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Post by caucasoididiot on Mar 8, 2010 18:17:41 GMT -5
I was in a bookstore today looking for something for my son and stumbled across a book I loved as a kid but had forgotten, The Color Kittens.
I really hope to instill a love of reading in him, and to that end have already gotten him fondly remembered favorites like Go, Dog, Go!, Ten Apples Up On Top and of course the Seuss classics. It's actually nice to see so many of the books I had still in print so he can enjoy them too.
So I'm curious, what early books do you remember fondly?
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Post by angilasman on Mar 8, 2010 20:57:40 GMT -5
I adored Dr. Seuss, especially The Lorax. Such imagination the man had - and equally talented in both pictures and words!
When I was very little I had a book of Mother Goose nursery rythmes. Somehow that book was lost and even at this young age (about 4) I was never satisfied with the illustrations in the other Mother Goose books I saw at stores so I never got my mom to buy me another copy.
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Post by solgroupie on Mar 8, 2010 21:43:26 GMT -5
i had all the basic dr. seuss books and other assorted stories when i was a kid, but i remember the books that really got me interested in reading came around the time of fifth grade through middle school.
the ghost in the noonday sun - sid fleischman
my first pirate story about a boy who is supposed to have the gift of seeing spirits. captain scratch, a horrible pirate, kidnaps him to force him into finding the spirit of a man he murdered, who he believes is guarding buried treasure. it's full of action, great characters and a very cool ending.
one fat summer - robert lipsyte
set in the fifties, it's a story about an overweight teenaged boy who eventually gets the better of a crazed bully who has been terrorizing him all summer. it was the first book i found really funny without being silly. well written.
the doll's house - rumer godden
this was one of my first books i remember checking out of the library, probably in third or fourth grade. it's about a family of mismatched dolls who want an actual dollhouse to live in, instead of an old shoe box. when they get one after the death of an elderly aunt, it comes with a fancy porcelain doll named marchpane that brings evil into their peaceful existence. i remember loving it.
my side of the mountain - jean craighead george
my fourth grade teacher used to read books to our class, and this was one that really stuck with me. for those who have never come across it, it's about a boy named sam gribley who runs away from home (with his father's approval) to live in the forest on the land that used to belong to their family. sam keeps a journal of his adventure and what he learns from living off the land. it's pretty cool - complete with sketches of traps he builds, plants and other noteworthy tools and observations. it would make any kid want to drop everything and run off to the nearest forest.
about any book by judy blume - it was a law, i think, for all young girls to read her books. but she was so damn good at taking just a basic emotion all kids share and expanding it into drama and comedy without over doing it with the lesson at the end.
a few years ago i purchased the first four books i mentioned and re-read them. it was really satisfying to go back and familiarize myself with the characters and places i had nearly forgotten.
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Post by Continuing Legend on Mar 8, 2010 22:31:55 GMT -5
Where the Wild Things Are.
Hell yeah.
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Post by Emperor Cupcake on Mar 8, 2010 23:48:48 GMT -5
I had most of the Dr. Seuss books as well; the one I remember the most is Hop On Pop. I also had a book about a ghost named Gus that I really liked. My aunts (who aren't that much older than me) had this big collection of large, lavishly illustrated books of fairy tales, two tales in each book, and I adored those. My favorite stories were the ones about the peas in the peapod who all went on various different adventures (odd I loved the story so much, since I absolutely loathe peas and always have), and the story about the princess and the lady-in-waiting, and the magic white horse they had (I think the horse's name was Fala or Falana or something). Oh, and I also had a book of three longish witch stories that I loved, also illustrated. My favorite of those was probably "Jorinda and Joringel."
Like solgroupie, the books I remember with the fondest love are ones I read when I was a little older. My favorite one of those ever, which I read again recently and loved just as much, was The House with a Clock in its Walls by John Bellairs. Man, what a great book. It helped that it was also illustrated by Edward Gorey, which gave it that much more morbid enchantment. I also really liked all of Ellen Raskin's books, particularly The Westing Game. A list of other much-loved books for older children, recommended by Cupcake, would include:
The Headless Cupid and The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Keatley Snyder A Ring of Endless Light by Madeline L'Engle Moon Eyes by Josephine Poole The Ghost of Opalina, or Nine Lives by Peggy Bacon The Ghost of Windy Hill by Clyde Robert Bulla Any of the Alfred Hitchcock "Three Investigators" series (various authors), especially The Mystery of the Fiery Eye
Yes, even as a child my favorite books were all about ghosts and witches and mysteries. I cannot deny my spooky nature.
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Post by caucasoididiot on Mar 9, 2010 9:36:44 GMT -5
I love Edward Gorey's work. It's interesting how his own books use a children's book format to get into some pretty outré material. My wife and I found a Japanese edition of The Gashleycrumb Tinies in Odaiba and it rather creeped her out.
When I got a little older one of my favorite books was a multi-volume kids' encyclopedia. It had a great range of topics colorfully illustrated, and I used to pore over it for hours. I saw a nearly complete set in a thrift store last year and really had to fight the urge to buy it.
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Post by mummifiedstalin on Mar 9, 2010 10:18:45 GMT -5
I loved The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings because my dad read them to me from the time I can remember. But I also loved the Boxcar Children series.
There was a book I've looked for ever since that I still can't find. It was all about different types of treehouses that a group of kids built, and one was even underground. It had these small, beautiful, and very suggestive pen-and-ink drawings, and I remember a green cover...but other than that, I can't recall any of the details.
My parents also had this very "gothic" collection of Mother Goose stories that had very dark, but not scary, pictures in it, that I'd love to find again. They also had a collection of Grimm's Fairy Tales illustrated by Arthur Rakham, and I remember just being fascinated by the grotesqueries that he drew.
I know I always combed the library for ghost stories and fantasy stuff, too, but so much of it now is a blur. I was never a big "re-reader," even as a kid, and I primarily remember just devouring and forgetting a lot of stuff.
It sounds like EC and I would have had a great time sharing stuff, though.
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Post by afriendlychicken on Mar 9, 2010 17:32:18 GMT -5
Ijon, you're coming up with some great threads. It's funny that you brought this subject up. About a month ago, I was sitting in Borders with a friend and we were rummaging through a book on the greatest children's books of all time. One page for each story and it covered around 300 books. It was a great thing to reminisce on. I wish I could remember the title! Johnny Crow's Garden and the Babar books were my absolute favorites, when I was a wee little child. You should have seen my Dad trying to read the Babar stories and muttering to himself, "damn cursive writing". Here in Hawai'i we had a line of books called Island Heritage. They printed famous folk tales from the different cultures here. The two I loved the most were Pua Pua Lena Lena and Momotaro the Peach Boy. Like most of us, I grew up reading the P. D. Eastman and Dr. Seuss books. I may be the only person who thinks that On Beyond Z is Dr. Seuss best book. Harry Cat's Pet Puppy is the first, non-picture book, that I ever remember reading.
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Post by Shep on Mar 10, 2010 8:31:45 GMT -5
"My Father's Dragon"
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Post by caucasoididiot on Mar 10, 2010 9:52:38 GMT -5
Ijon, you're coming up with some great threads. Thanks, but mostly it's having a great community to pitch to. I loved the Babar books too. I remember being especially fascinated by Zephyr. Thinking back to fiction from when I was a little older, I remember reading a series about a Moon dweller called Matthew Looney who traveled to Earth. It was one of those series you sort of grew with, being pretty light-hearted initially but getting into issues of imperialism and global destruction by the final book. I cut the companion CDs for Yuuto's new books yesterday. Do you remember those times in grade school when the teacher would put on a tape of a book, and you were supposed to turn the page when a bell rang? I make discs like that for his. Heh heh . . . I just hope he doesn't end up conditioned to salivate all over the pages. (^_^)
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Post by siamesesin on Mar 10, 2010 10:01:28 GMT -5
Good topic! But I also loved the Boxcar Children series. I knew I worshipped you for a reason-I was just about to post about the Boxcar Children. Very simple, even old fashioned in some ways, but the messages are good and the books themselves are fun. As for treehouses, do you mean The Magic Treehouse series? D'aulaire's Book of Greek Myths -The pictures are gorgeous and it is an incredibly extensive collection. Very good to read from, but will be even more fun when he can read it himself. There was a book called The Children Who Stayed Alone that I loved as a kid. It was a required book in school at one point since it was about a family of settlers who lived in a sodhouse (very Nebraskan). I reread it a lot because I enjoyed it so much. Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs-this one was all about the pictures. Massive sandwiches and limp limburger cheese. I always liked the David MacAulay books like Castle and Cathedral. I liked a lot of those "how did they do that?" books. Still do. Roald Dahl was a big one for me when I was little. First time figuring out that a book could be more fun than the movie. I think I like Great Glass Elevator the most because of its setting. There's also Curious George, Frog and Toad, the Berenstein Bears, Richard Scarry books, etc.
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Post by solgroupie on Mar 10, 2010 11:13:05 GMT -5
i was also crazy for peanuts comics when i was young. my parents would buy me the books and before i learned how to read, i would pester them to read them to me. and in the first box, charlie brown says...my dad likes to tell people this was when i was about 17 years old.
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Post by afriendlychicken on Mar 10, 2010 17:48:24 GMT -5
i was also crazy for peanuts comics when i was young. my parents would buy me the books and before i learned how to read, i would pester them to read them to me. and in the first box, charlie brown says...my dad likes to tell people this was when i was about 17 years old. Is he right? ;D I ravished those peanuts books, especially the one on snoopy and the one with Charlie Brown at summer camp, when he had the baseball head. I still have all of them. I guess I'm a pack rat. I also had B. C. books; hell, I have the entire collection now (I just counted, 39 books); which was my favorite comic until Bloom County and The Far Side came along. Curious George was also a favorite. Curious George Goes To The Hospital was a book I used to read everyday when I was in second grade. Zephyr the monkey. Wasn't there a book where they visited the town in which he lived? Which, if I remember it right, was in a tree?
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Post by Emperor Cupcake on Mar 10, 2010 19:38:17 GMT -5
Oh, I just remembered another one I liked about a rabbit named Mr. Wiggley (I think) who walked on two legs and wore a suit. There was something about "squidgy squodgy mud" as I recall, but the main point of the story was something to do with a cookie (I love cookies). Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure the book was called "Mr. Wiggley and the Sugar Cookie." The cookie had pink frosting on it that spelled something out (maybe it was Mr. Wiggley's birthday cookie?), but I can't remember any more details than that.
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Post by Emperor Cupcake on Mar 10, 2010 19:42:44 GMT -5
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