Max chasing the dog with a fork for mine!

And I think Mags was referring to maharet83, but I'm not sure.

[tabularassa.livejournal.com]

LOL

That's awesome:)

As is Max chasing the dog with the fork!

Ah, yes! Maharet is amazing. Love her to death. ♥

[tabularassa.livejournal.com]

Yay! And yes, it is totally a classic:)

She loves who? LJ messed up! :D

♥

[nachekana.livejournal.com]

I think the book I read the most when I was a kid was the first "Black Stallion". I loved the entire collection of course but the first one was my ultimate favorite. Haven't reread it though.

And I remember loving the "Flicka" series too. Funny how much I enjoyed those books because I didn't even like horses in RL. Not that I disliked them either, they just didn't interest me at all.

I also really liked the "Little House in the prairie" ones. I liked their historical aspect and that it was a true story.

[mrstotten.livejournal.com]

Wait Nat you can read!!!!! oh but yes of course, I get it, you taught yourself to read for the porn?????


and your love affair with horses was a precurser to your future obsession with beasitality? yes???? dont like you read Dean/Dinosaur :P

[nachekana.livejournal.com]

Nah, I'm not into Dean/Bull, but I do have an unofficial OTP: Jensen/Hartley!

[five-of-five.livejournal.com]

Little did you know when you posted this that my mother collects children's books and has floor-to-ceiling shelves double stacked with them...so I'm going to have to physically restrain my urge to squeel with glee and write you an essay. Naturally the classics like "Anne of Green Gables", "The Secret Garden", "A Little Princess", "Little Women" and "The Wind in the Willows" will stand the test of time and I love them. So let's genre it up a bit:

Fantasy: Obviously "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings' must go on any list of favorite books from my childhood. Along with "The Chronicles of Narnia" and "The Harry Potter"s. Pretty much everything written by Edward Eager ("Half Magic", "Knight's Castle", "Magic by the Lake" and the rest of that series), E. Nesbit ("The Five Children and It", "The Railway Children" although it's not a fantasy book, "The Enchanted Castle") and Madeleine L'Engle ("A Wrinkle in Time" and the rest of that series). I also adore "The Gammage Cup" which had a "Muggle" in it long before Harry Potter :P. Two more would be "The Sherwood Ring" and "The Perilous Guard" by Elizabeth Marie Pope, they're girl adventure/coming of age/meets history, mystery and magic.

And this list wouldn't be complete (not that it is anyway) without the "Redwall" books by Brian Jacques. When we were little my mom would turn off the TV and we'd all sit around together in the living room and she'd read them to us, she did different voices for all the characters. The moles were a kind of grumble/mumble voice, like the earth almost and the hares sounded like RAF pilots from old war movies, everyone had their own voice and they were all great. Honestly they could suck and I'd still love them for sentimental reasons alone, but I really do still enjoy reading them as an adult.

Mystery/Adventure: While Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys are usually what people think of when the subject of children's mystery novels comes up (and it does surprisingly often ;P), I've always preferred Judy Bolton. She's far more practical and she actually grows up as the series progresses. I also have a soft spot for "The Three Investigators" Series. And of course "The Famous Five", although I did find myself wanting to bitchslap the children sometimes, but that's mostly because Julian could be a bit pretentious and I wanted Anne to man up some.

One of my all-time favorite books from when I was a kid is "The Diamond in the Window" by Jane Langton. It had a huge impact on me and is sadly not as widely read as it should be. There are also two books that I've loved and still reread once a year (they're very short so it's not so crazy) "Come Again in the Spring" by Richard Kennedy, in which Death comes for an old man and is told to take a hike until spring and "Once Upon a Test" by Vivian Vande Velde, three fairy tale stories which are unlike traditional fairy tales.

Um, so there are many more and I know the moment I post this I'm going to hate myself because I'll have left out favorites, but this is already ridiculously long. Sorry....

Thanks for giving me a chance to gush a little :)

[five-of-five.livejournal.com]

See, I knew this would happen: Tamora Pierce is one of my favorite authors for young fantasy books and I've been reading her for about as long as I can remember being able to read, slight exaggeration but you get the point. Also Lemony Snicket's A Serious of Unfortunate Events, while they didn't come out strictly speaking when I was still a kid, I do love them as an adult.

...Shutting up now.

[mrstotten.livejournal.com]

Can your mother adopt me!!!!!

ok so so so many books will be going away and coming back with thoughts, thinky thoughts!!!!

[five-of-five.livejournal.com]

I'll ask her! :D

I feel a bit bad for naming so many...but that's not gonna stop me from listing more *head!desk*

Thinking specifically about books for young boys, "The Children of Green Knowe" by Lucy M. Boston is the first in a series about this old family home and the sense of belonging the main character, Tolly, feels when he's there and the "ghosts" of the family's past that still live there, it's mostly very comforting and a feeling of home, of course there's some drama stuff or else it'd be a dull book.

Also "The Ship That Flew" by Hilda Lewis about these four children (it's almost always four kids isn't it...) who by a toy ship. They buy a toy ship from Oden, and it can take them anywhere, anytime. It's a fantastic blending of history and mythology (I'm biased because Norse Mythology is my favorite).

Shutting up again. Love you!