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

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I read just enough Danny Dunn and Tom Swift to realize that science as an end in itself bored the crap out of me--where were the bad guys? Where were the spies and the good stuff? Where were the girls? (Homemaking or girls needing rescue did not count.)

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

But Irene!

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I don't think I met her in the very few that I read.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

I never read Tom Swift, just Danny Dunn, and Irene left enough of an impression on me that until Rachel's review I'd forgotten there were any of those books she wasn't in.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

You must have only read the first one or two Danny Dunns - a girl, Irene, shows up very early in the series, and is an equal to the boys, except possibly smarter and definitely possessing a lot more common sense. I'd actually forgotten that she wasn't around from the get-go until I read that early one last night.

I don't know if you would have liked them anyway, though. They're about exploring strange new worlds, not fighting bad guys - "Oh no! Can we ever escape the bottom of the sea?!" rather than "Fight the villain at the bottom of the sea!"

I read the later (written by someone else) Tom Swifts, which added two kick-ass girls and actually are about fighting aliens/robots/etc.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I think it was the first couple of them, yes.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I liked Danny Dunn and I think that was the first time I ever had friends who liked some of the same books I did (Third grade, Vic, Irving and Mike, now all Facebook 'friends' which makes me happy.)

Reading them in the 1970s, it struck me as deeply bizarre that the boys carried Irene's books home from school.