BookTalk.org

What were your favorite children's books?

All my life I have read voraciously, but when I was a kid I didn't have much choice in the books on the menu. Whatever was lying around I'd pick up and just start reading.

Some of my favorites are...

• Danny Dunny series
• The Hardy Boys series
• Nancy Drew series
• Escape to Witch Mountain
• 101 Dalmatians
• For the Love of Benji
• Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret
• The Pistachio Prescription
• James and The Giant Peach
• Blubber
• Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
• Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator
• Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective

Those are the books coming to mind, but there were lots more. Books have always been a great escape mechanism for me and they quite possibly saved my life as a child.

As an only child, I had a lot of more grown up books around me. I found myself reading a lot of my mother's readers digests and anthology books at a young age. I also had my own young classics library and so would read books like the Arabian Nights, The Secret Garden, poetry books, narnia, the hobbit. I received bulfinches mythology as a gift for my 10th birthday and pored through it for years. I still have that book on my shelf. At a younger age, I enjoyed books like, where the wild things are, Dr. Seuss (also still on my shelf), and fantasy series like Anne Mccaffrey's Dragons.

Let's see....... From youngest to oldest and, of course, forgetting some...

• Little Golden Books
  Dr. Suess
  Sesame Street

• Grimm's Fairy Tales
  Anderson's Fairy Tales
  The Nancy Drew series
  The Hardy Boy Series
  Reader's Digest
  Condensed Books
  Stephen King
  Dean Kootnz

Something like that, I think. It all went by so fast. I was an avid reader. Still am. *G*

>> The Hardy Boys series
>> Nancy Drew series
>> 101 Dalmatians
>> Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
>> Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
>> Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective
>> Dr. Seuss
>> Shel Silverstein Poetry [still reading ]

And some other ones. Considering the fact that i'm only 13 some of these may seem new to yaz.

My all time fav book to have read to me was "The owl and the firefly". Drove my mom nuts asking for it every night.

I used to have a huge collection of stories on albums. Yes, I am dating myself. "The Little Mermaid" was always my favorite. Before Disney distroyed it.

When I began to read, I liked what my mom considered, "boy books". "Aladan and the Lamp", all time childhood fav. Before Disney distroyed it. But, then there was "Rip Van Winkle". Loved him too.

Oh, favorite story album off all time, "The Point"! I don't know if it is in book form. Highly recommend it. Looking at the cover brings back so many memories, I knew the entire thing by heart and still think about Oblio. One of my mom's favorite sayings was, "bless your little pointed head". Still don't know what that means.

The Point! is a fable by American songwriter and musician Harry Nilsson about a boy named Oblio, the only round-headed person in The Pointed Village, where by law everyone and everything had to have a point.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Point!

"I was on acid and I looked at the trees and I realized that they all came to points, and the little branches came to points, and the houses came to point. I thought, 'Oh! Everything has a point, and if it doesn't, then there's a point to it.'"

-- Harry Nilsson

Has anyone else heard of this? Number one story of my childhood, and I didn't even have to read it.

Suzanne wrote:My all time fav book to have read to me was "The owl and the firefly". Drove my mom nuts asking for it every night.

Do you mean Sam and the Firefly? That was one of my faves too. Good summer book.

A book that resonated with me was Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson, plus anything by Robert McCloskey (especially Make Way for Ducklings and Burt Dow: Deepwater Man. These are great books to read to children.

"Sam and the Firefly", yes! That's it!

I actually have a funny story to tell about reading at a young age. When the movie, "The Excorsist" came out, I was about 10. I was not allowed to see the movie, of course I insisted that all my friends were seeing it. But no, could not see it, but, my mother did allow me to read the book. I was reading "The Excorsist" while in the car, and I came upon a word in a passage that I did not understand. I did not have a dictionary, and I knew the word was important to understand what was going on. So, I had to ask my mother, "Mom, what does masturbation mean?"

LOL.

I remember reading Jaws at a tender young age and being rather confused about the scene where one of the characters, the scientist, feels up the police chief's wife in a restaurant. I don't think I asked my parents about it though.

I remember when I was about five years old, I had The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss. My book came with a cassette tape, and I would sit there for hours listening to it and reading along, and that was how I learned some of my early sight words.

I was a huge Babysitter's Club fanatic. I had so many of the books, and wanted to start my own real life Babysitter's Club. I also remember checking out a bunch of Laura Ingall's Wilder books from the elementary school library. I also adored island of the Blue Dolphin, Flowers for Algernon, and Where the Red Fern Grows.

Currently my 11 yr old and I are intrigued with the 39 Clues series. So far the 5 books written have not only held his attention but they haven't bored me either. And they have been good for creating discussions which anyone that has a middle schooler can tell you conversation with your child is difficult.

As a girl, I read every Trixie Belden I could get my hands on, anything by Mark Twain, To Kill a Mockingbird, and stories about horses such as Misty, and Flicka.