# What were your favorite childhood books?



## Wannabe (Nov 6, 2008)

I devoured the Ramona books by Beverly Cleary. I also enjoyed the Encyclopedia Brown books because they had all the clues lined up at the end of the book.


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## LDB (Oct 28, 2008)

Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators (all)
Danny Dunn (all)
The Mouse and the Motorcycle
Huck Finn


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## luvmy4brats (Nov 9, 2008)

I remember devouring the Sweet Valley High books.


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## intinst (Dec 23, 2008)

Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber, McCaffrey"s Pern books, and almost anything I could get a hold of by Norton Norse Heinlein and Asimov.
Notice a Sci-Fi/ Fantasy trend here?


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## robin.goodfellow (Nov 17, 2008)

I loved the Ramona books too.


Spoiler



Except for the one where their cat died.


 I didn't care so much for that one. And we didn't even have a cat.

I also loved the Nancy Drew books. I had my aunt's set. Don't tell her. She thinks my grandmother gave them away. Shhhh.

And Mom had some of her old books that I adopted. The ones I remember best were a biography of Helen Keller and a biography of Benjamin Frankling. The BF one was really interesting, b/c most of it turned out not to be true. Which is a fascinating new concept in biography, I think.


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## Lizzy (Nov 26, 2008)

The Hobbit
Lord Of The Rings
The Chronicles Of Narnia
Dune


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew.  I still have my original book, and I also bought it for Little Gertie.  

Nancy Drew, of course.  My first was The Sign of the Twisted Candles.


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## nicuknitter (Dec 28, 2008)

Off the top of my head:

1.  Trixie Belden series
2.  Ramona the Pest series
3.  The Secret Garden
4.  Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
5.  The Mrs. Piggle Wiggle Books (but I found I didn't like them when I tried to read them with my children)


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## traceyreads (Dec 18, 2008)

I read and loved every series I could find, Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, Encyclopedia Brown, Chronicles of Narnia, and even the Sweet Valley High Series etc.  but two books stand out as favorites that I still revisit occasionally - "From the Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler" and "Watership Down"

I still love supposedly young adult fiction, I am ashamed to admit.  Reading the Gossip Girl books now. That is why I love the Kindle. No one knows that I am reading this stuff...


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

traceyreads said:


> I still love supposedly young adult fiction, I am ashamed to admit. Reading the Gossip Girl books now. That is why I love the Kindle. No one knows that I am reading this stuff...


Except us ...










But then, a lot of us read YA, too.


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## Vicki (Nov 9, 2008)

I loved the Box Car Children books. Then my cousin gave me all of her Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden books.
I was a lucky kid as both parents are readers so we got to go to the library a lot and they always found a 
couple of bucks for books from Scholastic while we were in school.


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## nebulinda (Dec 19, 2008)

My most favorite book growing up was Ella Enchanted. In fact, I'm currently rereading the copy I've had since I was about 11. Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter (of course), His Dark Materials, and A Little Princess are all also favorites. I also really liked The Egypt Game, though when I mention it to people they've never heard of it.

There's also TONS of books I checked out of the library when I was a kid and young teen, and don't remember anything about them except certain plot points. I'd love to find some of those books and read them again.


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## pidgeon92 (Oct 27, 2008)

This was one of my very favorites...


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## sebat (Nov 16, 2008)

I liked the Bobbsey Twins.  Haven't seen that one mentioned...guess I'm showing my age. 
Nancy Drew
Hardy Boys
Charlotte's Web
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

By the time I was 10 or 11.  The librarian at our city library, marched me over to the adult section.  I was reading a book or 2 a day and she was tired of all the paperwork.  She thought I needed a bigger challenge.  She started me on...Agatha Christie.


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## ScottBooks (Oct 28, 2008)

Paulus and the Acornmen by Jean Dulieu was the first "real" book that I read.

This edition is the cheapest one out there and it's $103. 
_
Hardcover
Publisher: World Publishing Co., Cleveland, 1966
PAULUS AND THE ACORNMEN written and illustrated by Jean Dulieu. A Holly Book published by World Publishing 1966. 238 pages. Children's fantasy about a wood-dwarf made smaller by a witch and then has adventures with the Acornmen. 47 full-color illustrations and 4 B&W drawings. Lemon yellow hard cover with B&W sketch of Paulus on right-hand bottom cover, black lettering on spine. Bottom half of inside back and front covers with illustration of Paulus and acornmen. In better than fair...
_
I also read all of Nancy Drew, every Agatha Christie and most of Heinlein. Since I read The America series by John Jakes when I was 11 and loved most of them (hated The Seekers) I'm going to include them as childhood favorites.


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## Geemont (Nov 18, 2008)

H.P. Lovecraft.  I started reading him in 6th grade.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Scott O'Dell: _Island of the Blue Dolphins_



Apparently not yet Kindled.

I read this as a kid. . .one of the first chapter books I really remember, besides Nancy Drew, etc. When we lived in California (stationed at Pt. Mugu, south of Camarillo) my son had to read the book for school and they took a field trip to the Channel Islands park in Santa Barbara.

Ann


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## meljackson (Nov 19, 2008)

Trixie Belden was my all time favorite. I wish they were available for Kindle, I would buy them all for my daughter. Ok for me lol. 
I loved Nancy Drew too and Ramona among others mentioned here. 

Melissa


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## Mollyb52 (Jan 4, 2009)

Sara Crewe,(The Little Princess), Nancy Drew, Hardy boys.  Cereal boxes, magazines, newspapers anything I could get my hands on and especially....forbidden books we would sneak in the house and read by flashlight...I still remember Phillip Roths Portnoys Complaint.  I didn't even understand all of it but it was a best seller and only for grownups so I read it on the sly.    Those were the days  ,  Being naughty was reading a grownup book.


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## luvmy4brats (Nov 9, 2008)

Ann Von Hagel said:


> Scott O'Dell: _Island of the Blue Dolphins_
> 
> 
> 
> ...


No, not Kindled. I was just looking for it yesterday. They do have it on Audible though.


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## Guest (Jan 16, 2009)

The Little House Books and _Charlie and the Chocolate Factory_. I read them all over, and over, and over, and over.....

Still own my hardbacks of all of them.

Even earlier, Dr. Seuss books. My favorite was the ABC book. "Big A, Little a, what begins with A? Aunt Annie's Alligator, A a A." Also, a little book called _There's a Mouse in my House_. My mom got sick of reading that one to me.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Loved Trixie Belden and Encyclopedia Brown.

Might have to get this one!


Betsy


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## Leslie (Apr 7, 2008)

Mollyb52 said:


> Sara Crewe,(The Little Princess), Nancy Drew, Hardy boys. Cereal boxes, magazines, newspapers anything I could get my hands on and especially....forbidden books we would sneak in the house and read by flashlight...I still remember Phillip Roths Portnoys Complaint. I didn't even understand all of it but it was a best seller and only for grownups so I read it on the sly. Those were the days , Being naughty was reading a grownup book.


Are you my lost twin sister? I read *Portnoy's Complaint* in 9th grade (on the sly from my parents) and wrote a book report about it for school. I got an A, probably because the teacher was so horrified and I had no clue what I was talking about! LOL. After that, I "graduated" to *A Catcher in the Rye*. That one I did understand a bit more at the tender age of 14. I was dying to get my hands on a copy of *Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex...* but there wasn't a copy in the house.

As for series, I loved Nancy Drew (I collect them now). The first one I read was *The Hidden Staircase* which was number 2 in the series. After that, *The Mystery of the Moss Covered Mansion*, and from there, I tore through them all.

I also liked Cherry Ames (nurse stories) but they were harder to find. I also read The Hardy Boys.

If a book had a Newberry Medal sticker on the cover, I read it, because those were always gifts from aunts for any event, like birthday or Christmas.

And I loved *Harriet the Spy* and *The Long Secret*. Louise Fitzhugh had an interesting history and died much too young.

L


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## Kathy (Nov 5, 2008)

I loved to read and both of my parents were readers. My Father didn't want my sisters and I to watch TV, so we read a lot. I loved Little Women and Little Men, The Bobbsy Twins, Trixie Beldon, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys and anything else I could find. Both my son and daughter love to read as well. It was such a pleasure sharing books that I read with them.


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## marianneg (Nov 4, 2008)

Ann Von Hagel said:


> Scott O'Dell: _Island of the Blue Dolphins_
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Oh, that was one of my favorites, too! I read all the Nancy Drews I could get my hands on, and Encyclopedia Brown, too. I think _A Wrinkle in Time_ was my very favorite for the longest time. I also owned the Chronicles of Narnia and the Little House books and read them all many times. Of course, I also read lots of Sweet Valley Twins, Babysitters Club, Gymnasts, and Saddle Club books, too.


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## bosslady402 (Nov 6, 2008)

I remember the first series I got hooked on was Brains Benton??  I have never seen them since, anywhere.


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## ScottBooks (Oct 28, 2008)

bosslady said:


> I remember the first series I got hooked on was Brains Benton?? I have never seen them since, anywhere.


http://www.townofautumn.com/brainsbenton/

The books themselves seem to be rare (thus expensive) but this website seems fun.


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## Mollyb52 (Jan 4, 2009)

Leslie said:


> Are you my lost twin sister? I read *Portnoy's Complaint* in 9th grade (on the sly from my parents) and wrote a book report about it for school. I got an A, probably because the teacher was so horrified and I had no clue what I was talking about! LOL. After that, I "graduated" to *A Catcher in the Rye*. That one I did understand a bit more at the tender age of 14. I was dying to get my hands on a copy of *Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex...* but there wasn't a copy in the house.


Leslie, That cracks me up. You read it too! I can't believe you wrote a book report on it, that is too funny. I think I am going to try to read it again now, it's been a long time.


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## auntmarge (Dec 4, 2008)

Nancy Drew, Cherry Ames, and Sue Barton series. Emily Loring's books. And a bit later, and read many, many times, _Jane Eyre_. As someone else recalled doing, I was early in getting to the adult section, and in 7th grade read all of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, as well as all the Bronte siblings, but _Jane Eyre_ remains the favorite.


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## bosslady402 (Nov 6, 2008)

ScottBooks said:


> http://www.townofautumn.com/brainsbenton/
> 
> The books themselves seem to be rare (thus expensive) but this website seems fun.


cool! thanks!


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## chobitz (Nov 25, 2008)

Sadly NOT kindled..I still want a black arabian stallion because of the series. It was a huge series!







Other than those I read ALOT of King, Koontz and Lovecraft.


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## ak rain (Nov 15, 2008)

the Phantom Tollbooth I have forgotten the author. a very good read. I also completed all that I could find of the Hardy Boys refused anything Nancy Drew too girly. as an adult i found out that the same committee of people wrote Nancy drew and hardy boys. I had to laugh about that. I also really liked Watership down.

this has been a fun list
Sylvia


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## Lotus (Oct 31, 2008)

I liked Roald Dahl books when I was a kid. There wasn't much else that I liked until I started reading Stephen King.

As a young child I liked Dr. Seuss books and _ Where the Wild Things Are_.


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## Seamonkey (Dec 2, 2008)

Being older than dirt, I started out on Bobbsey Twins, then Cherry Ames, Nancy Drew seres and my mom would stockpile these great biographies of people like Betsy Ross, Clara Barton, etc. And of course Little Women, Heidi, and I remember a babysitter giving me _A Girl of the Limberlost_ (I recently found all of Gene Stratton Porter's books for free download to the Kindle).

My parents had lots of books around and I'd dip into those, like books about the Grand Canyon (exploration). They had the whole My Friend Flicka series and I devoured those, Black Beauty and other classics.

We had an encyclopedia

I just adored reading, except at school, where they used the Dick and Jane books, which were boring since I'd already been reading at home.

My dad would have us read out loud from the Wall St Journal to practice sounding out words, too.


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## Wisteria Clematis (Oct 29, 2008)

Seamonkey said:


> Being older than dirt, I started out on Bobbsey Twins, then Cherry Ames, Nancy Drew seres and my mom would stockpile these great biographies of people like Betsy Ross, Clara Barton, etc. And of course Little Women, Heidi, and I remember a babysitter giving me _A Girl of the Limberlost_ (I recently found all of Gene Stratton Porter's books for free download to the Kindle).


I haven't thought of Cherry Ames in years! And did you also read the Judy Bolton series I was also a sucker for Little Women and loved biographies of women in particular. By third grade our librarian was worn out from keeping me supplied and started me on Quo Vadis. She figured that would keep me busy for a while. It was adult literature from then on.


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## Figment (Oct 27, 2008)

The Nancy Drew and Cherry Ames series, both of which my mom got in a big box from a friend who was getting rid of her daughter's old books (the daughter being about 10 - 15 years older than me). The years I got those boxes of used books were two of the best Christmases in my life. I loved having "girl books" all of my own.

Even before that I read the entire collection of Jerry Todd and Poppy Ott books...a series for boys written back in the late 20's and early 30's. They had belonged to my dad and uncle, and had come to us for my older brothers to read. They were kind of a precursor to Hardy Boys.

I think, however, my all time, single favorite book as a child was The Secret Garden. I remember getting that from the library over and over and over.

Like others here, the library was a family ritual. I still remember when I was six and old enough to get a library card in my own name. (Heck, I still remember walking to the library that day with my dad, who had taken off work for the day...just the two of us, no brothers. Ms. Blackman, the children's librarian filled out the orange card with a fountain pen...that you dipped in the ink! It was like a holy ceremony...and she had AMAZING handwriting!) That opened a whole world, and was as much a rite of passage as getting a driver's license or moving out of the parental home.


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## drenee (Nov 11, 2008)

Figment, 
What a fantastic story about your library card.  It gave me goosebumps.  Thank you for sharing.
debbie


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## Leslie (Apr 7, 2008)

I think I shared this story before but I'll tell it again. Our library was in the next town over so it was too far to walk...maybe about 5 miles away? I guess when I was about 8, or maybe 9, my mother decided I was old enough that I could ride my bike to the library. So off I go. It probably took me about 1/2 hour to bike to the library. I go in select a book, check it out and bike home, another 30 minutes. I sat down with the book and read the whole entire thing in 20 minutes! 60 minutes of work for 20 minutes of reading! I was so mad at myself I could spit!

You can bet I never made that mistake again. From then on, everytime I went to the library I checked out an armload of books. LOL

L


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## Leslie (Apr 7, 2008)

bosslady said:


> I remember the first series I got hooked on was Brains Benton?? I have never seen them since, anywhere.


I don't remember Brains, but I loved this series (a small series, maybe 4 or 5 books) about this kid whose father was a diplomat. He lived in Rome during the school year but in the summer, his parents sent him to live with his grandparents in Princeton, NJ. The kid was into making inventions and starting businesses to sell them. He had a (girl) friend/sidekick who helped him. Of course, there were always all sorts of misadventures with his business ventures. Anyone know what I am talking about?

L


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## drenee (Nov 11, 2008)

Thanks for sharing, Leslie.  I did not see that post the first time.  What a great story.
debbie


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## auntmarge (Dec 4, 2008)

Oh, and I loved the Big Red stories, about Irish Setters and the family who owned them.  

Margaret


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## ScrappingForever (Nov 26, 2008)

I loved the Trixie Beldon series! Much better than the Nancy Drew series. I found her rather boring after Trixie. Trixie was so real!

I also loved Pippi Longstocking, anyone remember her?

The ones that stuck with me, tho, are A Tree Grows In Brooklyn and Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret. 

I also loved Mary Stewart's books. I think I started with her Arthur and Merlin series and moved on from there. I still have all of hers that I got when I was young. I also like Taylor Caldwell, and still have hers. We had a used book store in our area that I frequented when I got older. I also read stuff like the Exorcist and Sybil. 

I also read John Jakes series The Kent Family Chronicles. That's probably where my love of big, thick series started. 

Our library was in this old, stone building. It was wonderful. Loved the smell of that place. When we were little, before my mother went back to work, she would take us there. The kids section was down in the basement. Little chairs, reading time - loved it.

My biggest sadness is that my boys don't like to read. They are just not interested and we really have to force them to pick up a book. And it's not like they don't have good examples. Obviously Mike and I are avid readers, and their father is as well. We've tried different genres, to see if one clicks. They love to have me read to them, which we did every night when they were younger, but they are just not interested in reading on their own. I think they both have stunted imaginations. They can't see the pure joy that can be found in a book. Sigh....


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## Leslie (Apr 7, 2008)

Did anyone else have a library with mean librarians? The ones in my library could make your hair curl! They didn't have Nancy Drew (or any other series for that matter) because it wasn't "proper literature." The children's "room" was just a section of the library where all the children's books were. No special chairs, no cozy after school reading time, nothing. No special reading programs for children, either. And God forbid you ask a librarian for a recommendation for anything!

When I was 11, my parents bought a summer house in NH. The library there...I thought I had died and gone to heaven! They had every single Nancy Drew -- all the old originals plus the new re-written ones from the 50s and 60s. They had a summer reading program where you could get various prizes for reading books on the list (of course I read them all, and then some). The librarians were still sort of mean but compared to the crowd in NY, they were like fairy godmothers! LOL

L


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

I think there are two kinds of librarians in the world.

1.  the kind that love books.  They love books so much they don't want anyone to touch them. . .might soil them, dontcha know.  So they don't really want to you  check anything out.

2.  the kind that love to read.  They also love books but for the stories not for themselves and love nothing better than to share their friends (the books/stories) with others.

Ann


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## marianneg (Nov 4, 2008)

Ann Von Hagel said:


> I think there are two kinds of librarians in the world.
> 
> 1. the kind that love books. They love books so much they don't want anyone to touch them. . .might soil them, dontcha know. So they don't really want to you check anything out.
> 
> ...


Sounds like 1. anti-Kindlers and 2. potential Kindlers.


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## Eclectic Reader (Oct 28, 2008)

ScottBooks said:


> http://www.townofautumn.com/brainsbenton/
> 
> The books themselves seem to be rare (thus expensive) but this website seems fun.


OMG!!! I LOVED the Brains Benton books when I was a kid! I never knew anyone else who had ever heard of them before. I happened to find all but the first one (The Case of the Missing Message) at a Used Book Store a few years ago. They weren't cheap, but weren't overly expensive either. I bought them, and have been looking for The Case of the Missing Message ever since.

Thanks for the website. It's fascinating for someone (like me) who thought I was the only one who had ever read the books!


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## Eclectic Reader (Oct 28, 2008)

marianner said:


> Sounds like 1. anti-Kindlers and 2. potential Kindlers.


I agree!. lol

Though I admit I shudder when books fall on the floor at the library, and no one seems to notice enough to pick them up. They "may" step around them--or not. It just seems "disrespectful" to the books, to me.


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## akw4572 (Nov 3, 2008)

Encyclopedia Brown (love how the boy kept the dad employed by solving his cases)
The Hardy Boys
any from the "Choose Your Own Adventure Series" (books where you'd read  few pages, then have to choose between two choices, and they took you to different pages)
A WWII Encyclopedia Set by Trevor N. Dupuy, I recently found the whole set on Ebay, and bought them for like $40 as a keepsake.


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## ScottBooks (Oct 28, 2008)

Eclectic Reader said:


> OMG!!! I LOVED the Brains Benton books when I was a kid! I never knew anyone else who had ever heard of them before. I happened to find all but the first one (The Case of the Missing Message) at a Used Book Store a few years ago. They weren't cheap, but weren't overly expensive either. I bought them, and have been looking for The Case of the Missing Message ever since.
> 
> Thanks for the website. It's fascinating for someone (like me) who thought I was the only one who had ever read the books!


This one is readily available: http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?title=The%20Case%20of%20the%20Missing%20Message&lang=en&st=xl&ac=qr and around $12 (+ shipping)


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## Eclectic Reader (Oct 28, 2008)

ScottBooks said:


> This one is readily available: http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?title=The%20Case%20of%20the%20Missing%20Message&lang=en&st=xl&ac=qr and around $12 (+ shipping)


Many thanks *again!*!

I might add that I _owned_ all 6 books as a kid, and then sold them all in the huge garage sale my parents had when they retired. I was still unsettled at the time, and didn't want to be constantly moving my childhood things from place to place. I can't tell you how many times I've kicked myself for that (or reminded my parents that I sold things at their garage sale that would be worth *far* more money now!)


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## intinst (Dec 23, 2008)

Leslie said:


> I think I shared this story before but I'll tell it again. Our library was in the next town over so it was too far to walk...maybe about 5 miles away? I guess when I was about 8, or maybe 9, my mother decided I was old enough that I could ride my bike to the library. So off I go. It probably took me about 1/2 hour to bike to the library. I go in select a book, check it out and bike home, another 30 minutes. I sat down with the book and read the whole entire thing in 20 minutes! 60 minutes of work for 20 minutes of reading! I was so mad at myself I could spit!
> 
> You can bet I never made that mistake again. From then on, everytime I went to the library I checked out an armload of books. LOL
> 
> L


You bring back memories. When I was twelve, I had been riding to library regularly. One day in January, I realized that my books would be overdue if I did not take them back that day. There wasn't much money for extras so off I rode. Going South to the library was no problem, but while I was returning the books, the storm hit. Snow, freezing rain, and wind gusting to 50mph. (Wichita, KS) By the time I made it home, I was pushing the bike, clothes frozen, teeth chattering nonstop, mother in a panic, (I forgot to tell her I was going) so cold I was crying. Quite traumatic for a boy,I might add. Sure I was never going to go to the library again. Lasted two weeks. Reading held and still holds too much attraction.


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## ScottBooks (Oct 28, 2008)

Leslie said:


> I don't remember Brains, but I loved this series (a small series, maybe 4 or 5 books) about this kid whose father was a diplomat. He lived in Rome during the school year but in the summer, his parents sent him to live with his grandparents in Princeton, NJ. The kid was into making inventions and starting businesses to sell them. He had a (girl) friend/sidekick who helped him. Of course, there were always all sorts of misadventures with his business ventures. Anyone know what I am talking about?
> 
> L


Posted this on BookSleuth: got this reply in less than 10 minutes!

"These would be the Henry Reed series by Keith Robertson. The first one is Henry Reed, Inc., and there are several others, including Henry Reed's Babysitting Service, Henry Reed's Big Show, and Henry Reed's Think Tank."

"Henry Reed" is also a Wikipedia entry.


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## Jeff (Oct 28, 2008)

What a neat thread.

My father and his brothers were readers as boys and the family had money to buy books during the Depression. Consequently, the attic in my grandmother's house was a treasure trove of Tom Swift, The Rover Boys, Pewee Harris Fixer and all kinds of boy's books that no one today has even heard of. I'll never forget that dusty, musty attic or the adventures that I found there. It was better than a Kindle. <Runs for his life>


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## Guest (Jan 17, 2009)

> It was better than a Kindle. <Runs for his life>


I see no need to run for cover. As much as I love my Kindle, the memory itself is what makes it so much better. The love of reading goes so much deeper than the stories themselves.

Maybe, Kindle's will never be for children. The sensations that surround the reading itself at a young age make deep impressions.


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## tessa (Nov 1, 2008)

Jeff 

  Thanks for the memories. When my parents moved to house I was raised in all the family books at that time  were packed up and left in boxes in the attic  I found them one summer day I was about 9  I fell in love with
Zane Grey (my father)
The Hardy Boys (my brother)
Nancy Drew    (my sister)

My mother read anything and everything. She would call them "heaving bosoms aching loins"  books.

They got me  Cherry Ames


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## Anju  (Nov 8, 2008)

Nancy Drew and all Fairy Tales!


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## Jeff (Oct 28, 2008)

This is such a great thread that I can’t resist posting again. I hope you’ll forgive me.

One of the books in my grandmother’s attic was a red, clothbound book of Robert Louis Stevenson’s work, including Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Treasure Island and Kidnapped. The binding was badly mildewed and for a long time I was afraid to touch it. (Cooties were a terror in those days.) 

Before discovering the red mildewed book, I’d read and memorized A Child's Garden of Verses so I knew Stevenson’s name and was very interested in the ugly old book. Finally I summoned my courage, cracked it open and once I’d read the first page I forgot all about cooties. 

Just last year I reread Kidnapped, David Balfour, The Master of Ballantrae, The Black Arrow, Treasure Island and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - all as PDF files on a computer. The great stories are still there, but I kinda miss those stinky old books.


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## Eclectic Reader (Oct 28, 2008)

LuckyRainbow said:


> I see no need to run for cover. As much as I love my Kindle, the memory itself is what makes it so much better. The love of reading goes so much deeper than the stories themselves.
> 
> Maybe, Kindle's will never be for children. The sensations that surround the reading itself at a young age make deep impressions.


Both my brothers had paper routes, and they spent a portion of their incomes buying comic books. My sister and I (and a lot of other kids) were the beneficiaries of their indulgences--Superman, Superboy, Supergirl, Batman, Richie Rich, Donald Duck, etc.

We had a built-in cupboard with GINORMOUS deep drawers in the upstairs hallway between the bedrooms. The upstairs was strictly "ours"--my parents' bedroom was downstairs with all the public rooms. So....the boys would toss their comics in the drawers. Boring rainy August days would find many neighborhood kids in our upstairs hallway reading comics.

The extensive comic book collection was the envy of our cousins, too. One summer my uncle and aunt and cousins came for a week's visit. At one point during the week, the adults were unnerved by the quiet in the house. 10 kids should be making waaaay more noise. They found us all sprawled out on the floor in the upstairs hallway, reading comic books.

That famous comic book collection is still remembered today by "the cousins" at family reunions!

The literature may not have been "the greatest" (tho many graphic novel aficionados may disagree!), but the experience of sitting around reading on lazy summer afternoons is a memory that is cherished by many in my family.


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## Arby (Nov 5, 2008)

I am really enjoying this thread - I read Hardy boys, some Nancy Drew, and but my favorite was Rick Brant - they were mysteries with a scientific twist. Does anyone remember these?  Rick's dad was a famous scientist living on Spindrift island (fictional I'm guessing ) off the coast of New Jersey. 
Whenever I mention these books I encounter a very blank look with a certain amount of skepticism. Rick was maybe 18 or so, could pilot a plane and his best friend was Scotty- an ex-Marine.  Thought I would throw it out here to see if anyone remembers.  It seems that most of the KB members did a lot of reading from an early age - no great surprise.

My library did not carry any Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew or Trixie Belden, either.  Thank goodness my mom was pretty good about buying books for us since she loves to read. I think she read them too which probably helped. She even enjoyed the Rick Brant books.


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## Jeff (Oct 28, 2008)

Arby said:


> Does anyone remember these? Rick's dad was a famous scientist living on Spindrift island (fictional I'm guessing ) off the coast of New Jersey.


Rick's dog's name was Dismal but they called him Diz. His friend was a former Marine called Scotty.

There was another scientific series called Tom Swift, Jr. that was supposedly written by Victor Appleton Jr. The original Tom Swift series was written by Victor Appleton. Tom Swift, Jr. was a little too over the top even for teenagers. Tom invented a rocket ship. 








http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Brant

Edited correction: I just read on Wikipedia that Victor Appleton was a pen name. "The first books (Tom Swift) were outlined by Edward Stratemeyer and his Stratemeyer Syndicate, written by ghostwriters and all credited to the house name of Victor Appleton."

Great stuff anyway.


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## ScottBooks (Oct 28, 2008)

Jeff said:


> Tom invented a rocket ship.


And did he do it quickly? Did he think of himself highly? I know that it flew swiftly


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## libro (Dec 3, 2008)

I didn't come from a family of readers, so came up with ideas by myself.  My all-time childhood favorite is a classic, Black Beauty.  At every book fair I'd head straight for any book having to do with horses, either fiction or nonfiction.  When I was very young, I read some Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden and still have all of the books mentioned above.  Oh, and a Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle book, which I not only kept but read to all our kids when they were young.  To this day, we'll even refer to Mrs. Piggle Wiggle (i.e. when someone spills something she'd say "Oh I needed to clean that dirty old floor anyway!" or if they broke something, "Oh, I always hated that nasty old figurine and now I won't have to dust it!"  It's great to share childhood books with your own kids


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## Tbarney (Dec 28, 2008)

I liked Encyclopedia Brown and The Boxcar Children.  I always wished they lived in my town with me. I got one of my kids to read some of the Boxcar Children books, but no bites on Encyclopedia Brown.


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## chiffchaff (Dec 19, 2008)

I'm another fan of Trixie Beldon and the Hardy Boys.  I read Nancy Drew too but didn't get into that series as much.  I also loved horse books, especially the Black Stallion and its sequels and My Friend Flicka (the sequel, which I think was called Thunderhead, not so much)


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## Leslie (Apr 7, 2008)

ScottBooks said:


> Posted this on BookSleuth: got this reply in less than 10 minutes!
> 
> "These would be the Henry Reed series by Keith Robertson. The first one is Henry Reed, Inc., and there are several others, including Henry Reed's Babysitting Service, Henry Reed's Big Show, and Henry Reed's Think Tank."
> 
> "Henry Reed" is also a Wikipedia entry.


Thank you, Scott! I am off to read Wikipedia!

L


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## Leslie (Apr 7, 2008)

Any Swallows and Amazons fans here?

That series was my father's absolute favorite. He did everything he could to get my sister and I to read them. I never got beyond the first few pages. My sister did read a few and he gave her the collection.

I just went in to look at the archive and refresh my memory on what he gave me. I have the entire Dr. Doolittle collection. The first book is the 11th printing from 1923. I also have Mary Poppins (from my mother, with her name in the front), copyright 1933. It doesn't say what printing it is. I also have a bunch of Edgar Rice Burroughs books and I suppose I could do the research to figure out what order they go in (I never read those). I have 5 Bobbsey Twins books, one from 1923 with a picture on the cover. Last, all my Nancy Drews, many of which I have bought myself over the years.

Maybe later today I'll take a few pictures for all you wonderful people with wonderful book memories!

L


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## Wannabe (Nov 6, 2008)

When I was in third grade my family moved from a rural area to a small town. The first friend I made took me to the Book Mobile that stopped each week in the town square. I was astounded by the concept of a traveling library! So many books stuffed into that bus, I was enthralled. I don't remember what book I checked out or even if read it but the Book Mobile has intrigued me ever since.


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## chocochibi (Jan 2, 2009)

Leslie said:


> Any Swallows and Amazons fans here?


We had to read Swallows and Amazons at school, since it was set about 20 miles from where I grew up.


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## Arby (Nov 5, 2008)

Jeff said:


> Rick's dog's name was Dismal but they called him Diz. His friend was a former Marine called Scotty.
> 
> There was another scientific series called Tom Swift, Jr. that was supposedly written by Victor Appleton Jr. The original Tom Swift series was written by Victor Appleton. Tom Swift, Jr. was a little too over the top even for teenagers. Tom invented a rocket ship.


Thanks Jeff, for validating some very good memories. I rarely read science fiction (the exception is Distant Cousin - which I thoroughly enjoyed and promptly bought the rest of the trilogy). The Rick Brant books seemed to be somewhat rooted in fact. They also had a good amount of humor in them. I did read one Tom Swift book that a friend loaned me and I hated it. The guy was too perfect and the story bored me. I had the same reaction to the Dirk Pitt character authored by Clive Cussler. I may be all alone on that opinion - I know he is a very popular author - my Dad loves his books.


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## Mom of 4 (Oct 27, 2008)

Fun to remember the books that began our love of reading!

Some of my favorites:  Katie John, The Little House Books, The Great Brain, Wrinkle in Time

Then I moved on to the young ROMANCE books:  Wildfire especially (The girl would have a crush, and the big ending on the last page was their FIRST KISS )


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## marianneg (Nov 4, 2008)

Eclectic Reader said:


> Both my brothers had paper routes, and they spent a portion of their incomes buying comic books. My sister and I (and a lot of other kids) were the beneficiaries of their indulgences--Superman, Superboy, Supergirl, Batman, Richie Rich, Donald Duck, etc.


Oh, when we were kids my grandparents found a few comic books that my uncles had had, probably in the 50s and early 60s, and gave them to us. They were wonderful, several Superman ones, and a few others. I think there was a Richie Rich, too. I just wished there had been more of them.



Wannabe said:


> When I was in third grade my family moved from a rural area to a small town. The first friend I made took me to the Book Mobile that stopped each week in the town square. I was astounded by the concept of a traveling library! So many books stuffed into that bus, I was enthralled. I don't remember what book I checked out or even if read it but the Book Mobile has intrigued me ever since.


That made me remember, all the girls were into ghost stories when we were in elementary school. There was one called, I think, _The Ghostmobile_ that was about some kids that moved into an old school house, and the old librarian bookmobile driver and her niece or something who was with her that day had crashed the bookmobile and died. They now drove the bookmobile up the road on Thursdays or something (the day the bookmobile used to come), and they needed help to break free from their haunting pattern so they could drive away and see all the wonderful places they had read about.


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## chobitz (Nov 25, 2008)

Wow ..
I am the only one who read the black stallion series??


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## lesley9 (Oct 28, 2008)

The first book I can recall was one read to my kindergarden or first grade class while we were sitting on the floor crossed legged looking up at the seated librarian who was reading a book about how the sea got salty. The room completed disappeared for me as I imagined the story elements.....

Later I remember reading The Bobbsey Twins and Black Beauty. Being an urban but horse-crazy child, I adored National Velvet by Enid Bagnold - I still have the now out of print version I got when I was 11. I also owned an anthology of Edgar Allen Poe stories. 

There were others, but these are the ones that stand out in my memories. Some I only can vaguely recall as they were odd anthologies for children - one was something my mom would read me stories from at bedtime. I had another one that was short stories involving pets that were all sad - one story had a puppy being thrown out a third story window of all things - not sure if this was for kids but I was capable of reading it and used to sob at most of them!  

At 13, I also remember reading Bram Stoker's Dracula and still absolutely adore the book.


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## ScrappingForever (Nov 26, 2008)

How could I have forgotten the Little House books! Silly me! Loved all of those!


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## chiffchaff (Dec 19, 2008)

chobitz said:


> Wow ..
> I am the only one who read the black stallion series??


it was one of my favorites too


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## Jaderose (Dec 19, 2008)

The Chronicles of Narnia.  Fave fave fave!  I still have the set my father gave me.  

Then H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allen Poe, and Stephen King.


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## marianneg (Nov 4, 2008)

Jaderose said:


> The Chronicles of Narnia. Fave fave fave! I still have the set my father gave me.


Hee, hee, I've gone through 3 or 4 sets. My parents gave me the paperbacks when I was young, then when my grandparents moved into a smaller house, they gave me their set. As an adult, I bought them in hardback, and I gave one of the paperback sets to a friend. Now they're available for the Kindle, so I'm sure I'll need to get them all soon!


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## Jaderose (Dec 19, 2008)

Yea, I'm excited to get them for my Kindle. 

They were also one of the reasons I fell in love with my husband.  hehe had soo much in common and when he said those were his favorite books as well (his father also gave him a set which he still has), my heart just clinched and that was all she wrote.


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## Andra (Nov 19, 2008)

I have to chime in on this one.
For early reading, before chapter books, I read all of the Dorrie the Little Witch books by Patricia Coombs. They are out of print now and I spent an amazing amount of time a few years ago finding all of them on Ebay.
However, my hands-down favorite chapter book was Half Magic by Edward Eager. I saw the book in the school library and the cover was so interesting that I had to read it. It's not available for the Kindle, but here is the 50th anniversary edition with the original cover art:

This book kicked off an endless list that some others have mentioned: Nancy Drew, The Dana Girls, Trixie Beldon, Cherry Ames, Beverly Gray, Vickie Barr, Judy Bolton, the Boxcar Children, the E. Nesbit Books (available for Kindle at manybooks.net), Judy Blume, Beverly Cleary, the Ruth Chew witch books, Little House on the Prarie and Winnie-the-Pooh. Someone mentioned _From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler_ - that was great! I also like _Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley and Me, Elizabeth_.
I lived in a small town and we were allowed to ride our bikes to the library. Some times in the summer, we went every day to get new books.
I think my collection of children's books takes up as much room as my adult books! (I have all the Henry Reed books Leslie)
Andra


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## Leslie (Apr 7, 2008)

> (I have all the Henry Reed books Leslie)


Oh, I am jealous! But I actually never owned the Henry Reed books. Those were ones I got from the library. I remember reading them in the summer and getting them from the library in NH.

L


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## hueymom3 (Jan 12, 2009)

I came from generations of readers.  I had my mom's Nancy Drew books.  My favorites though were the Little House books, From the Mixed up files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankeweiler, Charlotte's Web, Any Roald Dahl books, and Louisa May Alcott.  I still reread most of these from time to time.

Now my kids are reading some of the same stuff I loved.  Plus we share the newer books.


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## Dave A Vance (Jan 20, 2009)

As a young child, I remember reading the Choose Your Own Adventure books and The Billion Dollar Hobo by Vic Crume.  These are the books I remember the most because I read them over and over.  I remember re-reading each Choose Your Own Adventure book a few times just so I could pick a different path to see how the storyline changed.  They were published by Bantam Books from 1979 to 1998 and it looks like Chooseco is publishing them now, starting in 2005 after buying the rights from Bantam.


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## Mike D. aka jmiked (Oct 28, 2008)

Favorites during childhood:

The Oz series
Tom Swift Jr.
Rick Brant
The Hardy Boys
The Black Stallion series (including the Fury novels)
Albert Payson Terhune's dog stories

All this came to a sudden end one day in Garmisch Germany, when my mom took me down to the library in the hotel we were in during vacation. The pickings were pretty slim but they had a copy of (if I recall correctly) J. T. McIntosh's _Born Leader._ I picked it because of the flyleaf description (it had rocket ships, whoo-hoo!). I was never the same afterwards, I was hooked on science fiction. I was ten years old at the time. Living in France, there were few opportunities to get SF except from the base library, which I haunted. For years afterward, one of my presents on my birthday was a subscription to the Science Fiction Book Club, which would send me two new SF hardcovers a month, the best present ever!

Mike


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## marianneg (Nov 4, 2008)

Dave A Vance said:


> As a young child, I remember reading the Choose Your Own Adventure books and The Billion Dollar Hobo by Vic Crume. These are the books I remember the most because I read them over and over. I remember re-reading each Choose Your Own Adventure book a few times just so I could pick a different path to see how the storyline changed. They were published by Bantam Books from 1979 to 1998 and it looks like Chooseco is publishing them now, starting in 2005 after buying the rights from Bantam.


I had a system with the Choose Your Own Adventure books so that I could read a story to the end, then go back to my last choice and take a different path, until I had read every possible ending


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## Seamonkey (Dec 2, 2008)

Wisteria Clematis said:


> I haven't thought of Cherry Ames in years! And did you also read the Judy Bolton series I was also a sucker for Little Women and loved biographies of women in particular. By third grade our librarian was worn out from keeping me supplied and started me on Quo Vadis. She figured that would keep me busy for a while. It was adult literature from then on.


Oh yes! Judy Bolton as well, of course.

My mom was so cool with those books. I guess she kept a supply up in a closet and at certain times, especially if I was sick and on the couch, she'd magically appear with a fresh new hardback book in whatever series I was going through!

My mom also came up with Amelia Earhardt and other women's bios.. I think she was a secret feminist in the fifties 

Lynn D


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## Seamonkey (Dec 2, 2008)

Oh I forgot a real favorite.. I had _Eloise_ and then each subsequent book in that series. I loved the illustrations and the stories and the humor too.

===

And had to laugh about a couple of you reading "adult" books on the sly.

I was in junior high and we were reading Ivanhoe in English. I was way ahead in Ivanhoe and I had my parents' copy of Peyton Place, which I wrapped in a paper book cover, like our textbooks were, and wrote "Ivanhoe" on it (nevermind that it was larger than the Ivanhoe text). I was sitting in the back of the room happily reading Peyton Place and little did I notice that there was this woman behind me, slipped into the room, I guess. Uh.. she was there to audit the student teacher and of course she peeked over my shoulder to see what was keeping me glued to the page.

This resulted in a phone call home.

I think my mom was quite amused by the whole thing but did advise me not to bring their books to school in the future.

Another book I read avidly was Gone With the Wind.. I can remember hiding under the covers with a flashlight when I was supposed to be sleeping. My parents caught me and we negotiated that I could go to bed at the same time and then read for a specified time after that but had to promise to turn out the lights as we agreed.

Our library was a long but doable walk and they would let us take out 6 books at a time, so the only problem was lugging them back and forth since all books were hardbacks then. I remember rather quickly rounding the corner to check out the young adult books instead of the children's books and luckily my mom was quite willing to sign off on my access to that area.

Someone mentioned Kindergarten and I know we were read many books but the one that stands out in my mind for some reason was Curious George the Monkey. I note that he seems to have had a comeback recently.


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## katiekat1066 (Nov 19, 2008)

This thread has reminded me of a lot of old favorites that I now want to go find again....
  My father collected old boys series, and I went through all of them over and over again.  The Hardy Boys, Tom Swift, Tom Swift, Jr. Rick Brant, Johnny Quest, Bronc Burnett, Chip Hilton, the Boy Scouts, the Aeroplane Boys, the Rover Boys and Tom Corbet Space Cadet.  Most of these are currently living in my basement waiting for my darling SO to build the shelves in the living room so that they can be put on proper display.  Only 2 more books and I'll have the complete Tom Swifts, 3 and I'll have all the Tom Swift, Jrs and I already have the complete Rick Brant and Tom Corbet and Hardy Boys.  Brag brag brag    I also had the Nancy Drews and Trixie Beldens and the Bobsey Twins, those I collected.  I think all of these are what got me addicted to series, I love the comfort of known characters like old friends.  
  Dad started me out early in SF with the Heinlein juveniles and Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicals - I had the run of the bookshelves by the time I was 8, so I read a lot of stuff that I didn't totally get but loved.  Asimov, Clarke, all the classics from the Golden Age.
  I remember another book that I re-read for years from the library, it was called The Pushcart War and was about peddlers with pushcarts declaring war on the big, smelly trucks in New York City.  I don't know why it was so fascinating, but for a while it was a big favorite.  I also loved (and still have) the Homer Price books, books of short stories about Homer Price who lived in something Corners New Jersey and got into all kinds of trouble - like the time the donut machine at his uncle's restaurant wouldn't shut off.  
  I'm off to dig out some of these from the basement.....
Katiekat


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## Eclectic Reader (Oct 28, 2008)

katiekat1066 said:


> I remember another book that I re-read for years from the library, it was called The Pushcart War and was about peddlers with pushcarts declaring war on the big, smelly trucks in New York City. I don't know why it was so fascinating, but for a while it was a big favorite.


The Pushcart War by Jean Merrill! I haven't thought about that book in a long time. I loved it, too. Hmmm...I think I'll have to rummage around and find my copy and read it again...


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## Angela (Nov 2, 2008)

The Oz Series
Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass
Nancy Drew
Hardy Boys

We also had a series that came with our set of encyclopedias. The series was about a family that had lots of kids 5 or 6 and they were always helping people. All I remember is that their last name started with *H* and my favorite one was when a couple of the kids became friends with a deaf boy and the whole family learned the finger alphabet (which was printed in the book). I was probably 9 or 10 when I read these and my mom sold them in a garage sale when I was about 14. I have thought about those books many times and would loved to find them again if only I could remember more!


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## intinst (Dec 23, 2008)

A Wrinkle in Time was an early favorite of mine, I need to read it again on the Kindle, I lost my DTV.


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## radiantmeg (Feb 13, 2009)

Awwww, I love kids books.  Island of the Blue Dolphins, Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E Frankweiler, Christy.  I also had a thing for Babysitters Club books and Saddle Club books growing up.  I used to devour books and that is one of the reasons I can't wait to get a kindle


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## crebel (Jan 15, 2009)

We also had a series that came with our set of encyclopedias. The series was about a family that had lots of kids 5 or 6 and they were always helping people. All I remember is that their last name started with *H* and my favorite one was when a couple of the kids became friends with a deaf boy and the whole family learned the finger alphabet (which was printed in the book). 

Angela, were these The Happy Hollisters?  I loved them, I think I've read all the books folks are talking about, but haven't seen anyone mention my favorites - The Borrowers!


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## crebel (Jan 15, 2009)

Darn - Didn't get the portion of Angela's quote in a quote box.  I get these messages right one of these days.


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## crebel (Jan 15, 2009)

Angela - from the HappyHollisters.com web page FAQ:

Rachel's answer - Barrett, The book you are looking for is "The Happy Hollisters and The Haunted House Mystery". The deaf character in the book is named Charles, and "the finger alphabet" (or in other words, basic ASL alphabet) is located in the beginning of the book, right before the first page of the first chapter.  

Now I have to check the attic and see if I still have these around - like yours, ours were the "educational editions" with the red covers that my parents ordered thru Childcraft/Worldbook when we were homeschooled on the mission field in Jamaica, WI

Chris


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## ogie287 (est. 1838) (Feb 5, 2009)

Some of my favorites are:

Island of the Blue Dolphins
Little House books
Judy Blume
Beverly Cleary

I read a lot of the books that my friend had, Sweet Valley High series, Nancy Drew, etc.

One of my all-time favorites is To Kill a Mockingbird.

Seamonkey - your kitty looks exactly like my late cat.  A big fat leopard....
tracyreads - love your avatar, Ricky Gervais is the best!


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## Sparkplug (Feb 13, 2009)

I also love the Ramona Quimby books and I loved Matilda by Ronald Dahl. But my all time favorite books were by Lucy Maud Montgomery. She wrote the Anne of Green Gables series and many other books that I read over and over again when I was growing up. All of her books are available at freekindlebooks.org, but I found a Kindle book on Amazon that has all her novels and short stories all together and it's formatted very nicely. I've been rereading all my favorites since I bought it last week.


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## Gruntman (Feb 9, 2009)

As a kid I always liked to read especially when I was supposed to be sleeping.  It started with Biographies, children's versions Robert E Lee, Harriet Tubman, and a couple others over and over. then my grand parents gave me some Hardy boys, but the big change in what books meant for me happend when I was still young (. It was June and I was living the good life, lots of friends and summer vacation.  Then I had an accident, my hand got mangled(it still makes me wince when I think of it) after getting stitches in three fingers and across the palm I had to deal with sitting at home in the den with my hand raised on a cushion. It hurt like heck and the fact that I couldn't go out and play made it seem so much worse.  Our old TV only got two channels so there wasn't much help there.  My mother would bring me books and sandwiches to keep me occupied, she was and is a saint, I was a miserable little boy.  The dark cloud lifted and my summer returned when she returned from a shopping trip with a new book. One I hadn't read a dozen times, one that hadn't belonged to my older sister or one of my many cousins, one that changed books for me forever. It was mine in a way that none of the others had ever been. The story was so engrossing that I read it twice that summer and have been looking for new and interesting books ever since.   This book was Treasure Island, and it remains my favorite book to this day.  Thanks Mom.


sorry if that was to long.  I don't usually talk that much.


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## Sofie (Dec 30, 2008)

I read most of the Trixie Belden series, Robin Kane Mysteries, Nancy Drew, and the Hardy Boys. I always read mysteries. The classics bored me to tears and still do.


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## Angela (Nov 2, 2008)

crebel said:


> Angela - from the HappyHollisters.com web page FAQ:
> 
> Rachel's answer - Barrett, The book you are looking for is "The Happy Hollisters and The Haunted House Mystery". The deaf character in the book is named Charles, and "the finger alphabet" (or in other words, basic ASL alphabet) is located in the beginning of the book, right before the first page of the first chapter.
> 
> ...


That's it!!  Thanks so much... I tried searching Holloway, Holliday, etc... I know their name began with H, but my 53 year old brain just couldn't remember. Thanks so much... Now to do some searching of my own to see I can locate a set!!


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## WilliamM (Feb 10, 2009)

very young age:
Dr Suess..any of them
Where The Wild Things Are
Look Out for Pirates

as I got older I got into the big Hitchcock hardback anthologies and
Encyclopeida Brown


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Bluebell said:


> I read most of the Trixie Belden series, Robin Kane Mysteries, Nancy Drew, and the Hardy Boys. I always read mysteries. The classics bored me to tears and still do.


Maybe Nancy Drew is why I still love mysteries so much.


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## PraiseGod13 (Oct 27, 2008)

My _*very *_favorite is called Tom's Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce - sadly not available on Kindle but I keep clicking. My husband and son did buy me the DTV one year for Christmas and I was afraid that when I re-read it as an adult, I wouldn't like it as much as I did as a child. But, I absolutely LOVED it and found it as enchanting as I remembered.... a precious book is always a precious book!!
I too loved Nancy Drew and love mysteries still today, Gertie. Brighty of the Grand Canyon was another favorite and I'm an animal lover to this day also. I guess I haven't wandered too far from my "first loves"...... I'm married to the guy who was my "boyfriend" when I was in grade school.


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## Esther (Dec 21, 2008)

I too spent many an hour with Trixie Belden and Nancy Drew. Wanted to marry Jim at one point I think. Trixie was very hard to find in my area even in the library. I had about 5 or 6 that I read over and over again. I have a really fond memory of a rainy beach vacation on Cape Cod when I found a new Trixie Belden in the local 5&dime! I was in heaven! My 12 year old daughter is SO not interested in either of these series. Oh well.

Reading about everyone elses, I remembered a really unusual and very old favorite of mine. I got the book at an elderly neighbor's yard sale when I was about 8. It was a really old book even way back then, called "A Little Mother to the Others" by L. T. Meade. It is one of the few books from my youth that I still have. It was written around the turn of the last century. It's about 4 kids who lose their real mother and get sent to a mean aunt, run away and have lots of adventures and hardships (find themselves in a traveling circus, with gypsies, etc.) Anyway, I discovered it is available for the Kindle (one of the annoying free public domain books recently kindle-ized). It even has one rating (5 star), not written by me, so at least one other person has enjoyed this gem:

http://www.amazon.com/Little-Mother-Others/dp/B000JQU52S/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&s=digital-text&qid=1234625083&sr=1-10

I downloaded and found as in many other free pub. domain. titles, it has been formatted for the Kindle with no attention to detail. Really bad actually, not TOC chapter links, no spacing between chapter headings etc.


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## Lori (Jan 29, 2009)

Katie John by Mary Calhoun was one of my favorites.
http://www.amazon.com/Katie-John-Mary-Calhoun/dp/0060209518/ref=pd_sim_b_1


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## Leslie (Apr 7, 2008)

Thinking about these old books reminded me of Helen's Babies by John Habberton. We had an ancient copy at home which belonged to my father....it probably belonged to his father, too! It was originally written in 1875. I remember reading it and was curious to see if is it out. I found the book on Google books (digitized) but there are also two Kindle versions. The cheaper one ($1.59) was poorly formatted so I sprung for the $6.29 version. Reading it now, it is a hoot. I definitely recommend it.

Here's the cover from the Google book version (which is the cover I remember):










A link to the Google version:

http://books.google.com/books?printsec=frontcover&ei=SRSXSYzYLdG3twe8lKS0Cw&ct=result&id=a2tOAAAAMAAJ

and a link to the book at Amazon:

Helen's Babies









I probably could have downloaded the PDF from Google and made the book myself, for free, but I was feeling lazy.

L


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## ljloula (Dec 16, 2008)

I've really enjoyed reading all the responses on this thread. Here's what comes to mind for me:

L. Frank Baum - beyond the Wizard of Oz.

Little House books ~ still have my hardcover set.

Hardy Boys

Encyclopedia Brown

Boxcar Children

Wrinkle in Time series

Little Women, Little Men, Jo's Boys

Lord of the Rings

Anne McCaffrey

my grandmother's Agatha Cristie collection

my uncle's giant collection of comic books and Mad Magazine.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

ljloula said:


> my grandmother's Agatha Cristie collection


A lot of Christie's books have been Kindleized at reasonable prices. I'm slowly building up my collection. Hopefully, Rex Stout will be Kindleized next.


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## crebel (Jan 15, 2009)

I am also waiting for Rex Stout to be kindleized!  I have every Nero Wolfe novel in DTB.  I have also been hoping all the Pearl Buck books will show up in the public domain offerings.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

crebel said:


> I am also waiting for Rex Stout to be kindleized! I have every Nero Wolfe novel in DTB. I have also been hoping all the Pearl Buck books will show up in the public domain offerings.


I have a lot of Wolfe books, but not all. I doubt if they will be in public domain since they are being reissued as two books in one.

I think Pearl Buck's estate is still in control of the copyrights. She only died in 1973, so they are not anywhere near public domain status.


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## TalkFast (Dec 26, 2008)

Wow, great thread! Its uncanny how many of us loved the same books as kids.

My top 10 are:

10. The Little House Series
9. Anything by Rosamond DuJardin, especially the "Double" series about twins Pam and Penny Howard
8. All of Marguerite Henry's Horse Books, especially Misty of Chincoteague
7. The Black Stallion Series
6. My Side of the Mountain
5. The Pushcart War
4. The Hobbit & Lord of the Rings
3. All of Heinlein's work
2. Trixie Belden Series
1. Cherry Ames Series


The Bobbsey Twins, The Dave Dawson series from WWII, the Hardy Boys, Flicka series, The Borrowers, all of Allcott's books, Where the Red Fern Grows, Susan Cooper's series, especially The Dark is Rising, A Wrinkle in Time and sequels, anything by Roald Dahl, the list is endless!

Also, does anyone else remember the biography series that all of the libraries had thata was about the Childhoods of Famous Americans? My favorite was the one about Lou Gerhig, but I devoured all of them.


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## gigglebox1231 (Feb 10, 2009)

nebulinda said:


> My most favorite book growing up was Ella Enchanted. In fact, I'm currently rereading the copy I've had since I was about 11. Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter (of course), His Dark Materials, and A Little Princess are all also favorites. I also really liked The Egypt Game, though when I mention it to people they've never heard of it.
> 
> I LOVE Ella Enchanted and the Eygpt Game! Did you ever read the sequel the Gypsy Game? It was okay.


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## Leslie (Apr 7, 2008)

I finished Helen's Babies and it's very very funny. I think someone should make a movie of it. I checked and they did make a movie, back in 1924, with Edward Everett Horton as Uncle Horton and Clara Bow as the love interest. They turned the two boys into girls and one of the girls was played by Baby Peggy, who I gather was a superstar baby actor a decade before Shirley Temple. 

Anyway, I think it is time for a remake, following the original story more closely, with boys instead of girls as the kids. Lots of costumes, beautiful scenery....I can see it now!

Someone else, read the book so we can discuss. LOL

L


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## wilsondm2 (Dec 8, 2008)

TalkFast said:


> Also, does anyone else remember the biography series that all of the libraries had thata was about the Childhoods of Famous Americans? My favorite was the one about Lou Gerhig, but I devoured all of them.


YES!!! What were they called? I have been looking for those for years!! I devoured them and would love to find them again!

my favorites other books?

Ghost stories, Titanic books, Mouse series, Hardy boys, Encyclopedia Brown, Star Trek, Misty of Chincoteague, Oz, Heinlein, Vonnegut (as I got older), and lots others...


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## Gruntman (Feb 9, 2009)

wilsondm2 said:


> YES!!! What were they called? I have been looking for those for years!! I devoured them and would love to find them again!
> 
> my favorites other books?
> 
> Ghost stories, Titanic books, Mouse series, Hardy boys, Encyclopedia Brown, Star Trek, Misty of Chincoteague, Oz, Heinlein, Vonnegut (as I got older), and lots others...


recognized most of those but Mouse series?


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## wilsondm2 (Dec 8, 2008)

Gruntman said:


> recognized most of those but Mouse series?


LoL - Mouse and the motorcycle and its sequels...sorry, I think shorthand sometimes...


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## Gruntman (Feb 9, 2009)

wilsondm2 said:


> LoL - Mouse and the motorcycle and its sequels...sorry, I think shorthand sometimes...


no problem with the shorthand, I still don't recognize it. Guess it just passed me by.


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## TalkFast (Dec 26, 2008)

The Childhood of Famous Americans Series was published by the Bobbs-Merrill Company. From the list on the inside covers they published well over 100 of them. I own copies of three: _Lou Gehrig, Boy of the Sandlots_, _P.T. Barnum, Circus Boy_ and _Israel Putnam, Fearless Boy_. The oldest of my copies was published in 1949 and the newest was in 1964, still 2 years before I was born! I used to own one about General "Mad Anthony" Wayne and one about Pocahontas also, but I think my Mom got rid of them years ago.


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## LDB (Oct 28, 2008)

I loved The Mouse and the Motorcycle. I think I read it 4 or 5 times one year. I don't remember how many books we had to read during the year but I'd ready anywhere from 75% more to double and then some. I was usually always the one with the most stickers on the books read poster. There was maybe one month where someone beat me by 1 book. I read around 20 books a month in 3rd grade.


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## Gruntman (Feb 9, 2009)

LDB:

I gotta say, I love both those quotes in your signature line.

Sorry to get off topic.


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## MonaSW (Nov 16, 2008)

The blue covered Nancy Drews. Loved those books. Also A Wrinkle in Time, Are You There God, It's Me Margaret. The Black Stallion books.


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## Tippy (Dec 8, 2008)

The closest library to our home was 60 miles away.  My mother brought all of her childhood books with her when she got married.  And she was always good to buy us books.  Then in mid-grade school we had a Bookmobile -- it was a heavenly place.   Some of my favorites:

Thornton Burgess wrote wonderful books about nature.  We had one on animals, flowers, birds and it seems there was one more -- maybe fish or reptiles, or something.  I loved the illustrations and stories.

Dr. Seuss

Louisa Mae Alcott -- Little Women, Little Men, Jo's Boys

Laura Ingalls Wilder -- all of them

Jack London,

Mark Twain

Jame Fennimore Cooper and Sir Walter Scott, Treasure Island (purchased with coupons from tobacco when my mother was a small child)

Golden Book Encyclopedias

Bobbsey Twin, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Black Beauty, Flicka  At school our teacher read The Happy Hollisters

Loved biographies -- Davy Crockett, Teddy Roosevelt, Amelia Earhart

We didn't have electricity until I was 6 years old.  We had a windcharger.  My mother would sit down with me in the evening and we would read together.  Dad would listen to the radio or read the paper.  I remember in the winter the snow would blow in and the wind howled outside our windows.  But inside, we were warm and cozy, enjoying the very best entertainment in the peaceful hearth of our home.


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## John Steinbeck (Feb 15, 2009)

Where the Red Fern Grows
Chronicles of Narnia
Everything Tolkien
Hardy Boys
Any History Book


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## LDB (Oct 28, 2008)

Thank you. The first is the tougher of the two. I frequently have to remind myself it applies to those to whom the second also applies. I believe it was around 4th or 5th grade I read a book on Jefferson and the writing of the Declaration and the times that made me more aware of the first than I had been prior to that (to link to on topic).


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## Leslie (Apr 7, 2008)

MonaSW said:


> The blue covered Nancy Drews. Loved those books. Also A Wrinkle in Time, Are You There God, It's Me Margaret. The Black Stallion books.


The blue covered Nancy Drews were good and before they had the blue "woven" covers (that's what I called them), they were blue with orange letters, an orange Nancy, and dust jackets. Any of the NDs written in the 30s, 40s and early 50s are good. In the late 1950s and 1960s they started rewriting all of the old ones, while continuing to add new ones to the series. These are the ones with the covers with the pictures on them. The rewritten ones just don't have the same pizzazz as the originals.

I was just looking at the books on my shelf and I have one Dana Girls mystery, by Carolyn Keene. That has a red cover with black writing.

L


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## wilsondm2 (Dec 8, 2008)

TalkFast said:


> The Childhood of Famous Americans Series was published by the Bobbs-Merrill Company. From the list on the inside covers they published well over 100 of them. I own copies of three: _Lou Gehrig, Boy of the Sandlots_, _P.T. Barnum, Circus Boy_ and _Israel Putnam, Fearless Boy_. The oldest of my copies was published in 1949 and the newest was in 1964, still 2 years before I was born! I used to own one about General "Mad Anthony" Wayne and one about Pocahontas also, but I think my Mom got rid of them years ago.


Thank You! - I found them on Amazon, and many are Kindlized!! I bought and am reading Davy Crockett right now!!


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## Goofy370 (Dec 6, 2008)

Trixie Belden was my favorite series. My grandma used to buy me those books. I also loved Encylopedia Brown, the Littles, The Borrowers, and there was another series like Trixie Belden and Nancy Drew but I can not for the life of me remember the heroine's name. She only had 5 or so books when I was 13 and stopped reading that series. I also read alot of V C Andrews books. Boy was my grandma HORRIFIED when she borrowed Flowers in the Attic from me at the ripe old age of 13. LOL


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## Mikuto (Oct 30, 2008)

I read a lot of *Ramona*, *The Babysitter's Club* and *Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark* but my favorite was an obscure series by a Finnish author named Tove Jansson. My grandmother gave me the first book I got in the series  and I've been trying to complete it ever since.


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## Vegas_Asian (Nov 2, 2008)

My favorite Childhood book: If You Give A Mouse a Cookie


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## Guest (Feb 17, 2009)

Mikuto said:


> I read a lot of *Ramona*, *The Babysitter's Club* and *Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark* but my favorite was an obscure series by a Finnish author named Tove Jansson. My grandmother gave me the first book I got in the series  and I've been trying to complete it ever since.


This weirdly made me remember how much I loved the Pippi Longstocking books. Loved her independent spirit and can do attitude.


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## Mikuto (Oct 30, 2008)

LuckyRainbow said:


> This weirdly made me remember how much I loved the Pippi Longstocking books. Loved her independent spirit and can do attitude.


Odd! I used to read those too though, so maybe you were reading my mind or something


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## ljloula (Dec 16, 2008)

Oh yeah, I remember Pippi!


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## crca56 (Dec 20, 2008)

the happy hollisters
the boxcar children
beautiful joe
louisa may alcott :a rose in bloom, eight cousins, little women, little men, jos boys
the bobsy twins
black beauty
pippi longstockings
tom sawyer
huck finn
grace livingston hills books
emilie lorings books  the last two introduced me to romance books  very safe ones at a very young age


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## chocochibi (Jan 2, 2009)

I loved the whole Mary Poppins series.
She wasn't a bit like Julie Andrews in the books.


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## marianneg (Nov 4, 2008)

Does anybody else remember Scholastic book fairs?  They'd roll those brightly-colored cases into the library and pass around the newsprint book list.  I'd read it cover to cover, multiple times, and I'd spend forever circling things and adding them up to get exactly how much I was allowed to spend.


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## John Steinbeck (Feb 15, 2009)

marianner said:


> Does anybody else remember Scholastic book fairs? They'd roll those brightly-colored cases into the library and pass around the newsprint book list. I'd read it cover to cover, multiple times, and I'd spend forever circling things and adding them up to get exactly how much I was allowed to spend.


Yup, that was me (my sister too). Though we didn't have much moolah back then, so the library was our second home.


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## LDB (Oct 28, 2008)

marianner said:


> Does anybody else remember Scholastic book fairs?


I loved it when those came around. I'd look at every book in the flyer and make my wish list. I was fortunate that my folks believed in reading so I usually got just about all the books on my list. I also liked the annual book fair in the library when you could buy them and take them home. I got so much money to spend each time it was my turn to go.


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## luvmy4brats (Nov 9, 2008)

I homeschool my kids and I actually get all those newspaper fliers to hand out and run for our co-op every month. I get them for every age group that they offer...every month. My kids drive me nuts with them. Luckily, because I manage it, I get all the bonus points and almost every book I buy for the kids is free.


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## Aravis60 (Feb 18, 2009)

The Chronicles of Narnia were my very favorites, but I also loved the L.M. Montgomery books and A Wrinkle in Time.


----------



## LDB (Oct 28, 2008)

I wish I had kids in school so I could get them still. In a decade or so when there's grandkids in school I'm telling my girls to let me shop the flyer too.


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## CS (Nov 3, 2008)

Wannabe said:


> I also enjoyed the Encyclopedia Brown books because they had all the clues lined up at the end of the book.


I loved these as well, and a few of them are actually on the Kindle for fairly reasonable prices. So tempted...


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## Britt (Feb 8, 2009)

I read a lot of Dr. Seuss and Roald Dahl (It's all about the BFG!)... I also loved the Ramona, Amelia Bedelia and Boxcar Children books, and I inherited the Bobbsey Twins books from my mom.  Read a few books in the Narnia and Little House on the Prairie series. Oh, and Goosebumps, especially the "choose your own ending" ones!


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## ogie287 (est. 1838) (Feb 5, 2009)

marianner said:


> Does anybody else remember Scholastic book fairs? They'd roll those brightly-colored cases into the library and pass around the newsprint book list. I'd read it cover to cover, multiple times, and I'd spend forever circling things and adding them up to get exactly how much I was allowed to spend.


They still come around our schools and hand out the book lists. My girls go to two different elementary schools (K-2 and 3-6). Both schools will hold the book fair at least twice a year. All the kids love it! The hand outs are passed out at times when the book fair isn't going on. I usually go and pick up a couple of books for the girls. It's fun seeing the old classics and ones that I enjoyed reading as a kid.


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## ljloula (Dec 16, 2008)

I remember RIF (Reading Is Fundamental) book fair coming to my elementary school. That's where I got The How and Why Weather book.


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## Mom of 4 (Oct 27, 2008)

ljloula said:


> I remember RIF (Reading Is Fundamental) book fair coming to my elementary school. That's where I got The How and Why Weather book.


I LOVED the How and Why books!


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## Britt (Feb 8, 2009)

And Shel Silverstein... loved him!


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## KindleKid (Feb 11, 2009)

I think I had every single "Goosebumps" book ever written.


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## Kind (Jan 28, 2009)

I used to read my sister's books. I forget the exact name but it was something like "Babysitters Club" or something.


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## Leslie (Apr 7, 2008)

KindleKid said:


> I think I had every single "Goosebumps" book ever written.


So did my son. He loved those Goosebumps books. Then one day, he sold his entire collection at a yard sale. I couldn't believe it. He wanted the money to buy something else -- what, I don't remember now.

L


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## drenee (Nov 11, 2008)

Kind said:


> I used to read my sister's books. I forget the exact name but it was something like "Babysitters Club" or something.


My daughter loved this series. I used to read them while she was at school, and then she would read when she came home. We loved to chat about what happened in the book. I did the same thing with the Fudge series and my boys.


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## Mikuto (Oct 30, 2008)

Leslie said:


> So did my son. He loved those Goosebumps books. Then one day, he sold his entire collection at a yard sale. I couldn't believe it. He wanted the money to buy something else -- what, I don't remember now.
> 
> L


I loved them for a long time when I was younger, sort of horror for grade-schoolers. Then one day, abruptly, I figured out the formula that R.L. Stine followed in each book and they were no longer interesting. Maybe that's what happened with your son.


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## Neekeebee (Jan 10, 2009)

Eclectic Reader said:


> The Pushcart War by Jean Merrill! I haven't thought about that book in a long time. I loved it, too. Hmmm...I think I'll have to rummage around and find my copy and read it again...


That was one of my favorite books! Also haven't thought about it in a while...this thread is bringing a huge smile to my face! I remember picking up a very used copy at a library book sale years ago, but don't remember the last time I saw it!

N


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## Neekeebee (Jan 10, 2009)

Reading this thread reminds me of the time when I was in college and went to the children's section of the library with a friend who was also an avid reader.  We had such fun remembering all the books we used to love!

My faves:
Betsy Byars-The Cybil War, among others
E.W. Hildick - Manhattan is Misssing, Louie the Milkman, the McGurk detective series
The Great Brain series
Henry Reed series
Some series about a pair of friends named Ginny and Geneva (I think the author was Carolyn Haywood?)
Beverly Cleary books
Paddington Bear series

I was esp. impressed with Mary Stolz's The Dog on Barkham Street and The Bully of Barkham Street, two books where the same events were told from a different point of view.  

And younger: Amelia Bedelia, Clifford the Big Red Dog

Anybody remember the books their teachers read to the class in grade school?
Those were some great books: Charlotte's Web, Where the Red Fern Grows, 21 Balloons, James and the Giant Peach, A Wrinkle in Time.

N


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## ljloula (Dec 16, 2008)

Oh yeah, I haven't thought of the Great Brain series in a long time.


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## marianneg (Nov 4, 2008)

Neekeebee said:


> Some series about a pair of friends named Ginny and Geneva (I think the author was Carolyn Haywood?)


I remember reading the Eddie books by Carolyn Haywood, but I don't remember her having any about girls. Let me know if you find out about it!


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## jackievwi (Dec 26, 2008)

Eclectic Reader said:


> OMG!!! I LOVED the Brains Benton books when I was a kid! I never knew anyone else who had ever heard of them before. I happened to find all but the first one (The Case of the Missing Message) at a Used Book Store a few years ago. They weren't cheap, but weren't overly expensive either. I bought them, and have been looking for The Case of the Missing Message ever since.
> 
> Thanks for the website. It's fascinating for someone (like me) who thought I was the only one who had ever read the books!


You could also try  www.abebooks.com . They had quite a few copies for under $10.00. I always look there when looking for a book that's hard to find.


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## Neekeebee (Jan 10, 2009)

marianner said:


> I remember reading the Eddie books by Carolyn Haywood, but I don't remember her having any about girls. Let me know if you find out about it!


You are totally right--Haywood's series is about Betsy and Eddie--loved those too. Thanks for reminding me!

The Ginnie and Geneva series was by Catherine Wooolley.

N


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## standaman (Feb 11, 2009)

I really enjoyed the Roald Dahl books


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## Kind (Jan 28, 2009)

Leslie said:


> So did my son. He loved those Goosebumps books. Then one day, he sold his entire collection at a yard sale. I couldn't believe it. He wanted the money to buy something else -- what, I don't remember now.
> 
> L


Oh yes, Goosebumps. How could I forget that one!


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## MichelleR (Feb 21, 2009)

My favorite was probably Witch of Blackbird Pond. I can't even guess how many times I read it.

Island of the Blue Dolphins. Rontu! I also read it a ridiculous amount of times.

Eight Cousins. Got a copy a couple years ago, and it did not hold up well at all.

Little Women Um, yeah. Well, it held up better than Eight Cousins.

Nancy Drew and Encyclopedia Brown

Flowers in the Attic, although not a kid's book. Warped me for life. Fortunate I was an only child. 

My favorite fairytale book was The Provensen Book of Fairytales, and my favorite story in it was The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde, which still makes me cry. 

There was also this great series of books with Alfred Hitchcock's name on them for YAs: Haunted Houseful, Spellbinders in Suspense... The stories were great, really good writers, stories that were probably actually mature enough to have some group or another protesting them. There was one called That Hell-Bound Train by Robert Bloch that talked about how the train had whores and skirt-chasers -- again, not sure that would fly today. 


Oh, and Laura Ingalls Wilder -- particularly These Happy Golden Years. (Think that was the title.)


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## Sparkplug (Feb 13, 2009)

MichelleR said:


> My favorite was probably Witch of Blackbird Pond. I can't even guess how many times I read it.


That was one of my favorites too! I wanted to be just like Kit.


----------



## MichelleR (Feb 21, 2009)

And it IS available on Kindle.  

Even though it was set in Connecticut, I thought about it during last year's vacation in Boston and Salem.


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## Kind (Jan 28, 2009)

This thread makes me want to go back in time   Or perhaps I can just re-read them? It's probably so strange to read those books again as adults? Have you guys re-read them many many years later?


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## MichelleR (Feb 21, 2009)

I've re-read most of them over the years, except Nancy Drew and Encyclopedia Brown. Most of them hold up pretty well, although I experience them in a different way.

Reading Laura Ingalls Wilder, for instance, is even more fun as an adult. The books are written for children, and in a simple style, but there are nuances there that I missed as a child.

_"When the fiddle had stopped singing Laura called out softly, "What are days of auld lang syne, Pa?"

"They are the days of a long time ago, Laura," Pa said. "Go to sleep, now."

But Laura lay awake a little while, listening to Pa's fiddle softly playing and to the lonely sound of the wind in the Big Woods,&#8230;

She was glad that the cozy house, and Pa and Ma and the firelight and the music, were now. They could not be forgotten, she thought, because now is now. It can never be a long time ago."_

The quote becomes so much poignant when you read it as an adult, and when you realize this was a woman well into her adulthood writing about her childhood, knowing that now does become a long time ago.

Or her courtship with her future husband. I remember the scene where Almanzo gives her the engagement ring, she accepts, tilts her face up and tell him that he may kiss her now. As a kid I found the wording odd, but as an adult I realized that Laura was not giving away the milk for free.


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## Gruntman (Feb 9, 2009)

Kind said:


> This thread makes me want to go back in time  Or perhaps I can just re-read them? It's probably so strange to read those books again as adults? Have you guys re-read them many many years later?


I know that I love to re-read books. I have been known to re-read a childhood fave now and again, usually just before passing it on to a niece or nephew.(no gruntlings of my own)


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## Guest (Feb 22, 2009)

I have re-read many of my childhood favorites. Most of them are like visiting an old friend. 

I also have a weird attraction for the new young adult books. Some of them are truly wonderful.


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## Leslie (Apr 7, 2008)

Sparkplug said:


> That was one of my favorites too! I wanted to be just like Kit.


I haven't thought of that book in a gazillion years. Now that you mention it, it comes right back to me -- I can picture the cover and everything. I don't remember the story though. Might need to go re-read it.

I also remember The Island of the Blue Dolphins, another one where I can see the cover but don't remember much else.

L


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## pomlover2586 (Feb 14, 2009)

A Barrel of Laughs A Veil Of Tears

Pony Pals Series

Black Stallion books


----------



## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Leslie said:


> I also remember The Island of the Blue Dolphins, another one where I can see the cover but don't remember much else.
> 
> L


I read that as a kid and enjoyed it. . . .we were living in Ventura county when my son was in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade and in 4th grade they read it as a class and went to a state park in Santa Barbara. . . .had a whole section about the channel islands and how the people lived then and all. . . .

Ann


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## Andra (Nov 19, 2008)

I frequently read the books in my collection of kids' books.  As LR said, they are old friends.  And sometimes all I need is a light 20-minute read.
And in the last few years, I got hooked on Harry Potter, Inkheart, Septimus Heap and others, so I am guilty of still finding new ones to enjoy.  At least now I can say that I am checking them out for my niece (who is only 3, but still...)


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## Guest (Feb 23, 2009)

Andra said:


> I frequently read the books in my collection of kids' books. As LR said, they are old friends. And sometimes all I need is a light 20-minute read.
> And in the last few years, I got hooked on Harry Potter, Inkheart, Septimus Heap and others, so I am guilty of still finding new ones to enjoy. At least now I can say that I am checking them out for my niece (who is only 3, but still...)


I really don't even have that excuse. I just say that I am going through my second childhood.


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## intinst (Dec 23, 2008)

I do it too. My wife says I'm still in my first.


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## kguthrie (Feb 23, 2009)

My favorite was "The Cat in the Hat." I still enjoy it every now and then.


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## Kind (Jan 28, 2009)

pomlover2586 said:


> Black Stallion books


I also forgot about that one. Not in my favorites list but still liked them.


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## Angela (Nov 2, 2008)

I am so excited!! I was able to get win a set of The Happy Hollisters books on eBay this weekend! There are only 9 books; no where near all the titles, but 5 of them were the ones I had as a kid! I can't wait to share these with my grandkids!


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## Andra (Nov 19, 2008)

My two most favorite books from before I was able to read were called "Lizzie, the Lost Toys Witch" and "The Sugar Mouse Cake" (OK, there were others, but those were the most-requested.  I was able to finde them on eBay a few years ago and there was definitely some excitement at my house when they arrived!


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## crca56 (Dec 20, 2008)

the boxcar children
the happy hollisters
grace livingston hill
emilie loring
barbara cartland
black beauty
ugly joe
eight cousins by louisa may alcott and its sequel a rose in bloom
little women, little men, jos boys
tom sawyer, huck finn
the wizard of oz books
as a teenager i read (among lots of others)
in cold blood
helter skelter
the family
lotr
the narnia books
lawrence sanders deadly sins series
and thousands more i can't think of right now.  i have always had a diverse taste in books, i guess that is pretty obvious huh?


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## Jeff (Oct 28, 2008)

crca56 said:


> ...black beauty...


I still have the illustrated copy of _Black Beauty_ that I read as a child. Friday, when looking for something to read to my great-grandson, I took it down from the bookshelf, opened it and remembered that I'd been very disturbed by the fire in the stable. Perhaps it wasn't really as distressing as I recall but I switched it for _A Child's Garden of Verses_.


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## VictoriaP (Mar 1, 2009)

Oh lordy, I just read all 8 pages of this thread--and realized I still have most of my old favorites on my shelves.  Some have even already been replicated onto the Kindle!

#1 would be Watership Down.  I still remember the first time I read this one--while grounded for 6 weeks during the summer before 4th grade for running away with two friends. (We made it all of two miles to one friend's uncle's place.  LOL)  I wasn't allowed in the pool, but Mom wasn't crazy enough to take away books.  Hmm.....grounding **might** have had more impact if she HAD!  I spent my time reading & then rereading WD until I had it just about memorized.  The copy I have currently comes from my high school library; my husband bought it for me when they had a sale.  It came complete with the library card, and the last 5 names on it were all mine.  

#2 would probably be Island of the Blue Dolphins, and I still have my original of that one.  Running close behind that would be Call of the Wild, first read in 4th grade as well.

Others, no particular order:
Black Stallion (all of them)
Emily of New Moon - L. M. Montgomery (I didn't read Anne of Green Gables until I was in my 20's)
All of James Herriot's books (starting with All Creatures Great & Small)
Agatha Christie's Miss Marple books & stories
Five Little Peppers and How They Grew
Little House series

Oh heck, I can't even remember them all.

I was another one who started reading "up a level" pretty early on.  Mom wasn't a big reader, but there were a few things on her shelves that were not age-appropriate.  They were well within reach though, and I was a latchkey kid so I had plenty of time to get into them.  Even less appropriate stuff was on my step-grandmother's shelves--Danielle Steel, Jackie Collins, and yes, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know....most of which I already had a warped idea about thanks to V.C. Andrews.


----------



## patrisha w. (Oct 28, 2008)

Gruntman said:


> I remember Treasure Island because it was an assigned book when I was around eleven. We got our books on a Friday and I had read it by the following Monday when we were due to start reading in class! I LOVED it and also Kidnapped by the same Author.
> 
> patrisha


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## RJ Keller (Mar 9, 2009)

I was a Judy Blume addict as a kid.


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## danfan (Apr 17, 2009)

Under 5 years old
The Mr Men books. LOVED them. So glad to see them in USA now too! 

Under 10 years old, 
Famous Five books by Enid Blyton (and anything Enid Blyton)
Black Beauty
Lassie 
Any of the old Norman Thelwell pony cartoon books 

10 - 13
I kinda stopped reading. Spend all my free time with horses

Teenager...
My trashy Jackie Collins and Danielle Steele phase.


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## WalterK (Mar 2, 2009)

Too frickin' long ago to remember.  (wheeze)  

- Walter.


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## askenase13 (Mar 1, 2009)

I used to LOVE the Hardy Boys!! and a series called the Happy Hollisters.  I even wrote a Hollisters story in about 6th grade.  Also, as A senior in High School, I wrote a play inspired by Boo Radley of To Kill as Mockinbird.


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## koolmnbv (Mar 25, 2009)

I used to LOVE the Sweet Valley High books and The babysitters club books. 

The choose your own adventure books were always fun but I always found myself going back and trying to change the story if I didnt like the path I chose so far. 

My all time favorite was A Wrinkle In Time


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## pidgeon92 (Oct 27, 2008)

rjkeller said:


> I was a Judy Blume addict as a kid.


Me too... Sad they are not available on the Kindle, I'd read them again....


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## marianneg (Nov 4, 2008)

koolmnbv said:


> The choose your own adventure books were always fun but I always found myself going back and trying to change the story if I didnt like the path I chose so far.


LOL! I'd put little book markers in at every choice so I could go back and experience every possible ending! Choose Your Own Adventure would be _great_ on the Kindle!


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## maebeMeri (May 13, 2009)

Wow, I read all 8 pages as well and it's great to see a lot of my faves here! I just wish I kept them so I could re-read them, lol. Most of them are long passed on.

But like many, I loved Encyclopedia Brown, Nancy Drew (I had those blue hard covers. I think they were woven, too.), Beverly Cleary, and Dr Seuss.

I consumed Judy Blume...from "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret" to "Wifey"...but I think I stopped there, lol. I inhaled S. E. Hinton..."The Outsiders" is probably my fave book. I loved reading Mark Twain, those Choose Your Own Adventures, Sweet Valley High, Wildfire and even First Love from Silhouette series books.

Then there's books like: I am the Cheese, The Pigman, many a VC Andrews, Harlequin Romances (lol)  I even read Dean Koontz and Stephen King as a teen.  (yes, and Jackie Collins, lol)


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## Carolyn Kephart (Feb 23, 2009)

I'm a codgerette, so my earliest books were of the See Spot Run variety. What utter brain-killers those were. 

Alice In Wonderland came as a huge relief. I can't count the number of times I re-read The Annotated Alice first edition; I'd probably not have cared for the book half so much without the notes. I remember Tenniel's illustration for the Jabberwock scaring me horribly, so much that I still can't look at it today.

Around 12 I had mumps and was quarantined on the living room sofa, and my dad would toss me, from a safe distance, the paperbacks he'd finished when he got home from work. They were all fantasy, mostly Edgar Rice Burrroughs' Mars books. The escape was exquisite.


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## crca56 (Dec 20, 2008)

pipi longstockings to add to my prexisting list. i also misnamed a book, it's beautiful joe, not ugly joe. the black beauty of dog books imo


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## Null (May 20, 2009)

"The Runaway Robot" by Lester Del Rey (though rumored to be the work of Paul W. Fairman). Still have the Scholastic Books paperback, and woudl [snipped] to see it Kindled.


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## Brenda Carroll (May 21, 2009)

I used to read everything I could get my hands on and my hands were quite poor. I remember a book called _Mrs. Coverlet's Children _ or something like that, which was great and another called the_ Road to Agra _ that was epic for a child of eight to read in the first place, but I read the entire Hardy Boys collection at the library and that made me want to be a write. Now I've written a number of adventure novels and published them on Kindle books under the general title: the Red Cross of Gold. There are 28 books in the series that I'm now editing with friends and can't wait to get some feed back going on for them. They are great fun for people interested in Templars, Dan Brown type stuff and Immortality, you know the stuff. Feel free to take a look.


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## Carol Hanrahan (Mar 31, 2009)

I read The Black Stallion that I checked out from the library - my big brother had to talk the librarian into letting me borrow it.  Then later in the school year, I found Big Black Horse in our schoolroom bookshelf, and took it out, only to find it was the kids version of The Black Stallion and I had already read it!  Can you believe - I was in first grade!


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## MichaelS (May 22, 2009)

My favorite was "Walton Boys Mysteries" and "Hardy Boys" of course. But I still have a book I had to buy from the library because I could not find it and could not receive my report card until I paid for it. I was in 6th grade and I STILL look thru it now and then. It was "Alfred Hitchcock's Mysteries" I must say I still love mysteries, but I also love good suspense books, and Stephen King type books. Still have nightmares about some on occassion he just gets into my head!


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## Kevis Hendrickson (Feb 28, 2009)

I was always into mythology since I was a kid and enjoyed reading tales about mythological heroes like King Arthur, Robin Hood, Hercules, and Thor. Even after so many years since reading it, Padraic Colum's "The Children of Odin" is still one of my all-time favorite books.


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## Sanveann (May 16, 2009)

"The Little Princess," "The Secret Garden," "The Witch of Blackbird Pond," "The Outsiders," "Little Women," the "Little House" books, "Anne of Green Gables" (and all its sequels), "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" (and sequels), "Charlotte's Web," "Island of the Blue Dolphins," "From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler," "Where the Red Fern Grows," "Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret," "Summer of My German Soldier," "Cheaper by the Dozen," "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" and "To Kill a Mockingbird."

I was maybe 11 when I read that last one, and it's still one of my very favorite books of all time. My mom loved it, too, and I'd often read it aloud when she did housework. I think we read it over seven times that way!


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## Danariel (Apr 30, 2009)

My very favorites were horse books. I devoured all the horse books I could find, at my school library and at the public library.

Walter Farley, with the Black Stallion books and the Island Stallion books. Vote to have them Kindleized!

Marguerite Henry, with _King of the Wind_, the Chincoteague ponies (_Misty of Chincoteague _starts it) _Justin Morgan Had a Horse_, _Born to Trot, Black Gold_, and _San Domingo, the Medicine Hat Stallion_.

_My Friend Flicka, Black Beauty_, the 3 book Gypsy Collection (_Gypsy from Nowhere, Gypsy and Nimblefoot_, and _Gypsy and the Moonstone Stallion_.)

In sixth grade, we had to do a term paper, with a speech on it, and a visual aid. Mine was on "Horse Racing: The Sport of Kings," and I did a large poster with a drawing of a horse on it.

In fact, that year, my teacher gave us extra credit for every book we read and did a mini book report on. I had SO much extra credit that year!

I also loved Trixie Belden, and anything by Judy Blume.

Also read the _Chronicles of Narnia_ (spurred by the miniseries) the Shannara books, and _A Wrinkle in Time_ (the first 3.)

Oh, and I LOVED _The Outsiders_!

I started reading Romance (adult romance!) books at about 12 or so. I first raided my mom's book shelf, then started in at the library. Oh, and at 14, I ran across _Interview with the Vampire_ in the uncatalogued book bin at the library. The title caught my eye because I had actually read the liner notes of Sting's _Dream of the Blue Turtles_, and he credits _Interview_ as the inspiration for "Moon Over Bourbon Street."


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## Carol Hanrahan (Mar 31, 2009)

I was given most of the Nancy Drew books by a family friend when I was in second grade.  Read them all many times over, and my daughters have also read the same books (I kept them) many times over.  I like the older versions of these books - they have "watered them down" quite a bit these days to make them politically correct.


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## Rhiathame (Mar 12, 2009)

I remember enjoying all of the Black Stallion and Black Beauty books, Mrs. Brisby and the Rats of NIMH, the Little Women books, How to Eat Fried Worms and the like.


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## Carol Hanrahan (Mar 31, 2009)

I loved Black Beauty, The Godolphin Arabian, All the Black Stallion books.  I would like to write a collection of horse stories for Kindle.


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## Kevis Hendrickson (Feb 28, 2009)

Carol Hanrahan said:


> I loved Black Beauty, The Godolphin Arabian, All the Black Stallion books. I would like to write a collection of horse stories for Kindle.


I remember reading The Black Stallion books in elementary. Totally loved it and made some good memories for me.


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## Sweety18 (Feb 14, 2009)

Treasure Island is the only one I can remember.


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## Adele (May 30, 2009)

My favorite was "The Tall Book of Make Believe" - my sister's and I all had our own copies which are now very worn. My daughter was given a new copy when she was young, therefore the newest copy. Sadly the book is now out of print.  You can only get old worn copies on ebay now.


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## Danariel (Apr 30, 2009)

Carol Hanrahan said:


> I loved Black Beauty, The Godolphin Arabian, All the Black Stallion books. I would like to write a collection of horse stories for Kindle.


If you're referring to the book I think you are, the one about the Godolphin Arabian is Marguerite Henry's _King of the Wind._

I love that book, and would LOVE to have it on the Kindle.


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## bookfiend (Feb 22, 2009)

After reading this whole thread I'm reminded of many books I read once as a child, but my favorite childhood books were: Julie of the Wolves (rack)Bridge to Terabithia: Trophy Newbery (046594005953-40184)Stone Fox [STONE FOX]Island of the Blue Dolphins (Puffin Books) After these, I skipped Nancy Drew, and went straight to V.C. Andrews, Stephen King, John Saul, Dean Koontz Etc... At the ripe old age of 8

*Sorry, I tried for the picture links, guess I still have allot of learning to do.


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## Carol Hanrahan (Mar 31, 2009)

Danariel said:


> If you're referring to the book I think you are, the one about the Godolphin Arabian is Marguerite Henry's _King of the Wind._
> 
> I love that book, and would LOVE to have it on the Kindle.


You are right - It was King of the Wind! Silly of me to forget! It starts out with Ramadan, doesn't it? I'm sure as a k id I had no idea what she was talking about!


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## Carol Hanrahan (Mar 31, 2009)

Adele said:


> My favorite was "The Tall Book of Make Believe" - my sister's and I all had our own copies which are now very worn. My daughter was given a new copy when she was young, therefore the newest copy. Sadly the book is now out of print.  You can only get old worn copies on ebay now.


Adele, 
I loved this book! My favorite was Bad Mousie. I gave our copy to my brother - it has no cover anymore (held together with a rubber band) and lots of scribbling on it. Then I bought a nice copy of my own, that I keep in a very safe place, because I've never spent so much money on a book in my life! Funny, every time I read Bad Mousie, I miss the scribbles that were all over him! My copy is much more pristine!


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## kevindorsey (Mar 4, 2009)

Wizard of Oz series were my favourite.


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## geniebeanie (Apr 23, 2009)

Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden,Hardy Boys, Sue Barton,Cherry Ames, The little Prince, The Little Princess, The Secret Garden,Tom Swift,Old Yellow,
Heidi,Jungle Book, Peter Pan, Black Beauty, Little Women, Little Men, Kim, Madeline, Are You My Mother?,Brown Bear,Brown Bear, It looked like spilled milk, Any Dr. Suess Book, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, If you Give A Mouse A Cookie, I Went Walking, Winnie the Pooh, Grimm Book of Fairy Tales, Hans Brinker and the silver skates, Goodnight Moon, The boxcar children, Anne Frank's Diary,Little House on the Paire, The Hobbit, and I will close with The adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckaberry finn. I forgot the chronicles of narnia, wrinkle in time, Indian and the cupboard.


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## akpak (Mar 5, 2009)

Julie of the Wolves was a popular one around here, being in Alaska. Also loved Eloise, Edward Gorey, and one school holiday I tore through Clan of the Cave Bear and subsequent sequels.

Others: Z for Zachariah, Archie comic books, a Ring of Endless Light. I always had a book in hand as a kid, and as such I can't even remember all the books I've read and enjoyed!

Something a member here said once, (and I can't remember who) said that she could always get her parents to buy her books, even when they'd say no to other toys. I've kind of taken that to heart, and if/when I have kids of my own, I think I'll make that a policy in my house also


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## stormhawk (Apr 29, 2009)

Narnia
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
Black Beauty - Anna Sewell
Anything by Marguerite Henry
The Black Stallion books - Walter Farley
(actually anything involving a horse)
Alfred Hitchcock's Three Investigators
Any and everything Star Trek, which in my childhood mainly meant James Blish story adaptations
My Side of the Mountain - Jean George
Follow My Leader - James Garfield
The Jungle Books - Rudyard Kipling
Harriet the Spy - Louise Fitzhugh
Farmer Boy - Laura Ingalls Wilder (liked Little House in the Big Woods, never took to the rest of the series)


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## Skulleigh (Aug 25, 2009)

I loved a lot of the already mentioned series, especially the mysteries like Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew.

But I didn't see anyone mention The Mad Scientists' Club books. Those were great!


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## Debra Purdy Kong (Apr 1, 2009)

My favorite childhood books were the Nancy Drew series. Nancy was everything I aspired to be: smart, resourceful, and with a cool car. I don't solve real mysteries in real life, but I do create them in fiction. Nancy's impact was pretty deep.


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## prairiesky (Aug 11, 2009)

I loved the Bobbsey twins and anything "horse".  I especially loved Walter Farley horse stories.  My teacher would read to us from something called "The Sugar Creek Gang".  I loved those too.  Hmmm.  I wonder what happened to those


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## Keith Melton (Jul 22, 2009)

Some favorites of mine were the Bunnicula series by James Howe, _Eyes in the Fishbowl _ by Zilpha Keatley Snyder, the Narnia books by C.S. Lewis, The Oz books by L Frank Baum, The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster/Jules Feiffer.


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## MariaESchneider (Aug 1, 2009)

Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, the bobsey twins, The boxcar children, the black stallion, Cherry Ames, The Little Princess, The Secret Garden, and Anne of Green Gables.  Oh...The detective one...Encyclopedia Brown!!!  Escape to Witch Mountain.  Bedknobs and Broomsticks!  The Apple Dumpling Gang.

:>)


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## Brenda Carroll (May 21, 2009)

When I was a very small child, my favorite books were the Little Golden Books.  I liked to chew the silver finish off the bindings!!


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## dragonfly (Aug 25, 2009)

"White Fang" by Jack London, and "Around the World in 80 days" by Jules Verne were two books my father shared with me as a child, and they will always have a special place in my heart.

"A Wrikle In Time", "Island of the Blue Dolphins", and "The Gift of the Watermelon Pickle" were books I read over and over again.


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## KLBrady (Sep 7, 2009)

One of my FAVORITE all time childhood (youth) favorites was Forever by Judy Blume. I thought I was reading a "dirty book." LOL That was big stuff in those days (I'm thirty-ten). Now that I'm older and more conservative, I blush if I read erotic scenes in books--Forever was nothing! Judy was ahead of her time. I loved her stuff.


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## sesmith (Dec 21, 2011)

Elementary School: Hank the Cowdog, Goosebumps, The Tripods Trilogy (by John Christopher), _One-Eyed Cat_ (by Paula Fox), _Good Night, Mr. Tom_ (Michelle Magorian)
Middle School: Animorphs, _Gone With the Wind_, Louis L'amour's various works
High School (does this count?): Tom Clancy and Michael Crichton's assorted works, _Heart of Darkness_
But little of what I read now I knew about in those days. I would like to read some of those early favorites again, though...


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## Darlene Jones (Nov 1, 2011)

Anne of Green Gables and anything with horses.


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## DH_Sayer (Dec 20, 2011)

Trumpet of the Swan, Mouse and the Motorcycle, Cricket in Times Square, Interstellar Pig.


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## Andy Frost (Dec 24, 2011)

Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn
The Hound of Baskervilles
Treasure Island

These are still my favorites..


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## Kayden Lee (Sep 9, 2011)

Don't laugh - The Top of the Pizzas, by Bill Basso. I think I stilll have my copy.


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## soofy (Nov 26, 2011)

Quintessential childhood reading, this is the literary canon.


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## Mutiny (Dec 27, 2011)

Little House on the Prarie series.


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## theraven (Dec 30, 2009)

Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry and all the horse books that followed like Misty's Foal, Misty's Twilight. 
Black Beauty
The Hardy Boys books


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## onlyminordetails (Nov 29, 2011)

Anne Of Green Gables, The Baby-Sitter's Club, Sweet Valley Twins/High, various Judy Blume books, The Grand Escape (Phyllis Reynolds Naylor) and other various cat related stories.  And tons of the Garfield comics compiled into books. I'm attempting to collect them all. ^_^


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## sesmith (Dec 21, 2011)

soofy said:


> Quintessential childhood reading, this is the literary canon.


My wife was looking for that for our nephew last year; I'd never heard of it :/


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## Seleya (Feb 25, 2011)

There were 4 I read over and over: Marguerite Herny's _Gaudenzia, Pride of the Palio_, a Dysney book called (I'm back-translating) _Our Friend the Atom_, an historical novel on the Medicis's Florence called _Artists, Princes and Children_ (it starts with Lorenzo and Giuliano as young kids), and another, called simply _Poets_, each chapter is a short novelized bio of a great poet with samples of his (they were all men) work, from King David to Dante, to Victor Hugo and Rabindranath Tagore.

In addition I devoured anything related to myths and legends (from ancient Greece to King Arthur) and spent ages on 8 fat volumes of beautifully illustrated fairy tales from around the world.


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## Keith Houghton (Dec 27, 2011)

7-10 years of age it had to be Enid Blyton's _'Famous 'Five'_ mystery adventures.
10-13 years of age I'm going for Alan Dean Foster's _Icerigger Series_, Harry Harrison's _Stainless Steel Rat Series_ and Piers Anthony's _Xanth Series_.

Best wishes,

Keith


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## acellis (Oct 10, 2011)

Mine were the Tom Swift books.

And, yes, anything by Alan Dean Foster is extremely good.


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## soofy (Nov 26, 2011)

sesmith said:


> My wife was looking for that for our nephew last year; I'd never heard of it :/


Shocking.


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## SandraMiller (May 10, 2011)

I must be a bit of an odd bird (but we knew that  ), I'm not seeing many of my favorites mentioned by others.

Anybody remember _Odyssey From River Bend_? I *adored* that book. I still have my hardcover copy, although the dustjacket has long since disappeared. I remember feeling like the world completely turned upside down for me when I finally realized near the end who the Long Ago Ones really were. 

I loved _Year of the Horse_ and _Mother Wants a Horse._ In fact I talked about them so much my daughter asked for copies for Christmas. I remember having a biography of Annie Oakley that I found inspiring.

I also remember the Choose Your Own Adventures--when I was in elementary school I tried writing some of my own--I called them Decide Your Own Destinies. I was writing them on an old Royal manual typewriter, and I remember that getting the page numbers right on the jumps was really hard--I was making it up as I went.

Another series I wonder if anyone remembers but me was the Micro Adventures series...at different points in the story you would stop and code in a computer program, run it, and continue on with the story. I *loved* those--my granddad had recently given me my first computer, a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model I, and the programs in these books usually worked on it, with only minor tweaking. Without that computer and those books, I might not be developing software for a living today...

Like I said, a bit of an odd bird


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