Yesterday Bunnie and I had a nice girls’ day out that ended in the bookstore (as all the best girls’ day outs do). I suggested a book that I had liked when I was her age and it got me to reminiscing about the books I loved growing up. Here’s a list of books that were my favorites, not the most influential or thought provoking or well written mind you, just my favorites. How many of them were favorites of yours, too?
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Kindergarten: There’s An Elephant In the Bathtub Oh the illustrations!
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First Grade: Angus and the Cat Oh the drama!
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Second Grade: The Fire Cat I don’t know if I read this one more to myself or to my son years later, but it still stands the test of time.
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Third Grade: The summer of 1972 I discovered girl detective books. Meg, Trixie Beldon, The Dana Girls and Nancy Drew, I read each of these series in their entirety before the Christmas holidays were over. My favorite? Sorry Miss Drew, it was The Dana Girls.
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Fourth Grade: Our teacher may have been a bit over-zealous in her duck and cover drills and extended “Quiet Times” when we’d put our heads on our desks and listen as she read, but she sure knew how to captivate her class with books like James and the Giant Peach and Misty of Chincoteague and Charlotte’s Web which I bought and re-read at least three times.
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Fifth Grade: It was all about Dickens and Dumas for me. I started with Oliver Twist and The Three Musketeers and didn’t stop until I’d read them all, but for me there was nothing as wonderful as A Tale of Two Cities.
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Sixth Grade: I cringe to say this, but I hid under the covers with a flashlight reading Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret over and over again. I still love the imagery of the girl whose “eyes looked like boiled onions” when she cried.
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Seventh Grade: Little Women, Little Men, Jo’s Boys, oh how I wished the series would never end! Although, I’m afraid I was one of the few little girls who never could relate to Jo. I think I was more of a Beth or Meg. But not an Amy. Never an Amy.
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Eighth Grade: Slaughterhouse Five. I thought it was weird and creepy and wonderful.
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Ninth Grade: I savoured Wuthering Heights. My fingers wore bare spots in the school library copy.
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Tenth Grade: Mr. and Mrs. Bojo Jones. I’m a little embarrassed by this one, too. Does anyone else remember this cautionary tale about teen pregnancy and marriage? It was truly awful, but I did not realize how bad it was back then. I think this was the same year I read Go Ask Alice and Sybill and the Exorcist. I was all about the bad girls.
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Eleventh Grade: I was still on the dark side with my frequent quoting of Thoreau’s Essay on Civil Disobediance and devotion to all things Poe.
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Twelfth Grade: The light broke through and I discovered all the beauty, bawdyness and drama of the complete works of Shakespeare.
There were other books of course that I read and loved, but these were the ones that really stood out by virtue of their dog-eared covers and tattered pages due to frequent re-readings. So how about it? What books did you wear out when you were a kid?
11 responses so far ↓
1
Jen on the Edge
// Jun 23, 2008 at 7:52 pm
I read a lot of the same books.
In addition to Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden, I was also a fan of The Three Investigators.
I loved (and still do) Jane Austen in high school.
2
Terri
// Jun 23, 2008 at 8:02 pm
I, too, loved the Nancy Drew series, and even the Hardy Boys series. I was also a big fan of the Little House on the Prairie series…and I still love to watch those old reruns on television and compare the story lines to the books!
3
Anglophile Football Fanatic
// Jun 23, 2008 at 9:26 pm
I loved Nancy Drew. I had a huge affinity for the Brontes, like you, apparently. And, I really loved Gone With the Wind (still do!), anything Austen & Rebecca. I read Dumas about the same time you did.
4
Nancy
// Jun 23, 2008 at 9:37 pm
Wow, you have a good memory. I had and loved all the Nancy Drew books.
The only books I recall reading over and over when I was real young were “The Five Chinese Brothers” and “Ping” … 2 books I made sure to read to my kids too.
5
Nancy
// Jun 23, 2008 at 9:38 pm
PS By the time I was in middle school …I was sneaking and reading the trashy magazines of my grandmothers. Especially “True Confessions”
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Janet
// Jun 24, 2008 at 8:51 am
I read nearly everything you did I think (Joy in the Morning instead of Mr & Mrs Bojo, but it sounds like the same plot). I had all my MOTHER’s copies of Nancy Drew and the Dana Girls, plus Cherry Ames (she was a nurse). I had my own set of Little House on the Prairie and all the Anne of Green Gables books. Also the Betsy-Tacy series. When I was 3 my favorite book was Fox in Socks. Apparently I made my grandmother read that to me repeatedly. (Don’t worry, it came back around - nephews, cousins, my children - I’ve read it multiple times now.)
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Leslie
// Jun 24, 2008 at 9:03 am
I LOVED Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Bobbsey Twins, Boxar Children….must be what started me on my love for mysteries!
oh and of course the teen romance books, oh so tame compared to books now! I even have the Little House on the Prairie boxed set and read those many times over.
8
margalit
// Jun 24, 2008 at 9:43 am
So many of your favorites were my favorites, too. Except I learned how to read really early (shocking for such a big reader, eh?) and the ages were different.
I LOVED Angus and the Ducks, which I believe was the first in the Angus series. Still love it, still, whenever I see a Scottie, say “Oh look, there’s Angus!” I know, weird!
In first grade I was all about Danny Dunn and the Homework Machine, and some of the other Danny Dunn books. And the Maida books (Maida’s Little Shop is the first of those). LOVED Maida, still have all the books, which are from the early 1900’s and were my mother’s before I got my greedy hands on them!
Second Grade I read the Little House books. All of them. Also the All of a Kind Family series. If you’ve never read those, DO.
Third Grade was my Nancy Drew/Trixie Beldon/Hardy Boys year. I also read the Gemma books which are English. Discovered Rould Dahl..Charlie, James, et al. Loved the Secret Garden, also my mother’s copy.
Fourth Grade was Exodus (do not ask…long story!), Narnia, and Phantom Tollbooth. My teacher read aloud to us, too, and my favorite was A Wrinkle in Time. LOVED it.
Fifth Grade was Dickens. Tale of Two Cities just took over my heart. Also Anne of Green Gables, and my first PORN book, which my father found and made me read ToTC, so it was all good! My fave was
Six Grade was more adult books than kids books, but I read Cheaper by the Dozen about a dozen times. Hilarious! I also read the Hobbit but I hated it. I got into Wordsworth and started reading morose poetry in 6th grade.
Seventh Grade was my Vonnegut year. Read it all.
Eighth Grade was the year of Catch 22 and Joseph Heller. Also a bunch of Jewish fiction and non-fiction including a lot of Holocaust books. I was a morose child. Also all the big women’s books: Jane Austin, Bronte sisters, et al.
By high school (9-11) my book tastes were completely adult and I only read tons and tons of “historical” fiction or detective stories. But the books that stands out as a huge favorites during that time were TH Whites Once and Future King and also the Sword in the Stone. I also read Brave New World, Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Henderson the Rain King, Tender is the Night and Gatsby, All the King’s Men, a couple of HATED Joseph Conrad books (Lord Jim, the most boring book in the world), On the Road,
Catcher in the Rye, Clockwork Orange, Brideshead Revisited, Sometimes a Great Notion (with one of my all time favorite quotes, “The drizzlin’ shits”), Cokoos’s Nest, Farenheit 451, Naked Lunch (OMG, what an eye opener THAT book was), On the Beach, Heart is a Lonely Hunter… most of which were either assigned by teachers, or were on our yearly reading list.
Of course there was Shakespeare during that time, and I read Romeo and Juliet, As You Like It, Taming of the Shrew, Othello, Julius Caesar, Henry5, Midsummers Night’s Dream, Hamlet, and Macbeth.
Geesh, looking through this list I realize how freaking inadequate my own kid’s reading lists are. Schools are so soft nowadays, said the old geezer! Of course I took nothing but AP English for my entire high school career, and a lot of it, but…
9
Sarah
// Jun 24, 2008 at 3:22 pm
I devoured all of the Ramona books growing up, and I think I read all nine thousand Boxcar Children books. But lest I sound sophisticated, I think I also read every single Babysitter’s Club book ever published.
My most favorite book throughout all of my school years was The Giver; it was actually on a reading list in fifth grade and in the twelfth. In college, I devoured the sequel (?), Gathering Blue — both wonderful!
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nottryingforaboy
// Jun 24, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Wow, you have an incredible memory to be able to recall what you were reading when. I can’t remember what I read last year, much less details of what I read 20+ years ago.
11
Ree
// Jun 25, 2008 at 8:01 am
I wore out the Little House books, the Nancy Drew books, the Hardy Boys books, and then, once I got older, any Stephen King I could lay my hands on.
Go Ask Alice and A Tree Grows In Brooklyn fit in there, too.
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