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

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Ooh, yes, I forgot Prydain -- rather odd since I even just reread them all a year or two ago to see how they held up. I liked them but they weren't at the level where I asked for my own copies or checked out the library copies endlessly -- judging by the reread, I think the disappointing treatment of Eilonwy may have had something to do with it. Narnia, for all of its own gender issues, was a lot more satisfying to me because the girls weren't prattlers and didn't get shunted off-stage to finishing school. :/ And the talking animals didn't hurt, either...

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

Toward the end of the series it becomes more and more about growing up-- not the weird fake growing up of Narnia, adult growing up-- and I wonder if that's why it didn't grab me as hard as a teen too.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

I read the Prydain books around 4th grade or so -- I don't remember how old I was when somebody gave me a set of the Narnia books, but it was definitely while I was still in elementary school, and all the religious allegory sailed *whooooosh* right past me. But I did always find The Last Battle and The Magician's Nephew a lot less satisfying than the other books.

(I didn't pick up on any of the religious or autobiographical elements in Tolkien the first few times either, since I started reading those so young -- it was really fascinating going through those all over again in my teens for the first time after I'd read the biographies and some WWI history and so forth.)

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

I remember distinctly lining up in elementary school after recess, talkin about The Last Battle with a friend. I can't remember the exact words now, but the translation into current patois, would be, I believe, "the fuck was that?"

(Same here, only it was my twenties.)