Books that were important to you growing up.

[Just_Jane]

I'd read all the Goosebumps and Fear Street books by the time I was 10. Also, The Babysitters Club. I was never without one of those three whenever we were out. :whistle:

I didn't read Goosebumps but I did read all The Fear Street books and most of the babysitters club. I also read most of the Saddle Club books. I had an obsession with horses when I was 11 or 12.

I read a lot of books because books were my friends. I had a lot of trouble making friends and I lived in a rural area and eventually there weren't kids nearby that I could play with. Books were my outlet and I'd read several a week during the summer. It's often hard for me to recall all of them. one of my favorites though was The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder. I had to look that up.

once I was in junior high my folks let me read anything I wanted even adult books. The rule always was there would be no giggling over adult situations in the books as that showed you were not mature enough to read that book. Books were always allowed and encouraged in my home. My dad was always the parent that would fight against banning books from the school curriculum.

For the person who said the Poky Little Puppy. I still have a copy and it's a darling book. don't be embarrassed my favorite childhood book was a golden book called Panda Bear's Paintbox. I actually bought a used copy of it off ebay some years ago as I had lost the one from childhood.

[RandomTrivia]

RandomTrivia, I know there's a companion series to "Dear America" with boy protagonists called "My Name is America". Never read them though.

Also, the works of Louis Sachar. Even now they make me laugh. Wayside School FTW!

Thanks, I'll check out the "My Name is America" books. Although the kid probably wouldn't have an issue reading "girly" books - he loves Junie B. Jones, among other things. He's into Magic Tree House, Junie B, the A to Z mysteries, and Geronimo Stilton these days, along with appropriating all my Calvin & Hobbes collections, and he for some reason likes these fairy books by Daisy Meadows right now (he can read one in half an hour, which is probably as long as it takes to write one, they're very formulaic). Trying to get him to read Hank the Cowdog and the My Weird School series, and I just found out that Calvin & Hobbes has been translated into French, although Amazon considers it an import and charges triple the cover price for them.

I love Madeleine L'Engle. I actually found a new book by her recently (at least I'm pretty sure it was hers, can't find it right now); published posthumously by her family. Totally random, it was donated to the charity group that I sort books for, and I thought I'd at least seen all of her YA books (her adult books are harder to find used).

I read anything horsey as a kid, no matter how unrealistic. Still love the Black Stallion series, the original Linda Craig books (not the green-cover rewrites that came later, a la the fluffier Nancy Drews), all sorts of things. Mine are all packed away, so I'm working from memory and it's not what it used to be. And when I get time, I'm reading an original Nancy Drew and the later version of the same book, to compare the revisions. It's been interesting so far.

Other good ones for kids:

Anne McCaffrey's Harper Hall books (Dragonsong, Dragonsinger, Dragondrums) are good for young teens/tweens. The others are probably better for a few years later.

John Fitzgerald's Great Brain books

Beverly Cleary - bought my son the Ralph S. Mouse books recently

Scott O'Dell - I found a copy of Island of the Blue Dolphins recently with amazing illustrations (*), and I re-read my old copy until it probably fell apart

Marguerite Henry's books - I think I own all of them, even the ones that break my heart every time. There are a few where I have to stop before the last chapter (King of the Wind, etc)

Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar books, especially the Arrows of the Queen trilogy. Some of the other Valdemar books get kind of dense (Mage Winds trilogy), and a couple of her other ones deal with various child abuse issues

Bill Wallace's books (Beauty will break your heart)

Paddington Bear

Pippi Longstocking

Trying to remember if Asimov wrote anything for kids that's held up over time. I doubt the Norby books have, but maybe some of the robot short stories.

Heinlein wrote some YA novels; I've got a soft spot for Have Space Suit, Will Travel and Rocket Ship Galileo, although the science is of course dated a bit.

(*)I also found a vintage 1940s copy of The Red Pony (had the wartime paper rationing notice), illustrated by Wesley Dennis, who did the Marguerite Henry books. Gorgeous pictures, but that book kills me. Not one, but two tragic endings (I just found out it was originally four short stories, not intended as a novel, which explains a lot)

I know there are more, but it's late and my memory isn't helping me out here. :)

[canela]

My favorite childhood books were undoubtedly those about the "wonderful, blunderful" Miss Ramona Geraldine Quimby. But as a child, I read as voraciously as I do now, so I had many "favorites." I was obsessed with dance, so many of the books I read as a girl had dancers as protagonists. Gosh, I don't even know if some of these are still in print!

Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden was my first "big" book. My beloved childhood neighbor gave it to me when I was four or five and my oldest sister helped me read it. That is also the first book I remember making my cry. (Clearly, I become quite emotionally invested with "my" characters.

Noel Streatfeild's Shoes books were so good. The Fossil sisters (from Ballet Shoes) are still some of my dearest literary friends.

I read Karen Strickler Dean's Maggie Adams books when I was still too young to understand some of the themes. Although I did appreciate that her friend's eating disorder and mental illness were treated respectfully and compassionately. I think they might read as a little dated now, but I remember them fondly.

I know some of her other books are much better known, but I really liked Lois Lowry's Anastasia books. I thought Anastasia Krupnik was the coolest girl ever and I truly wanted her to be real so we could be friends.

A bit later, I became a big fan of the Sunfire Romance series. :embarrassed: I'm certain these are now out of print. I guess they were a sort of precursor to the Dear America series, in that they revolved around important moments in history. They were written more for pre/teens and were really about the romance, though. I don't remember them as being particularly well written, and they were extremely formulaic, but I enjoyed reading about these girls and young women who lived through historical events.

As a young teen, I read anything I could about Anne Frank. For some reason, I also became very interested in Edith Hamilton's Mythology. And I continued to read trashy teen romance novels. Although the ones I read were pretty tame.

[Celtic_Thunder]

The Fear Street books by R.L Stein are actually for older readers than Goosebumps. I remember reading one about a ghost girl who had committed suicide.

I did enjoy both series.

Huh. It seemed to me like the Fear Street books were aimed at younger readers; mostly because they were thinner and seemed to have a vocabulary more for younger readers. Although it seems like they were more graphic than the Goosebumps books, so I dunno.

[clicker dies]

I almost feel like Harry Potter doesn't even need to be said, but just to be thorough I'll put it here.

Aside from that, in elementary school, I was all about the Hank the Cowdog series, Goosebumps, there was a series set near my hometown about a young girl called Mandie from the 19th century that I read a lot, anything Wishbone, Beverly Cleary, the Little House series, the Magic Treehouse stuff, off the top of my head.

Then as I got older it was stuff like The Giver, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer was my favorite book for a while there, Where the Red Fern Grows (I cried for days). I love The Great Gatsby.

Looking back, I realize I stuck to school curriculum for my teen stuff. In fairness, I went to an intense middle/high school where we had 3-5 hours of homework a night starting in 6th grade (40 pound backpack on a twelve year old ftw!). Didn't have enough time to do anything other than read school books back then. :dance:

[keen23]

I was a voracious reader, even as a child. I loved Ramona and everything by Beverly Cleary. Little Women, Little House on the Prairie, Harriet the Spy and The Chronicles of Narnia (yeah, took me until I was about 15 to figure out that they were religious allegories). My favorite was Anastasia Krupnik- she was just fantastic.

[Bookworm]

Aw, getting so many feels seeing so many beloved books mentioned! I've complained a lot about my fundie childhood, but one thing my parents did so, so right was making sure we had access to tons of books all the time.

Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden was my first "big" book. My beloved childhood neighbor gave it to me when I was four or five and my oldest sister helped me read it. That is also the first book I remember making my cry. (Clearly, I become quite emotionally invested with "my" characters.)

The first book that made me cry was A Little Princess, by the same author! She really was good at sucking you into the story.

I liked books by Sylvia Louise Engdahl, Sci-fi kinda like Madeleine L'Engle. Freckles, by Gene Stratton Porter. The Three Investigators was a totally awesome series about kids who solved mysteries and had a GREAT clubhouse/headquarters.

[RandomTrivia]

A bit later, I became a big fan of the Sunfire Romance series. :embarrassed: I'm certain these are now out of print. I guess they were a sort of precursor to the Dear America series, in that they revolved around important moments in history. They were written more for pre/teens and were really about the romance, though. I don't remember them as being particularly well written, and they were extremely formulaic, but I enjoyed reading about these girls and young women who lived through historical events.

I remember those - my sister liked them, and I read a few when I ran out of other things to read (no local library, just the bookmobile every week-and-a-half). I remember one about the Lowell mills, I think, and possibly the Triangle Shirtwaist fire. And they were really formulaic - one girl, two guys, the "right" guy and the "wrong" guy. Didn't she usually end up with the "wrong" guy?

You know, I can't recall seeing any come through the charity donations, and we get a lot of stuff. I'll have to keep an eye out now, just for kicks.

[Jenny]

I loved the Boxcar Children, Little House on the Prairie, Judy Blume and Beverley Cleary. My secret guilty pleasure is the Baby Sittters Club. I don't know if kids today would enjoy many of the outdated '80s and '90s references tho.

The Hank Zipzer series is good. It has a male protagonist who is a 4th grader with learning differences. Frog and Toad books might be good for your youngest depending on her reading level. Junie B. Jones, Biscuit (by Alyssa Satin Capucilli), Froggy (by Johnathan London) and Pigeon (Who Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus? etc) books are also popular with 1st and 2nd graders. Meg Cabot's books (Princess Diaries, etc.) might also be good for your older girls. I've read several of the Dear American books and would recommend them as well. Wayside School (as mentioned upthread) are also good.

Maybe the children could each read an award winner (Newbery, Caldecott, Sibert, etc) to stretch themselves and learn something new. Many Libraries have a special section of award winners so they are easy to browse.

I was a children's librarian from 2009 to 2011 so I read a lot of children's and YA books.

[Savoring Samsara]

I'm astonished that no one else has mentioned Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, the first reading of which was a seminal and life-changing experience for me, just as I know it was for many other geeks.

Nowadays, I find that book to be a little bit ethically questionable in terms of the worldview it presents, and its author to be a berserk raging fundamentalist Mormon homophobe who is deserving of nobody's money or attention. Still, it really spoke to me in my younger years, and helped connect me to people who became lifelong friends. So I'm grateful it exists in that regard.

[Maggie Mae]

Goosebumps books are for children, Fear Street were written for teens.

Books I loved:

Baby-sitter's Club

Sleepover Club

Saddle Club

The Gymnasts

Three Investigators

Trixie Belden

Anastasia Krupnik

Alice books

Nothing's Fair in Fifth Grade (and sequels)

Boxcar Children

Christopher Pike novels (These are, in fact, terrible and I probably shouldn't have read the one where a girl gets pregnant, goes to get an abortion, a bunch of stuff happens, and then it turns out she died at the abortion clinic. Or the one where someone puts a bunch of crushed glass on a hamburger in Greece and the main character dies. They are all "romantic" murder mystery/supernatural thrillers. More graphic than Fear Street, and not quite up to Stephen King)

The Fairy Rebel

Indian in the Cupboard (and all sequels)

Wrinkle in Time

My Side of the Mountain

American Girl novels

Brave New World

Blubber

Freckle Juice

The Homecoming Series about the Tillermans

JD Salinger's books

Castle in the Attic

Hatchet

On My Honor

Bridge to Terebithia

The Orphan Train

The Slave Dancer

Ramona Quimby books

The "Nothing's Fair in Fifth Grade" series

Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing (and subsequent novels)

[Green Glass]

One of my favorite books, and one that I still actually love now, is The House with a Clock in its Walls, by John Bellairs. He actually wrote a lot of stuff, and all of it was good. That was the first of a series and was just great.

I also liked My Side of the Mountain, it was a little different, but I really enjoyed it.

[moonbeam59]

My all-time favorites were animal books (Old Bones the Wonder Horse, Scruffy, Martin's Mice, The Grand Escape, I Houdini) and books with girl heroes (Tamora Pierce's Alanna, Garth Nix's Sabriel, and Robin McKinley's The Blue Sword and Hero and the Crown).

My Side of the Mountain and The Witch of Blackbird Pond were also personal favorites. I had a thing for Jules Verne, too.

[pirouette]

Oh my gosh, so many fond memories brought back by everyone's replies.

I'll second Harry Potter, All-of-a-Kind Family (I only read the first one, though), Little House On The Prairie, Swallows and Amazons, The Giver, Dear America, Roald Dahl, Little Women, Boxcar Children, and especially everything by Noel Streatfield.

One that hasn't been mentioned is Cheaper By The Dozen, an oldie but goodie that was definitely the very beginning of the train of events that led to me finding this board-- the huge family enthralled me as a kid, and from then on I loved any stories with big and weird families. So while it wasn't a super-pivotal book to me when I read it, it was evidently rather important to my later life.

Finally, I'll add Betsy-Tacy, a semi-autobiographical series of 10ish books by Maud Hart Lovelace, following "Betsy's" life from age five until her mid-twenties. Man, I loved those books so much. I'd get a new one every year for Christmas until that one sad year when I finished the series. Even now, going back and comparing Betsy's experiences (born in the early 1890's) to my own experiences growing up is just incredible.

[Jeneric Duggar]

I'll second the 'anything by Roald Dahl and the Harry Potter books' suggestions but would like to add the His Dark Materials trilogy and the Sally Lockhart books by Philip Pullman. The man is a genius.

[PennySycamore]

I was a voracious reader, even as a child. I loved Ramona and everything by Beverly Cleary. Little Women, Little House on the Prairie, Harriet the Spy and The Chronicles of Narnia (yeah, took me until I was about 15 to figure out that they were religious allegories). My favorite was Anastasia Krupnik- she was just fantastic.

Did you read the Henry Huggins books or Otis Spofford or Ellen Tebbits by Beverly Cleary? I loved how Otis could get radio on his braces. I still remember Ellen hauling the Biennial Beet to school for show-an-tell. I think it was maybe in Henry Huggins where Beezus was knitting on a spool, but I could be mistaken. I've always wanted to learn spool knitting. I need to haul out my knitting spool and get to it. I had a copy of Ribsy that had belonged to my grandfather who was an elementary school teacher. Btw, Mrs Cleary is still living in Carmel, California and is 97 years young.

Other books I loved:

Trixie Belden

The Tuckers of Valley View and The Adventures of Plum Tucker

the Katie John books

Winnie the Pooh and The House of Pooh Corner

the All-of-a-Kind Family series

Call It Courage

And Now, Miguel

The Trumpeter of Krakow

A Wrinkle in Time

The Borrowers

Joyce of the Secret Squadron and Polly the Powers Model (these books had been my mom's)

For Special Occasions by Dore Schary -about his family's deli and his mom's kosher catering business

My Friends, the Wild Chimpanzees by Jane Goodall

I read Exodus (the novel by Leon Uris) in about 6th grade. I spent most of my library time in the non-fiction section. Yes.I was a nerd. I read stuff about nuclear energy, engineering and archaeology. One of memorable fiction books I read in junior high was Rosemary's Baby. We especially loved page 86. I got into trouble for reading it in school.

[PennySycamore]

i meant to add to my long post that I am currently reading The Wind in the Willows and The Hobbit. I used to read The Hobbit to my kids to settle them so they'd nap. I just find the first few pages musical. The Wind in the Willows, I am loathe to admit, is a book that I never read as a kid. I bought my copy from the dollar section at Target. I'll get better copies to share with my grandkids at the bookstore

[formergothardite]

Anything by Betsy Byars!

[PennySycamore]

Anything by Betsy Byars!

Betsy lives in my home county. The bottom floor of her house is an airplane hangar. I think that is so cool!

[tinylegs1]

I fell in love with "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn" at about 14. It deals with some mature themes, so other's may not be as comfortable, but it remains to this day, my favorite book.

[PennySycamore]

I fell in love with "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn" at about 14. It deals with some mature themes, so other's may not be as comfortable, but it remains to this day, my favorite book.

The film based on the book is going to shown on Turner Classic Movies as one of their Essentials, jr. I wouldn't swear to it, but I think it is on the last Sunday evening of June, June 30. Just checked -it is on the 30th at 8 PM.

I love this movie. Every performance is just superb and James Dunn and Peggy Ann Garner won much deserved Oscars for their work as the father and Francie.

[Loveday]

I fell in love with "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn" at about 14. It deals with some mature themes, so other's may not be as comfortable, but it remains to this day, my favorite book.

OMG, this was the first book I thought of when I saw the title of this thread. I think I first read 'A Tree Grows In Brooklyn' when I was around 11, the same age as Francie Nolan at the beginning of the book. Everything about that book is wonderful. :) I lost track long ago of how many times I've read it. The first few lines are seared in my mind forever, "Serene was a word you could put to Brooklyn, New York. Especially in the summer of 1912. Somber, as a word, was better. But it did not apply to Williamsburg, Brooklyn..." well, that's all I know for sure without grabbing my copy off the shelf, but there was something about Shenandoah and prairie in the next few lines. I think it's soon time for another re-read. :)

Someone mentioned the Betsy-Tacy books upthread a bit--loved those growing up, and I still re-read the high school books every now and then. And Little Women, and Anne of Green Gables, and Trixie Belden, and The Little House books. I read Gone With The Wind when I was ten, and dozens of times more since then. That's another one I can recite most of the first paragraph from memory, but I'll spare everyone. LOL. Jane Eyre...that awful Lowood School and the evil Mr Brocklehurst haunt me still.

Did you read the Henry Huggins books or Otis Spofford or Ellen Tebbits by Beverly Cleary? I loved how Otis could get radio on his braces. I still remember Ellen hauling the Biennial Beet to school for show-an-tell. I think it was maybe in Henry Huggins where Beezus was knitting on a spool, but I could be mistaken. I've always wanted to learn spool knitting. I need to haul out my knitting spool and get to it. I had a copy of Ribsy that had belonged to my grandfather who was an elementary school teacher. Btw, Mrs Cleary is still living in Carmel, California and is 97 years young.

Ellen and the Biennial Beet! :lol: I loved Ellen Tebbits. I love Beverly Cleary, especially for her teen novels written in the late 50s. 'Fifteen,' 'Jean and Johnny,' 'The Luckiest Girl.' I wanted to be just like Shelley in 'The Luckiest Girl' and go live with a cool family in California where everything was just a little off-center and unconventional (at least by 1950s standards! :lol: ) I will ugly-cry when Cleary passes.

(Speaking of Cleary's teen novels, did anyone else here get into all the other teen romances from the late 40s through the early 60s? The Beany Malone stories by Lenora Mattingly Weber; all the different series by Anne Emery, especially the ones about the Burnaby girls, Jean and her older sister Sally; anything by Betty Cavanna or Janet Lambert? When I was around 11 to 14, these were just about the only YA novels to be found at my local library, and I ate them up. And did anyone else read Seventeenth Summer, by Maureen Daly? That one is set in the 1940s and is one of the most beautifully written stories of first love that I've ever read.)

Other books I loved:

Trixie Belden

The Tuckers of Valley View and The Adventures of Plum Tucker

the Katie John books

Winnie the Pooh and The House of Pooh Corner

the All-of-a-Kind Family series

Call It Courage

And Now, Miguel

The Trumpeter of Krakow

A Wrinkle in Time

The Borrowers

Joyce of the Secret Squadron and Polly the Powers Model (these books had been my mom's)

For Special Occasions by Dore Schary -about his family's deli and his mom's kosher catering business

My Friends, the Wild Chimpanzees by Jane Goodall

Katie John! LOVED her! :cracking-up: I have them all, found them at local library book sales some years ago. Loved her house with its speaking tubes! Remember how she and her best friend Sue had a lemonade stand to raise money so they could go see Little Women at the movie theatre? :D

[tinylegs1]

If you loved "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" and haven't read her other books, you must.

I will always have a soft spot for "Tree", but definitely in my top books of all time is one of her other books, "Joy Comes in the Morning".

[Loveday]

If you loved "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" and haven't read her other books, you must.

I will always have a soft spot for "Tree", but definitely in my top books of all time is one of her other books, "Joy Comes in the Morning".

Oh, yes, that one is on my shelf, too! :) And she also wrote a book called 'Maggie-Now,' which I read long ago and really liked. I had a paperback copy of it but it seems to have disappeared at some point over the years. I'll have to keep an eye out for it when I'm at the thrifts or the used bookstores.

[tinylegs1]

Oh, yes, that one is on my shelf, too! :) And she also wrote a book called 'Maggie-Now,' which I read long ago and really liked. I had a paperback copy of it but it seems to have disappeared at some point over the years. I'll have to keep an eye out for it when I'm at the thrifts or the used bookstores.

Have that one too! Also, "Tomorrow Will Be Better" was the other book in her collection. It is my least favorite, but still good.

Now I'll need to reread them all this summer.