Our theme today: Favorite Books from Childhood
Full on nostalgia hit this week. I blame my fourth cup of pumpkin spiced coffee. Anyway, allow me to throw this entire list at you and then fight off the urge to go re-read all of these immediately. And also let me know your own childhood favorites! I’ve got two school-age mini bookworms growing up and I’m sure we’d all love to read them, too.
The Beatrix Potter stories
For some reason we also owned the VHS animated BBC versions of these stories when I was a kid. Guess what I bought as soon as I could (on DVD, yes, THERE ARE DVDs!) for my own children.
The Chronicles of Narnia, CS Lewis
Re-read all of them to this day. No, I’ve never liked the Last Battle as well as I could. Like, I get the moral of the story but it feels as if I’m being bashed over the head with it, which is not Lewis’ usual style. The rest are all firm favorites.
The Chronicles of Prydain, Lloyd Alexander
Bet you haven’t seen these around, have you? Which is a crying damn shame because they are lyrical, beautiful, painful imaginings of rich Welsh mythology.
Pollyanna, Eleanor H Porter
The book is simplistic, fluffy, repetitive, overly-moralistic, pure nostalgia. It’s the literary equivalent of apple-pie. And sometimes . . . I just want a slice of pie. Yes, I’ve seen the Disney movie version with the ubiquitous Hayley Mills. I actually love it, just like I adore The Parent Trap (21 June, 1961).
[Okay I just looked Hayley Mills up and apparently she’s British? WHAT HAS MY LIFE BEEN, it’s all a lie. You lied to me, Disney.]
Gentle Ben, Walt Morey
My fourth grade teacher gifted me this book, because she could already tell I was going to be a huge book nerd. She was 100% correct and, incidentally, I always wanted a grizzly cub as a pet. Then I met my first black bear while hiking, around age twelve, and decided I did not want a grizzly cub as a pet.
(The boy on the cover does end up having to release Ben into a protected nature preserve so he can live his best bear life. Just in case you were wondering how that was all going to work out.)
Stormy, Jim Kjelgaard
After reading this book, plus Hatchet by Gary Paulson, five or six times in a row I was completely convinced I could survive on my own in the Canadian wilderness as a pre-teen. To this day I’ve never slaughtered so much as a chicken myself, but I know how. Look out, Bear Grylls.
TAMORA PIERCE, all of her books, forever
Just go read the Circle of Magic series. You won’t regret it. The Circle of Friendship (™Mark Reads) will win you over by the end of Sandry’s book, I promise.
The Valley of Horses, Jean M Auel
Yeah I picked this one up WAAAY too young. I think I was eleven or twelve? Let’s all thank God right now I didn’t decided to read The Clan of the Cave Bear first. Cause yikes. But I learned a lot about medicinal plants and foraging, so that was cool.
I didn’t read Chronicles of Narnia until I was an adult.
My favorite was The Mouse and the Motorcycle.
Sounds intriguingly alliterative! I’ll go look it up 🙂
Loved seeing your list. I didn’t read the Chronicles of Narnia or Lloyd Alexander’s books until I was an adult. I loved the Nancy Drew series and Shadow Castle as a kid.
My mom was more of a Bobbsey Twins fan, so that’s what we read. But I hear good, nostalgic things about Nancy Drew. I’ve never heard of the Shadow Castle but I like the sound of it!