What was your favourite book as a kid?

[butters]

have you re-read it as an adult?

did it inspire creative childhood games? did it disappoint when your grown-up you read it? was it even a children's book or an adult's?

 

[Fata Morgana]

The Enchanted Wood by Enid Blyton. Yes re-read as an adult and still love it. I think it started a life long love of forests and books with a magical twist.

 

[DesEsseintes]

The 120 Days of Sodom and Finnegans Wake.

Apart from those, the usual suspects - Wind in the Willows, Alice in Wonderland, etc. Narnia. The Hobbit.

The Earthsea books really captured me, too. Wonderful writing. And Rosemary Sutcliffe's historical fiction for children, too. And...

Far too many for favourites, really.

 

[oggbashan]

The King of the Golden River by John Ruskin, illustrated by Richard Doyle.

I was given an early copy by my eldest aunt. The later copies with the Doyle illustrations were printed from worn woodblocks, so much of the detail was lost.

I still have it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King_of_the_Golden_River

 

[Dream59]

The Black Stallion. I have tried to collect the whole set and I have all but a few of them.

 

[patient1]

"If I Ran the Zoo" by Dr. Seuss

As an adult, it was a lot of nonsense, but it rhymed well.
I could see how the repetitiveness of the rest of it taught me to read.

 

[Tryharder62]

I loved the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books. We would set up mysteries to solve. Play detectives. When I knew I was having sons I got the whole set of Hardy Boy books when I found them on sale. The kids just aren't into them anymore and as low tech as they were I can see it. I still want to be Nancy.

 

[butters]

The Enchanted Wood by Enid Blyton. Yes re-read as an adult and still love it. I think it started a life long love of forests and books with a magical twist.

oh my god! i remember those. loved the series... the faraway tree, moon-face... remember those sweets that got bigger as you sucked?

 

[JohnnySavage]

Penthouse.

 

[Fata Morgana]

oh my god! i remember those. loved the series... the faraway tree, moon-face... remember those sweets that got bigger as you sucked?

And Silky's Pop Biscuits!

 

[DesEsseintes]

The Black Stallion. I have tried to collect the whole set and I have all but a few of them.

I was talking about that just the other day to someone who breeds horses. Wasn't he an Arab untrained stallion who was shipwrecked with a boy who turned out to be the only person he'd allow to ride him?

I remember that. And I'm REALLY not a horsey person.

 

[Disgustipated]

Where the Wild Things Are.

And I hated the movie.

 

[JohnnySavage]

I don't care much for horses. They are big and stink.

 

[Fata Morgana]

And Google Buns. Enid was ahead of her time.

 

[Dream59]

I was talking about that just the other day to someone who breeds horses. Wasn't he an Arab untrained stallion who was shipwrecked with a boy who turned out to be the only person he'd allow to ride him?

I remember that. And I'm REALLY not a horsey person.

That's it. I am not a horse person either. I just loved the stories. Of course when I was reading the books I was too young to know if I was a horse person or not.

 

[ishtat]

Cassel's Illustrated Encycloepeia of Knowledge in 8 volumes. Published in the mid 1920's with lots of sepia photographs. To a kid growing up on a farm in the west of England it was a magical window to a world that even then was past, but is still rooted in my imagination.

 

[DesEsseintes]

The Alfie books. Such natural illustrations - litter on the streets, modern buggies rather than prams, girls in jeans, etc. Beautiful. And Alfie was cool and naughty, which always helps with identification.

Can't believe no-one has mentioned Tintin or Asterix yet. Or Lucky Luke, Boule et Bill, Gaston Lagaffe...

 

[butters]

The 120 Days of Sodom and Finnegans Wake.

Apart from those, the usual suspects - Wind in the Willows, Alice in Wonderland, etc. Narnia. The Hobbit.

The Earthsea books really captured me, too. Wonderful writing. And Rosemary Sutcliffe's historical fiction for children, too. And...

Far too many for favourites, really.

eclectic tastes you had there, DesEss (for some reason my brain always wants to substitute Des Res there)
Narnia, The Hobbit *nods*
i think i recall the earthsea name but can't remember the contents.

and and and - yeah, know what you mean

The King of the Golden River by John Ruskin, illustrated by Richard Doyle.

I was given an early copy by my eldest aunt. The later copies with the Doyle illustrations were printed from worn woodblocks, so much of the detail was lost.

I still have it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King_of_the_Golden_River

not read or heard of that one, ogg. looks brilliant!

The Black Stallion. I have tried to collect the whole set and I have all but a few of them.

not heard of that one. would it be sort of the equivalent to our Black Beauty?

"If I Ran the Zoo" by Dr. Seuss

As an adult, it was a lot of nonsense, but it rhymed well.
I could see how the repetitiveness of the rest of it taught me to read.

never read it

I loved the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books. We would set up mysteries to solve. Play detectives. When I knew I was having sons I got the whole set of Hardy Boy books when I found them on sale. The kids just aren't into them anymore and as low tech as they were I can see it. I still want to be Nancy.

so many i've never read! the best books seem to inspire something like that

 

[DesEsseintes]

eclectic tastes you had there, DesEss (for some reason my brain always wants to substitute Des Res there)

Feel free, butters. Although that might imply someone wants to live in me, and I'm not sure there's room.

The Green Knowe books! Tom's Midnight Garden, A Tale of Time City, The Box of Delights.

What a delightful thread you have begun here. Thank you for the nostalgia.

 

[Que]

All of them.

...but if i had to choose? What comes to mind is that I read "My Side of the Mountain" several times. I liked the field craft in it.

Foundation Trilogy as a teen.

My sister taught me to read at four starting with "Go Dog, Go!" (P.D. Eastman, I think?)

I used it to teach all five of my kids to read. The autistic one who didn't talk till she was over two picked it up the fastest.

 

[patient1]

never read it

The first recorded use of the word "nerd".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_I_Ran_the_Zoo



It's on YouTube-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9FibHpCjRY

 

[Mischka]

The Oz Series by L. Frank Baum. Loved the characters, tribes, magic, and the whole other world.

 

[Sean]

Swallows and Amazons and the sequels, all the Famous Fives, LotR, Malcolm Saville's Lone Pine books and the Jennings books. Actually, I quite enjoyed my sister's stuff too, Mallory Towers and The Chalet School.

 

[toubab]

have you re-read it as an adult?

did it inspire creative childhood games? did it disappoint when your grown-up you read it? was it even a children's book or an adult's?

The first novel I read was Robinson Crusoe by Daniel DeFoe, and it was my favorite for a short while, until I read The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss, which remained my favorite for a good long while. Both made a strong impression on me.

 

[horny8191988]

The Oz Series by L. Frank Baum. Loved the characters, tribes, magic, and the whole other world.

I downloaded that on my Nook the other day. I've not yet started it but I am looking forward to it!


The first book that I remember reading (I loved reading as a kid but don't remember any specifically before 2nd or 3rd grade was Bridge to Terabithia. I was kind of obsessed with it. I don't remember much about it and a few years back it was made into a movie and I got really confused when I saw the trailer.
Maybe I'll have to re-read it and see if it lives up to the hype I gave it. And then maybe consider watching the movie.