Top 10 Tuesday: Childhood Books I’d Like to Revisit

(in alphabetical order by author’s last name)

 

 Top 10 Tuesday is hosted by the lovelies over at The Broke & The Bookish. Check them out!

 

• Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews – Okay, don’t judge me! I definitely want to re-read this and see if it’s as messed up as I remember. Some fellow book bloggers and I were discussing this somewhere recently and we all have some horrid memory of it. LOL

• James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl – I remember not particularly loving this book the first time I read it (loathed the movie) and, for some reason, as a child I thought it was rather vulgar. I have no idea why I thought that but the memory has stuck with me. I’d like to give it another read and see if I still feel the same way.

• Original Nancy Drew Series by Carolyn Keene – I was an avid Nancy Drew reader and made my way through the first 64 originals while in the early middle grades of school. I remember being enthralled with the mystery but thinking it wasn’t all that sensible of Nancy to be so concerned with what shift she wore to dinner or if she freshened her lipstick before solving the mystery! (Oh yeah, feminist since childhood.)

• Original Baby-Sitter’s Club by Ann M. Martin – I read a good portion of these before I outgrew them and I could tear through several in one sitting. I didn’t have many friends of my own so Kristy, Claudia, Mary-Ann, Dawn and Stacey were like my friends.

• Anne of Green Gables Series by L. M. Montgomery – To this day I cannot hear or read the phrase “kindred spirits” without thinking of Anne of Green Gables. I loved these books and I would just love to re-read them as an adult

• Harry Potter Series by J. K. Rowling – Need I say more? This was my first dive back into reading after my teen/high school years. Here’s my bit where I get to say “back in my day we didn’t have YA” and so after middle grade reading there was often a steep incline from middle grade to adult fiction.* Of course, things could be found but it wasn’t nearly so easy as it is now. Picking up and being fully immersed in HP allowed me to rediscover what I loved most about reading to begin with.

• The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein – While I did read all the Shel Silverstein books as a child this one was my favorite. Even then I understood the message and I think as an adult it would be even more powerful to me.

• The Ghost in the Swing by Janet Patton Smith – Maybe no one else even knows this book exists but I very clearly remember taking it off the shelf of my local library–the very same one I work for now and reading it.  I can even tell you where it was located in the children’s room and that it was a hardcover book and it was a bright, kelly green with no dust jacket. I only vaguely recall the storyline but I want to give a re-read and figure out why I can recall this memory so vividly!

• Original Fear Street Series by R. L. Stine – I got hooked on these! Apparently, as a middle grade kid I really liked mysteries! Other kids were reading Goosebumps but those weren’t scary enough for me. I needed more. Of course, I also watched a lot of Murder TV like Matlock, Murder She Wrote, Unsolved Mysteries and such. I blame my grandma. Must be her fault I’m so morbid! :)

• The Boxcar Children Series by Gertrude Chandler Warner – I remember reading a good deal of these after I had exhausted my school library’s supply of Nancy Drew books! Occasionally, I dabbled with the Hardy Boys but I just didn’t like them too much. So, I ended up with The Boxcar Children.

Have you read any of these?

 I want to have a month of re-reading some childhood favorites/classics–especially since I’m in training to be the new youth services librarian! Anyone else game?

*I suppose I should mention the time that I after I had outgrown the children’s room of the local library and went pursuing through the adult section in search of my next book. I landed on what sounded like a delightful title. It was Pink by Gus Van Sant as in the one that directed Good Will Hunting. Need I explain what a mind trip that was for a fourteen year old??!