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On a recent episode of Kylee Cast from The Federalist, the host discussed with her guests the importance of parents reading to their children. My parents read to me. I recall my mom performing excellent dialects when reading Uncle Remus stories (they were great, political correctness be darned). Soon I was reading on my own. I still do, you know. But there was a magic of reading as a kid that is hard to recapture. It was always exciting when the Scholastic Book Club newsletter came to class. So much treasure!
I recently came across a list of my favorite books as a kid, a top ten list. Some of my favorites were series, so I just picked the book from the series I liked best. Did you read any of these?
10) Danny Dunn and the Anti-Gravity Paint by Jay Williams and Raymond Abrashkin
This was kid-level science fiction. All the gadgets Danny got hold of were either real or presented with a scientific rationale. I wanted my own laser. (Other books: Danny Dunn and the Homework Machine, The Smallifiying Machine, The Weather Machine and more.)
9) Treasure Island by Robert Lewis Stevenson
Reading this to my kids as an adult, I was surprised by how violent and bloodthirsty this book is. No wonder I loved it! (I might use this soon for Thrice Told Tales, because there have been some decent screen adaptations.)
8) The Adventures of Homer Fink by Sidney Offit
What? You haven’t heard of it? Color me shocked. This story of a kid growing up obsessed with Greek and Roman mythology freed me to pursue quirky interests.
7) Swiss Family Robinson by Jonhann Wyss
Yes, I saw the movie first. And I was a little disappointed they didn’t fight pirates with coconut bombs. But the book seemed so real, and I wanted an island of my own.
6) Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories by Dr. Seuss
I liked a lot of Seuss, but this was my favorite. As the fifth of five kids, I related to the power struggle to be the top turtle.
5) How to Care for Your Monster by Norman Birdwell
Before he made his fortune with the Big Red Dog, Birdwell made his true classic, presenting the Universal Studios Monsters as pets.
4) Encyclopedia Brown Tracks Them Down by Donald Sobol
I have stolen shamelessly from this series about a police chief’s son who solves crimes for my Bill the Warthog series of kids’ mystery books. Mike Nelson of Mystery Science Theater 3000, as part of his podcast 372 Pages, regularly reads Encyclopedia Brown mysteries with the challenge to solve them.
3) The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
I came to love The Adventures of Huck later, but as a kid, I wanted to be Tom exploring the cave (and to kiss Becky Thatcher).
2) The Great Brain at the Academy by John D. Fitzgerald
Stories about a little con artist. He always gets a bit of a comeuppance, but I especially enjoyed the parts before that happened. (The first five books of the series are great…Not so much for the rest.)
And not surprisingly, #1, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis
As a kid I loved the Chronicles of Narnia for the adventure, humor, AND the theology. I loved explaining who Aslan was to friends who hadn’t figured it out. I still re-read these books more than any others.
What were your favorite books as a kid? (Let's say 12 and under.)
Discussion (119)
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Great question! My mom read to us every night at bedtime, and my favorite was the Narnia series. She read through those twice with us.
Not having a TV at home, I was always casting about for more to read. I loved the shipments of Scholastic paperbacks we got from the States, and would get immersed in them. There was a mystique and freedom about getting involved in story that, as you mention, Eustace, can't really be recaptured as an adult. I read Nancy Drew and different kids' series, and just about any juvenile fiction I was given, but what really stands out didn't come from those shipments:
--James Herriot books. Did I understand everything I read? No. But they've stayed with me, and I still read them.
--Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. I was too scared to read the whole encounter with the dragon, but it The Hobbit started me reading Lord of the Rings. I especially liked when my mom would discuss them with me and explain the ring.
--The Ramona Quimby books by Beverly Cleary.
--Re-reading Narnia books. My favorites: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (presented first in the boxed set we had), Dawn Treader, Silver Chair, and Magicians Nephew. The Horse and His Boy can grow on you, and I was glad to have Prince Caspian. The magic is there in The Last Battle, but there seems to be a lot of loss in it.
Maybe . . . maybe these books stand out the most to me because with each of those, there's a connection to my mom, an association with her talking to me about those stories and/or giving me those books.
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I read all of the Hardy Boys mysteries. And there were the Henry Huggins stories by Beverly Cleary. those are what I remember right off.
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My Friend Flicka, Thunderhead, Green Hills of Wyoming
The Sugar Creek Gang series
The Book of Knowledge (an encyclopedia set)
Zane Grey
I don't remember the name but a book about courage that started with Cortez and the Aztecs and then went on to different kinds of courage. Each kind more honorable than the previous one. The last example of courage was that of a man who went to work each day to support his family. That was courage to support others over a long period. After that book I appreciated my father much more than I had. I don't remember the name, but I do remember the lesson.
We went to the library every week and so there are many more than these.
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The Phantom Tollbooth. I give copies of that to friends' children and grandchildren.
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Definitely, Danny Dunn and the Homework Machine. He had a girlfriend named Irene, which I found as intriguing as the computer.
The Black Tiger books by Leonard Wibberley, a UK series about a gutsy team of British race car designers, builders, and drivers.
DX Means Danger and CQ Ghost Ship. A pair of teenage ham radio operators always find themselves fighting spies and crooks.
Tom Swift Jr, a series with anonymous writers for hire under the name of Victor Appleton II. I didn't know at the time that this was a postwar reboot of a boys' series of roughly 1910-1930.
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