Childhood nostalgia poll

[rachelmanija]

Please reminisce, fondly or not, about any of these, or other books read in childhood, especially if they seem to have, deservedly or undeservedly, vanished from the shelves. I'd love to hear about non-US, non-British books, too.

[Poll #1720139]

Comments

[genarti]

Some that I haven't seen anyone mention yet: the Animorphs series, which I read and loved the first handful of. At which point I realized that the series was already at twenty-odd books (I don't even know how many it eventually got to), looked at my sparse pocket money, and decided that this was a series I'd best give up now. The Valdemar series, which I devoured like sparkly wish-fulfillment candy. Xanth (which I am terrified to ever reread; Piers Anthony's id is a scary sketchy place) and Pern (somewhat ditto, but with more redeeming parts). Tamora Pierce -- the Alanna books were what I read as a kid, but as I've grown up I've continued to read her others too.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Animorphs, Lackey and Pierce all started too late for me -- Animorphs in particular came out when I was in my twenties. Pierce and Lackey, it was sort of a closer call -- Pierce's first book came out when I was in my tweens and Lackey's was the year I graduated from high school. I don't remember seeing them around the library I was haunting in the mid-to-late-80s, but if they were being shelved in YA I never would have stumbled across them -- I'd pretty much completely abandoned the YA shelves for the adult stacks by the time I hit middle school, since they mostly seemed to be full of lots of dreary-looking 70s problem novels. I'm kind of bummed about missing out on Pierce in particular, epic fantasy with adventurous girl protagonists is just the sort of thing I was starving for as a kid and I'm sure I would have eaten them up with a spoon. *wistful sigh*

I did read *tons* of Piers Anthony and Anne McCaffrey as a kid, though, when I was mercifully young enough not to pick up on any of the skeezier sexual stuff. Dragonflight in particular was one of the very first books a really nice librarian handed me when she heard I loved Tolkien and Andre Norton, and had parental OK to check out adult titles. (The other one, IIRC, was one of Michael Moorcock's "Nomad of the Time Streams" proto-steampunk novels, probably The Warlord of the Air.)

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

I first ran into Lackey when I was 16, and I was just smack dab the PERFECT age for her/it. (Vanyel. Whaddyagonna do?)

I did miss the Pierce window, though, and I've tried reading them as an adult, and I just didn't get grabbed. (Though I'm told that her first (which is the one I tried to read) is kind of not so good.)

As for SF/fantasy series -- Anthony, McCaffrey, Marion Zimmer Bradley, CS Lewis, Tolkien, yeah, them. But generally after I was about 12. (For some reason I was skewing younger-era-me in most of my answers.)

"Andalite!" "Yeah, that'd help."

[mari-redstar.livejournal.com]

Animorphs! For a couple of months when I was seven I was convinced that everyone around me had quite possibly been taken over by Yeerks. I slept with my covers pulled up around my ears to block them from crawling into my brain. ...Looking back, I was kind of a paranoid kid.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

HOW HAS NO ONE MENTIONED ELIZABETH ENRIGHT? I cannot be the only one! Both the Melendy books and the Gone-Away Lake books are still among my favorite comfort reads ever.

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

In my case, because I couldn't remember the author or the titles. But I was just thinking this morning "what was that series where in one book the two youngest kids get a series of puzzles to solve, and one of them requires them to find someone with an emperor's name, who is their neighbor Mr. Titus?" Now that I can easily check, I believe this book was Spiderweb for Two.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

Oh, one more I haven't seen anyone mention: Kate Seredy. She wrote a small series about a couple of pre-and-during-WWI-era Hungarian kids. (The Good Master & The Singing Tree.)

Also many other books, one of which was a mythologized retelling of the founding of Hungary (The White Stag), another of which was a horse-and-WWII-book. (The Chestry Oak, with an uncontrollable-except-by-the-protagonist horse. Also, he's a prince. The kid, not the horse.)

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Oh! I don't think I read any of the other ones, but my elementary-school library had a gorgeously illustrated hardcover of The White Stag, and I *loved* it. I hadn't thought of that book in years, thank you for the reminder!

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

How could I have forgotten Ramona!? A bit younger than most of the books we've been talking about, I think, but I loved everything Beverly Cleary.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

I am skipping two pages of comments because I must work! But probably these are mentioned therein, as other favorites even I had forgotten are mentioned in the first two:

I only ever found one Cherry Ames book, but I LOVED the Sue Barton books, also about a nurse, from student days to city nurse to rural nursing.

Mary Stolz! The Betsy-Tacy books. Leonora Mattingly Weber. I have no idea how well these have aged.

[fizzyblogic.livejournal.com]

My childhood was dominated by Enid Blyton — Secret Seven, Famous Five, Adventure series, Five Find-outers and Dog (Five Find-outers is a different series to Famous Five, I was confused to see them as one item on the poll) — and Roald Dahl and Narnia. I also loved The Worst Witch, and read some Sadler's Wells, and later in childhood became obsessed with Babysitters Club (which I still love, am currently re-reading #26 and having lots of feelings). There was also a series about a witch called Mogg; I don't remember much about it, except that I loved it fiercely for about three months when I was six.

[fizzyblogic.livejournal.com]

OH I COMPLETELY FORGOT, also The Mennyms! I lent my copies to friends, never got them back, and ended up so gutted by this that, as an adult, I tracked down at least the first one because MENNYMS. I loved them so much.

[alumiere.livejournal.com]

Being an odd child my most treasured books were mythology and 'folklore' - Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Celtic, Norse, African, Arabic, etc. I didn't really get exposed to Native American or Aborigines mythology until college though.

As for series, I think the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys were Mom's books first; I was done with them by 2nd grade. I also read Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, Tolkien, Stephen King, Dickens, Peter Straub, and a whole lot more before the end of elementary school. My teachers learned quickly that they had to pre-approve my book report choices as most of my classmates weren't allowed to read what I was.

[justice-turtle.livejournal.com]

Holy macaroni, this POST. ...I've read about half the books mentioned, and have added most of the other half to my reading list. O_O

(Danny Dunn! Three Investigators! Freddy the Pig! Swallows and Amazons! *flailyhands*)