Favorite books from childhood

[Gee!]

All I could come up with that I remember reading was Curious George and Clifford The Big Red Dog.. I mean it says childhood, thats what I was reading as a kid..

 

[DemsMyBoys]

I thought of another favorite: The Boy Scout Handbook.

I was a Brownie and Girl Scout but the Girl Scout Handbook was lame. Sewing? Who wanted a Sewing merit badge? I spent hours reading my brother's Boy Scout book. Knots. How to build a fire. Using rags and a stick to splint a broken leg. Sucking the poison out of a snake bite. (Guess they don't do that anymore.) Hours and hours in the backyard with the Boy Scout Handbook.

 

[AzStevenCal]

I was planning on taking this secret to the grave but what the heck. I read the complete L Frank Baum OZ collection along with most of the later Oz novels written by Ruth Plumly Thompson.

Steve

 

[DemsMyBoys]

I was planning on taking this secret to the grave but what the heck. I read the complete L Frank Baum OZ collection

I took those out to the backyard with me. Great stories.

 

[Linderbee]

I loved Goodnight Moon, Ping, Mike Mulligan and the Steamshovel. As I got older, I read Nancy Drew, Goosebumps and any Roald Dahl books. Oh and Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree.

I also really liked The Giver.

I read the Giving Tree, Where The Sidewalk ends & A Light in the Attic more times than I could count. My "talent" for a talent show one year was reciting Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out...entirely from memory. Yeah, I was a dork of unbelievable proportions.

One of my favorite books from when I was much younger was The Five Chinese Brothers. Still have the copy I, uh....obtained...from the Phoenix Library (sorry guys, you're never getting that back).

 

[Linderbee]

I also enjoyed the "Soup" series of books by Robert Newton Peck (NOT the Chicken Soup for the Soul books). These are fiction stories written mostly in the 70's, but are just about typical boy stuff. Great books for young kids.

 

[earthsci]

I never really ever read "kid's" books. When I was a kid I read "200 Years: A Bicentennial Illustrated History of the US", "Alistair Cooke's America" & poured through atlases. I did read "Whom the Gods Would Destroy", "The Hobbit" & the LOTR Trilogy for fiction.

 

[Jersey Girl]

Encyclopedia Brown, LOTR, Watership Down, Animal Farm, Lord of the Flies

I never read Watership Down, but I remember not being elected to the "elite" six-student reading group in the sixth grade. Their main task was to read Watership Down. I always vowed to read it anyway. Never did though.

Guess they knew what they were doing when they didn't put me in that reading group, lol.

 

[Jersey Girl]

I loved Goodnight Moon, Ping, Mike Mulligan and the Steamshovel. As I got older, I read Nancy Drew, Goosebumps and any Roald Dahl books. Oh and Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree.

I also really liked The Giver.

Love Shel Silverstein. Still have A Light in the Attic, which my aunt gave me in 1982. Not sure where I got Falling Up. Might have bought that one myself.

We have a curriculum at school that involved famous authors. Tough to teach to kids 5 to 8 years old on an 18-month old cognitive level; however, there is always something from Shel Silverstein I can manage to adapt to their level. Love, love, love it.

 

[Jersey Girl]

Ramona Quimby, anyone? Ladies?

 

[DemsMyBoys]

Ramona Quimby, anyone? Ladies?

After my time.

Besides, I was over in that "elite" reading group where they were making us read historical California literature like "Ramona" (without the Quimby) which, I don't mind telling you, was a real yawner.

Count yourself lucky, Jersey. We were not having fun over in Room 12 with the evil Mrs. Wade.

 

[conraddobler]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br'er_Rabbit

I read a ton of those with my mom when I was very little.

Then I read a lot of sci fi and fantasy books as a teen.

The Hobbit and LOTR, favorite books of all time, really loved reading those books as a kid.

Guilty pleasure was Piers Anthony books, he's written about a bagillion of them, don't read them anymore.

 

[MrYeahBut]

Adults are just obsolete children and to hell with them....


Dr Seuss


.

 

[Jersey Girl]

After my time.

Besides, I was over in that "elite" reading group where they were making us read historical California literature like "Ramona" (without the Quimby) which, I don't mind telling you, was a real yawner.

Count yourself lucky, Jersey. We were not having fun over in Room 12 with the evil Mrs. Wade.

Thanks for your reassurances, Dems, but I still feel slighted.

 

[Djaughe]

The Chronicles of Narnia, The Hardy Boys, Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators, Encyclopedia Brown, etc.

Encyclopedia Brown, LOTR, Watership Down, Animal Farm, Lord of the Flies

 

[ajcardfan]

Watership Down, Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, Old Yeller, Savage Sam and Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee.

These were all books i read from the 3rd to 6th grade, and I read all of them more than once. Once I started them, I couldn't put them down.

Later, 8th and 9th grade, I read the Hobbit and LOTR in a week and read every Conan book. I also read the Dune series at that time. Those books I found so exciting that it was hard to sleep, so I'd go ahead and read for hours more in bed.

I read a LOT as a kid, but those are the books that I remember the most. Now, I hardly read for pleasure. It's usually research articles and such.

 

[Jersey Girl]

I read a LOT as a kid, but those are the books that I remember the most. Now, I hardly read for pleasure. It's usually research articles and such.

Sucks, doesn't it?

For the past few years, I have found myself reading magazines simply because I just don't have the time to engage myself in a book.

Would like to find something to read this summer. I very much prefer non-fiction. Suggestions?

 

[Pariah]

I very much prefer non-fiction. Suggestions?

Anything by Malcolm Gladwell.

The Tipping Point
Blink
Outliers

(they don't seem to be showing up as links, but the above titles are linked to Amazon)

 

[82CardsGrad]

Curious George, Hardy Boys, Pyewacket...

Loved to read as a kid as well... sadly, the only time I can grab for reading is when I'm on a plane - which has been more frequent as of late so getting in some lost reading time!

 

[Jersey Girl]

Anything by Malcolm Gladwell.

The Tipping Point
Blink
Outliers

(they don't seem to be showing up as links, but the above titles are linked to Amazon)

I've heard of The Tipping Point. Will check those out. Thanks!

 

[DemsMyBoys]

Would like to find something to read this summer. I very much prefer non-fiction. Suggestions?

Have I got a book for you, Jersey: "Little Chapel on the River" by Gwendolyn Bounds. It's about a small Irish pub on the banks of the Hudson River. You will fall in love with these characters. Heck, you will know half of them.

 

[Pariah]

Another kids book that I loved: Where the Red Fern Grows.

I just watched the movie adaption with my kids. Man, it brought back a lot of memories reading that book. 4th grade, I think.

 

[azonaback]

tales from the thousand and one nights.

 

[Errntknght]

I read whatever was around, my sister had Nancy Drew so I read those. When we finally had a bookmobile come around I read a lot of Zane Grey 'cowboy' tales and others of that ilk. Trouble was it only came every two weeks and had a three book limit. My mom had a trunk full of old Readers Digests and I used to read those cover to cover. Naturally, I did Improve Your Word Power over and over 'til I knew all the words. Mom had a book called '1001 Beautiful Things' - poems, essays and short stories - still remember 'The Antiseptic Baby and the Prophylactic Pup' and 'Abdul Abubul Amir' from among the poems. 'The Spell of the Yukon' and a couple others by the same writer whose name escapes me. 'The Cremation of Sam McGee' was another one. I had Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass and a book that had Lewis Carroll poems in it, like 'The Walrus and the Carpenter' or maybe they were part of the stories. I think both are true because the other book was entitled "Shoes and Ships and Sealing Wax" which is a line in the 'Walrus'. I remember the Jabberwocky poem was in 'Alice' because Humpty Dumpty explained it to her.
We didn't have children's books like Dr. Suess and Winnie the Pooh - I discovered those when I had kids. My mom read a few books to us but they were just books she was reading herself and I guess she thought they were suitable for us. 'The Guerilla Wife' is the only title I recall. In it the expression "Oh, my favorite, apple pie ashes" was used and it became a family saying whenever any food was overcooked.
Quite amazing all the memories that come flooding back when you think of that long ago - seventy years, in my case. They seem clear but I wouldn't be surprised if they're rather jumbled.

 

[AZ Native]

I tear up when I read that to my boys now. ...so I don't read it to them often.

So you are human too?