Favorite Childhood books!

[MDefarge]

A discussion began in mrsbrandt's thread (Help us name our new baby...)of the Trixie Belden books, which a number of us remember from our childhood.  This makes me curious, what other books did you just LOVE when you were a kid (or still love to read?
Here are some of mine

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Trixie Belden
The Babysitters Club
Little House on the Prairie
Half Magic  - and the rest of those books
The Witches - anything by Roald Dahl


I also liked to read biographies when I was a kid - simple ones but for people like
Helen Keller, Pocahontas, Clara Barton, Ben Franklin etc.

There are a ton more but my brain is a little slow today (and my books are mostly packed away at my parents)

So what books did you love when you were a kid?

[hollasa]

If you liked the Half Magic books (which I just adored as well), did you also read the E. Nesbitt books? Phoenix and the Carpet, Five Children and It, etc?

Some years ago, I decided to buy the books that I'd like, so that I could read them again - and I decided I didn't care if people thought they were too childish to buy. I have Edward Eager's books, the Edith Nesbitt ones, and then I bought some old ones that I remembered (Dogsbody), and discovered Diana Wynne Jones' other wonderful books.

Somehow, I need to find the books the Tree that Sat Down, Stream that Stood Still, Mountain of Magic - I recently managed to find which books they were from my old memories of reading them, but they're now out of print and pretty expensive to buy.

Looking forward to sharing them with my children - recently read my 5 year old a short version of The Little Princess, which she loved, so must see about some others!

[Cupcake Fiend]

Oh so many!  I have always been an avid reader.

The Trixie Belden series
Black Beauty, the Black Stallion series, and any other book about horses or unicorns I could get my hands on.
The Chronicles of Narnia, which I still reread yearly.
The Wrinkle in Time series by Madeline L'Engle
Bunnicula & the sequels

I discovered horror books fairly early on.  While I was still in grade school I was already reading Stephen King and VC Andrews, and whatever was already published of the Clan of the Cave Bear books by Jean Auel.  I don't really go for those types of books anymore though.

I also used to pore over a book called The Encyclopedia of Horses that had all kinds of information and photos in it.  I had a whole list of the different breeds I was going to have on the ranch I planned to open and names for them.  (Most names taken from other books I had read.  I know I had Lady and Strawberry from Trixie Belden on the list)

[Bijou]

A discussion began in mrsbrandt's thread (Help us name our new baby...)of the Trixie Belden books, which a number of us remember from our childhood.  This makes me curious, what other books did you just LOVE when you were a kid (or still love to read?
Here are some of mine

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Trixie Belden
The Babysitters Club
Little House on the Prairie
Half Magic  - and the rest of those books
The Witches - anything by Roald Dahl


I also liked to read biographies when I was a kid - simple ones but for people like
Helen Keller, Pocahontas, Clara Barton, Ben Franklin etc.

There are a ton more but my brain is a little slow today (and my books are mostly packed away at my parents)

So what books did you love when you were a kid?

Nancy Drew
Comic books

[aline]

So many choices! I've always loved to read.

all of Marguerite Henry's books on horses
all of Madeline L'Engle's books
Narnia Chronicles
Nancy Drew
Trixie Belden
The Boxcar Children
Island of the Blue Dolphins
anything by Ray Bradbury

[AbbyW]

Little House on the Prairie series
the Betsy-Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace,
"All of a kind of family" series by Sydney Taylor
Rosamond du Jardin

[Cyndi]

Bridge to Terabethia(sp?)
The Indian in the Cupboard and its sequel.
A Summer to Die - Lois Lowry, great story.
Judy Blume books, mostly "Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing", "Superfudge" and "Are You There, God, It's Me, Margaret".

[kathrynne]

Anything by Beverly Cleary or Judy Blume.

Dracula, and any good horror.

I used to buy about a half dozen books every time the Scholastic paperback book thingie came around, and it still wasn't enough. Thirty-five cent paperbacks, how I miss you.

[Pixie]

I loved the Bobbsey Twins, Trixie Belden, The Little House on the Prairie, and as a young teen "Go ask Alice" had a huge impact on me.  I lived in Libraries as a child as we didn't have a TV,  so it was books and the radio for me.   Even when we moved out of the valley, and were able to have a TV, I still read for most of my entertainment.   To this day, I'm not much of a TV watcher.

[kareng57]

A discussion began in mrsbrandt's thread (Help us name our new baby...)of the Trixie Belden books, which a number of us remember from our childhood.  This makes me curious, what other books did you just LOVE when you were a kid (or still love to read?
Here are some of mine

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Trixie Belden
The Babysitters Club
Little House on the Prairie
Half Magic  - and the rest of those books
The Witches - anything by Roald Dahl


I also liked to read biographies when I was a kid - simple ones but for people like
Helen Keller, Pocahontas, Clara Barton, Ben Franklin etc.

There are a ton more but my brain is a little slow today (and my books are mostly packed away at my parents)

So what books did you love when you were a kid?

There were the Katy books by Susan Coolidge (written in about the 1880s I think) - I liked them.   I read Little Women and a few of the other Alcott books.  I read a bit of Trixie Belden, but liked Nancy Drew better.  I had most of the Cherry Ames books - I wanted to be a lab-technologist rather than a nurse but unfortunately there's a dearth of books about hero lab-techs.

[megswsu]

Matilda
Where the Red Fern Grows
Where the Sidewalk Ends
Peter Cottontail
Judy Blume books
LOVED Nancy Drew books and The Babysitters Club

I could go on as I love to read, but I'm forgetting others I know.

[Sophia]

Greek Mythology

[CalabashCorolla]

I loved beautifully-illustrated picture books, and still do. I'm a big fan of Chris van Allsburg, especially Two Bad Ants and The Wretched Stone. I also enjoyed the Dinotopia books.

Probably one of my very favorite books of any type, however, is "Sector 7" by David Wiesner. It's about a boy who, while visiting the observation deck of the Empire State building, meets and befriends a cloud. The story is told entirely with pictures - there is no dialogue. It's a wonderful book that anyone, not just kids, can enjoy.

[Barghest1031]

Gah. . there were so many but I can't remember them all. . .that makes me rather sad since so many of them were good. (One had something to do with stones. . .like the Ruby Princess or something. . .*sigh* I can't remember what that series was.)

I read almost all of the Hardy Boys books and about half of the Nancy Drew books. I liked the book My Father's Dragon, and I love the Beatrice Potter stories. I have a very worn book that's a collection of them all (the one story with the kittens and the rats makes me sad everytime I read it even though I know the kittens are fine in the end. . . .I'm pathetic ). I also really enjoyed the Book of Virtues. I don't know why so many of those stories fascinated me, but they did.

[StaciNadia]

Trixie Belden
Nancy Drew
the Ramona books
Are You There, God?  It's Me, Margaret.
The Mouse in the Motorcycle

Special favorites that I still read:
The Hundred and One Dalmations (makes me cry)
A Little Princess
Dancing Shoes
Bunnicula and sequels (I love that little bunny!)

Children's books I discovered as I got older
Charlotte's Web (makes me cry)
Chronicles of Prydain

Oddly, I've never read Lord of the Rings or Chronicles of Narnia.