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

[ajollypyruvate]

I liked some of those mystery series for their having actual facts abut things, though I've no idea (now) how accurate they might have been. The Happy Hollisters, for example, was where I first heard of Lipinzers.

We read a lot of books which, these days, wouldn't be considered "age appropriate", so I'm not counting those and I'm sure many books that I did love I'm likely to forget to include, so these are just some remembered favourites.

Not in series:
William Pène du Bois - started with The Twenty-One Balloons and have loved him ever since. Illustrations are awesome1
The Phantom Toll-Booth - What is not to like?
Edward Eager & E. Nesbit - I liked the way they wrote children and I loved their ideas. Still do. These are some of my favourite children's books to re-read.
Zelpha Keatley Snyder - I haven't read all she's written but she wrote very good suspense mixed with maybe-magic (and sometimes actual magic). The Velvet Room is a favourite, in part because of her description of the lives of the itenarants.
P.D. Eastman - Go, dog, go!
Edward Gorey - The Wuggle-Ump is probably my earliest favourite story. Door knobs and gunny sacks and small children.
Dr. Seuss - oh, come on! (But I hated The Cat In The Hat, I hated Sam, and those stupid Pants With Nobody Inside Them horrified me. But, you know. Dr. Seuss!)
The Witch Family - Excellent story, with good suspense and humour. Ruth Chew has similar stories told in a simpler manner.

Series:
The 'Great Brain' books - I still don't know much about Utah or Mormons but this was my introduction.
The Happy Hollisters - Fun facts!
Encylopedia Brown - Fun facts!
Miss Bianca - Adventure time! And those illustrations...
Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle - Well, it's a bit heavy on the "proper behaviour" side but not too much so.

(And, uh, probably about 1/3 of what's listed here.)

[miz-hatbox.livejournal.com]

I mostly liked Encyclopedia Brown, but you could totally tell that every so often the writer had gotten blocked and had gone looking through trivia books until he found a fact that he'd turned into that particular chapter.

Is The Witch Family the Phyllis Reynolds Naylor series with the sister who was under the spell of the creepy neighbor? Um.. Witch's Sister, Witch Water, and The Witch Herself, if I remember correctly. Oh, no, wait, you said "Not in series." Must be something else. Anyway! The Naylor books were excellently spooky.

Oh, and what about The White Mountains? with the Tripods and the caps... those were good too.

[ajollypyruvate]

It made those stories kinda fun!

Ms. Eleanor Estes. My copy has the older _better illustration. We also read her other books, I just liked that one best.

Ah, Mr. "John Christopher", yes. I have those with my regular sci-fi, instead of with the children/young adult books. They are just that good.