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The Dark is Rising, by Susan Cooper (the book, not the whole series. I enjoyed the series, but it was only the second book that resonated with me in the way CT describes. I was so disappointed when I turned 11 and my pets weren't afraid of me, the radio didn't go to static when I got close to it, and so forth).
Sir MacHinery by Tom McGowen. I sort of suspect that this one wouldn't hold up so well, were I to read it as an adult, but man did I love it as a kid. Looking at the cover on amazon a moment ago, I was struck by how absolutely right the cover looked to me, simply as a result of having spent a lot of time looking at it as a kid.
All of the Little House books, and all of the Great Brain books.
Lord of the Rings
Edith Hamilton's Mythology
Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars by Daniel Pinkwater
Black and Blue Magic by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
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Lord of the Flies. It helped me come to realize that there is less distance between a child and an adult than I had realized. It was also my first book dealing with things like serious degenerate behavior and how society is maintained.
Encyclopedia Brown.
Pippi In The South Seas.
Flying Solo (Roald Dahl)
Bunnicula, Howliday Inn, The Celery Stalks at Midnight. By James and Deborah Howe.
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As a young child, I absolutely adored Noisy Nora and The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate the Wash.
As an older child, I absolutely adored Ender's Game (read it over and over until it fell apart) and A Wrinkle in Time.
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Wow, lots of great memories stirred up, here! Let's see . . . The Mushroom Planet books A Wrinkle in Time Harriet the Spy (I had a notebook, too!) The Happy Hollisters (a book club series like the Bobbsey Twins, except one came every month. I never forgave my parents for stopping my subscription because of reading too much and grades dropping. That just never made sense to me. I really don't think the two were connected.)
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The Phantom Toll Booth by Norton Juster! How could I have forgotten that?
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson.
Wump World by Bill Peet
A short story that I adored as a kid was "The Pale Green Pants With Nobody Inside" in the Doctor Seuss collection The Sneeches and Other Stories. I was terrified of it in the best, most delicious sort of way.
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Ender's Game A Secret Garden Podkayne of Mars and Have Space Suit, Will Travel, Heinlein Little House on the Prairie (series) Nancy Drew (series) Harriet the Spy Matilda Island of the Blue Dolphins A Wind in the Door, Madeleine L'Engle The Chronicles of Narnia The Giver The City of Ember Call of the Wild The Secret of NIMH
Gah, I forgot So You Want to be a Wizard!
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It's funny, but I really can't remember. I can't remember what books I was particularly reading when, although I know that EAP was the summer I turned 14 and Jane Eyre was the summer I turned 15.
When I was 11, my dad swept away all the books from my room and placed a box full of used classics from the library book sale in the living room. When I had read most of the books in that box, I could have my other books back. I remember what books were in that box (Aesop's Fables, which I enjoyed; Silas Marner, whose status I found mystifying; Conneticut Yankee, which resulted in a power struggle of epic proportions (I "won"); A Tale of Two Cities, which was sad; Lord of the Flies[/i], which scared me; 1984, which I simply did not find plausible; The Merchant of Venice, which I didn't understand; The Phantom of the Opera, which I found fascinating), but I don't remember the books I was reading that were taken away.
Oh, I do remember some! The shoe books! Ballet Shoes and Dancing Shoes in particular. Bunnicula
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: It's funny, but I really can't remember.
I'm having this problem as well. While I loved many of the books mentioned in this thread, I suspect (or know) that I read many after age 12.
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katharina: There's a great Silas Marner movie that made a difference in my literary life as a teenager.
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The Elephant Who Liked to Smash Small Cars by Jean Merrill - my dad would sing the little song. I still remember it as does he. It was a huge favorite in our house and I wish I could get a copy again to share with my kids.
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Heinlein juveniles. The Dark is Rising*. Narnia*. "Julias Reise" and its sequels, by the Norwegian fantasy writer Bente Lohne. "Oh! Heavy is my burden!" Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms books. Hardy boys.
* I read these in translation.
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island of the blue dolphins my side of the mountain where the red fern grows mrs frisby and the rats of nimh cricket in times square danny champion of the world great brain series charlottes web owls in the family a spell for chameleon andrew henrys meadow
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I wonder if the amount of overlap here says more about the size of the children's book market when we were kids or the similarity of taste among kids who would eventually like OSC's work enough to find Hatrack and participate here. Gah. That's a convoluted sentence. And there are a number of other possible explanations. My brain's a bit too fried at the moment to either articulate them or come up with a better way of phrasing my initial sentence.
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I think the size of the children's book market has been pretty big for quite some time. From a totally anecdotal point of view, as an elementary school teacher for the past 25 years, there have been a lot of children's books available for kids to read.
I vote for the overlap being a result of us having a similarity of taste.
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