I've been inspired...

[AllieSutherland]

Because this week has brought back so many memories of childhood with Mr. Rogers' passing, wouldn't it be great to share what our favorite childhood books were?

1.) The Hungry Little Caterpillar. Need I say more? ;) I LOVED putting my fingers in the "holes" he "ate" through.

2.) Corduroy (the bear). I cried with happiness (for the first time) when he was loved and taken home!

3.) Any of the Peanuts cartoon books... like Speak Softly and Carry a Beagle. :lol:

4.) the "Little House" books, as well as the Anne of Green Gables series

5.) a really obscure series to my generation, but one that was popular in the 50's, about little girls named Betsy and Tib. I can't remember the author for the life of me!!! :)

XOXOXOXOX
Allie

[Lucia Francesca]

Ahhh...the first book I read by myself: Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs
I read weird books like the Bunnicula series and I Spent My Summer Vacation Kidnapped Into Outer Space. Ooo...and the Baby Sitters Club. Great books.

[Tempest_Gypsy]

My first book I ever read by myself was Little Orphan Annie. I went up the scale quickly from there. My favorite child hood books were Brother Grim's Fairy tales, Heidi, Redwall Series and The Hobbit. Also, my mother started me on Mercedes Lackey, Anne McCaffery and Piers Anthony at the age of ten, so I didn't read a WHOLE lot of kids books after that....

[Nevada]

Where the Wild things are" was my fav when I was little....Mom got me started on Anne McCaffery at a young age lol and anything by the Grimm Brothers.

[Bathsheba Khandayce]

According to my Mom, substantiated by vague memory My first 2 favorite books were Daniel the Cocker Spaniel and The Color Kittens.
As I learned to read I devoured the Little House on the Prarie series starting with the Little House in the Big Woods, The Stair Step Sisters (I think that was the title. It's a series about 5 little Jewish sisters living in 1940's New York) Little Women. I loved anything Medical/Nursing (I grew up to be a Nurse) & even read the 1970/80 Wrold Book Encyclopedia and ChildCraft on a bet/contest with my cousin Evan. As I grew I discovered juvenile Sci-fi ( Heinlien's Rolling Stones) and moved quickly into the more mature stuff starting with the Xanth series moving into all sorts of strnage stuff. Now I read almost anything that doesn't run too fast for me to make out the words.

[Bathsheba Khandayce]

Oh I forgot about my Fairy Tale / Folk Tale tear. I read everything from Grimm to Aseop to African Anansi the Spider tales.

[AllieSutherland]

(I grew up to be a Nurse)

Aw, Bathsheba, you grew up?!?! :shock: :( Poor thing... revert back to childhood and keep me company, hon!!! :lol: :bananada: :snicker: :rotfl: :grouphug:

XOXOXOXOX
Allie

[lauradake]

According to mom, I started reading at about age 3 1/2, and loved "The Pokey Little Puppy". I was never a big fan of Dr. Seuss, but I've learned to appreciate his works later on in life. :)

I LOVED all of Rohld Dahl's stuff--especially "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and "The Witches".

The Little House books....

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh was one of the earliest "chapter books" I can remember reading, although I couldn't say exactly if it was truly the first or not. I ordered it though the school's monthly "book ordering" thing (they sent you home with a little pamphlet that you could choose to order books from) in 1st grade. My teacher actually called my mother and verified that I COULD order it--she thought it would be too difficult for me. When the book came in, she made me read out the first chapter to the whole class (who were mostly struggling with "Dick and Jane".... a bit on the traumatic side for a shy kid who didn't want to stick out. I read it flawlessly. ;)

"The Egypt Game", "Behind the Attic Wall", "From the Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankwiler", "Bridge over Terabitha".... I"m sure I could think of more. :)

[Morrigan]

my favorite book and i kept this book till about 8 years ago when it was lost to me... "the little ballerina" i wish i could find a copy of it somewhere... and i've looked and looked :oops:

[emalia]

I am not sure what my fave books were.. I remeber being home with my mom reading a little redd reader when I should have been in Kinder. It had See.Spot.Run stuff.. I also remember memorizing my little records that came with the books and repeating what they said and turning the page before the ding... I also know that I read books way young, and read alot of them as I had no friends my age.

[Tink]

Corduroy and Where the Wild Things Are were big ones on my list. I checked them out of the library often...well my mom did for me. :lol:

As a girl I read the Little House Series. Couldn't put them down.

I remember my mom reading Miss Jasper's Garden to me...cute little story about a hedgehog that accidentally gets seeded and watered so he becomes a walking flower pot...

Also Detective Arthur Master Slueth was a fun one because it was a mystery that you could make choices which determined what page you went to next.....

I also remember a book which I don't know the name, that had a little girl born with a dragon tail and a dragon born without one and she gives her tail to him. It was hard cover and purple and the drawings were all black and white and I believe done in charcoal or pencil...

[Nevada]

I almost forgot....I WAS Nancy Drew...at least while I was reading the books....still have some..still read them

[Ysobelle]

my favorite book and i kept this book till about 8 years ago when it was lost to me... "the little ballerina" i wish i could find a copy of it somewhere... and i've looked and looked :oops:


http://search.barnesandnoble.com/OopBooks/OopResults.asp?userid=2VIGCGDV8C&title=the+little+ballerina


See if any of these are the book you're looking for!

[CelticBombshell]

The first book I read myself was Just Me and My Puppy; i had all the litte critter books as well as the bernestien bears and tons of golden books.

Adolecence: I read Cristopher Pike and Tolkein

Now:
bodice rippers

[Isabelle Warwicke]

My childhood faves were A Little Princess and The Secret Garden.

[Ysobelle]

Hey, Morrigan!


I'm dying to know-- were any of those the book you were looking for?

[Leela]

This brings a smile to me face...

When I was VERY young...
Where the Wild Things Are
A Chocolate Moose for Dinner
the Anatole books
Dr. Seuss
Richard Scary

A Little older:
The Bobbsey Twins
Louisa May Alcott (all of 'em)

Yup, Little House books. I totally flabbergasted my next door neighbor when I was about nine...I told him exactly what a milk-fed pumpkin was and how to do it. I have no idea why he brought up the question in the first place. :thinking:

A wonderful set of fairy tail and biography books that were originally my father's...My Book House was the series, and I have my two favorite volumes with me still...The Magic Garden, and Through Fairy Halls

The Secret Garden
The Chronicles of Narnia
Danny, the Champion of the World
James and the Giant Peach
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Everything Madeleine L'engle wrote.
The Chronicles of Prydain
So You Want to Be a Wizard
The Winter of Magic's Return
The String in the Harp

Many more I'm forgetting at the moment. whew. Yup. I was a total bookworm, and worked in the local library throughout highschool.

Leela
Bibliophile, or bibliomaniac?

[Morte]

5.) a really obscure series to my generation, but one that was popular in the 50's, about little girls named Betsy and Tib. I can't remember the author for the life of me!!! :)


you mean the betsy-tacy books? (also featuring their friend tib?) by maud heart lovelace? those are GREAT i just read them last year.. i still love children's and young adult fiction and collect it avidly. the best thing about the betsy-tacy books is that theyre actually based on the author's childhood and were originally told to her daughter as stories

i have ALWAYS been an avid reader.. form when i was 4 years old and took Green Eggs and Ham out of the library and renewed it over (and over and over) and over again soem of my absolute favorites are:

The entire anne of green gables series (to date one of my top 5 and i own almost every book by the author)

a little princess and the secret garden (and i can STILL remember how terrible it was the first time i read the secret garden, my book club version of it was missing the last chapter b/c of a binding error!)

Beauty by Robin McKinley (read it first at age 10 and have read it at LEAST once a year since)

the egypt game!

the westing game

little house on the prairie series...

Nancy drew (esp. the odler ones)

Trixie Belden (my mom gave me her copies)

Cherry Ames Student Nurse

The Ramona books

and well honestly i read so much as a kid that i was actually BANNED from the school library in junior high (books being my escape form the absolute HELL my jr high experience was i read just about 24/7 including in class) not, mind you that that stopped me from reading... so this is just a sampling.. i did read the standard popular stuff too babysitters club etc lots of book club special trash too *g* some of those 80's "teen" romances were just PAINFUL!!!!!

[Ysobelle]

Beauty by Robin McKinley (read it first at age 10 and have read it at LEAST once a year since)



Oh, dear heaven. I adore that book almost like no other. Have you read her second go-round with the story, "Rose Daughter"? Beauty and the Beast again, but a little...stranger. Not as strange as "Deerskin," though. And have you read her duology, "The Hero and the Crown"/"The Blue Sword"? Amazing books.

Lovely stuff. Oh, and Ellen Kushner's "Thomas the Rhymer." Incandescent book. One of the "Fairy Tale Series," edited by Terri Windling, which are novelisations by excellent authors of fairly & folk tales and legends. "Thomas the Rhymer" is just...oh, marvelous. Just wonderful.

[Morte]

Beauty by Robin McKinley (read it first at age 10 and have read it at LEAST once a year since)



Oh, dear heaven. I adore that book almost like no other. Have you read her second go-round with the story, "Rose Daughter"? Beauty and the Beast again, but a little...stranger. Not as strange as "Deerskin," though. And have you read her duology, "The Hero and the Crown"/"The Blue Sword"? Amazing books.


I've read ALMOST everything by Ms Mckinley... there's a new anthology out by her and her husband that i haven't read yet... all of her books are on my bedroom bookcase where all my re-re-re-readable favorites are 8)

[AllieSutherland]

you mean the betsy-tacy books? (also featuring their friend tib?) by maud heart lovelace? those are GREAT i just read them last year.. i still love children's and young adult fiction and collect it avidly. the best thing about the betsy-tacy books is that theyre actually based on the author's childhood and were originally told to her daughter as stories

YES!!!! TY, hon!!! I even named my Puffalump Louella (I think Louella was one of their parrots?) I even read their "growing up" books!

some of those 80's "teen" romances were just PAINFUL!!!!!

LOL! I was just thinking about this the other day. Remember the Judy Blume books? I NEVER looked forward to starting my period so much... then reality hit. :pfft:

All of the "teen loves" were SO melodramatic... someone dies, gets hit by a drunk driver, kills themselves... man. Especially the ones offered by places like the Scholastic Book leaflet-thingies!!! (not to mention that you got your free kitty/puppy posters with each order -- ha ha!) A hoot to think about now!!!

XOXOXOXOXOX
Allie