Childhood Books
My childhood Nancy Drew books
There was a fascinating thread on the Child's Lit email list about people's memories of their childhood books. I decided to make a list of the books that I remember really having an impact on me throughout my childhood and into high school.
Nancy Drew - George started me on my life long love of girls with boys names, or names that could be boys names (if we had a girl, she would have been Taylor...another girl name that we tossed around was Sydney).
Trixie Belden
Bobbsey Twins
Anything by Natalie Babbitt
Anything by Judy Blume
Winnie the Pooh (original)
Peanuts - I had tons of these and loved re-reading them. Still have them actually.
A Raggedy Ann golden book about toys coming to life
Little Women
Chronicles of Narnia
Anne Frank's Diary
Hobbit/Lord of the Rings
Camelot - I had a book version of the musical (written as a script) and absolutely loved it. I think that I probably still have it somewhere. I actually loved reading plays and picking parts.
Stories of King Arthur - still have it.
Our Town
The Lottery - I read this as part of a Great Books program (maybe 6th grade?) and just remember being kind of freaked out by the story. I think it may have been the first "dark" story I read.
I also remembering reading a story in elementary school about a boy who was friends with another boy who died after being stung by bees. It was the first story I remember where a character died.
The Silent Meow - not a kids book actually, but I absolutely loved it and thought that the pictures were hysterical. It was supposedly written by a cat and contained directions for taking over a human family. I recently re-read it with Kyle and Jason this summer. They liked it, but did not find it as funny as I did. I found that it lost some of its charm for me but it still holds a fond place in my heart. It was also interesting to find that it had several swear words which I absolutely do not remember even registering as a kid.
Flowers in the Attic - my first "adult" series that I read as a teenager
East of Eden - read this in AP English, not sure why it sticks out in my mind. Probably because it seemed like an "adult" book at the time. Probably also because it was more contemporary (as opposed to Shakespeare which I also enjoyed)
I am sure that there are more, but these are the ones that came to the top of my head...
