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

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I never read Baby-Sitters Club. ;)

I recall a book called something like The Secret War Between the Horrible Teachers and the Glorious Kids, and that it was just as weird as it sounded, but googling the no-doubt garbled title fails to turn it up. I think the author's name was something like Stanley G. Weingartner, only not actually that.

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

I remember that book. It was amazingly strange and sort of mentally scarring, especially with how it ended. And I don't remember the actual title, either.

[carta.livejournal.com]

omg that book terrified me. I think it scared me into never ever breaking a school rule well into high school.

[ejmam.livejournal.com]

Is this it? http://www.amazon.com/Between-Pitiful-Teachers-Splendid-Kids/dp/0380578026

I remember the book as well, but I can't tell if this is it.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Yes! That's it! The Amazon reviews are hilarious:

I've always remembered reading this book, a surreal and really rather sinister and apocalyptic tale of kids on the run in the name of individuality. The premise bears a lot of similarity to the 1998 movie Disturbing Behavior, with parents zombifying their kids in order to make them behave, but minus the "mature themes". If anything, one could say it was like Disturbing Behavior meets Logan's Run, written for sixth-graders.

...

Shark-infested rice pudding! Just like mom used to make! This book should be required reading.

...

I read this book when I was a kid, and it's strange! I was unable to tell if it was a parody or just bizzare. I read it again recently, and what do you know? I still can't tell. But it did teach me that I'm worthwhile, and that I should always stand up for myself.

...

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

I remember this book! It was bizarrely depressing. Did you ever read Julian F. Thompson? He was kind of similar, only without the depressing.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I think I read some of his? There was one about a summer camp where parents sent their problem kids to be whacked? (I mean killed, not spanked.) I recall that they were also very strange, and feeling that most of the story was whizzing over my head. I also could never figure out what happened at the ends.

[genarti]

Oh my god, I remember that book! It was so weird and memorable, and there was a lot of it I didn't like at all but somehow it kept me reading right up to the horrifically depressing ending.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Baby-Sitters Club was after my time -- the first one came out in my senior year of high school. Even if they'd been around in my childhood, though, I probably would never have picked them up -- I tended to reject most real-world contemporary setting mundane stories, especially girly ones, as boring-looking, and I had zero interest in babysitting or babies, in real life or fiction. (I loved it when I could find cool girl characters in the kind of adventure/F&SF stories that I preferred to read, but the classic "girl books" people always expected me to read were mostly mundane domestic/friendship stories that didn't really grab my attention. I read them when there was nothing else around because even a dull book was better than nothing, but I could never really get into them.)