Books We Loved When We Were Kids

[Grimace]

Books we love children books! In my room, I have a shelf with only one purpose: to hold books. Not just any books - here I house my collection of Brambly Hedge and Winnie-the- Pooh.Bobbsey Twins.In a tote bag on my floor are Nancy Drew books, always and forever favorites. These books make up an important part of me; they are the child that I never really was. When people ask my age, I answer "17 going on 27." But when I sit down with Winnie-the-Pooh, Sea Story or The Clue in the Jewel Box, I am 17 going on seven. I love children's books, love everything about them, an attribute rarely associated with me. They are my refuge. When I feel swamped with Dostoevsky, Chaucer, Machiavelli and Locke, I can escape for a while into a magical world, the realm of a child. People do not guess this about me, and sometimes I hate to tell them. I do not want my tiny island of Milne invaded by the almighty wind of Shakespeare, so I keep the two separate, turning to the one only when the other threatens to blow me over.

 

I try to read one or two Nancy Drews on a Saturday just because it is the weekend, just because I ended a week of school, just because. I love them not only for their escapism, but also for the predictability. No matter what, Pooh solves the problem; no matter what, the mice of Brambly Hedge fall sound asleep; no matter what, Nancy Drew captures the bad guys and everyone laughs happily.

 

This stability is something for which I am thankful. In a world of AIDS, schoolyard shootings, terrorism, impeachment, poverty and nuclear power, when the balance seems to hang precariously and even Eris is falling off her perch, it is wonderful to know I can still count on something to turn out right in the end. I read my books seriously. If I can't laugh at myself for that, what else can I do? Children's books often receive their classification because they teach are geared for the intellect of children. But my children's books help me understand how to enjoy life, to laugh at myself, to cherish friendship, to relish simple things like saying "Happy Thursday." And these things, things I didn't learn in school, but instead from the wisdom of industrious mice, a teen detective and a silly old bear, I will never forget.

 

what children books that touch your hearts? ones that you made book reports? let me know!

[Z]

No such book elicits fond childhood memories. My affair with books was only kindled in the twilight of my childhood years given a peculiar demand from my mom (as I recall it). I was asked to read the book 'Around the World in 80 days' in a time when ideas delved into hyperspace, time travel, psi and magiks - themes which push the boundaries of our current reality. I found refuge in comic books, D&D, AD&D and the like which opened the doors to the various mythologies (Greek was my favourite). Childhood books? Would you consider Homer's Iliad; Shakespeare's Macbeth and other works; Of Mice and Men; The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer; The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas; etc. I eventually found my way back to Jules Verne only after seeing animated versions No such island existed for me but part and parcel of my other world.

Edited September 13, 2004 by Z

[Icee_1]

I loved Nancy Drew and Sweet Dreams books. But I was in my teens already.

[freakish]

I used to bury myself in my uncle's library reading all those disneybooks featuring Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, Donald Ducks, and other disney characters.

I enjoyed reading the simple stories but I was more interested with all the drawings that was there and I copied them and sold them to my aunt for Php1/page (nag-pauto aunt ko sakin )

 

There was also this very old Fairytale book that belonged to my mom that we usually read at night. My sister and I will just peruse the pages and read each other stories. Then I outgrew it and I shifted to Sweet Dreams novels. Teen stuff. At high school i developed fondness with Danielle Steeles' books, Sidney Sheldon. and Robert Ludlum. I read the Bourne Identity when I was in sophomore high school followed by his other books (supremacy , matarese circle, etc..). With the Danielle Steeles novels, i was more attracted to the romance side of it and the way she describe the places she used in the novel.

 

What i love to read the most was not really books, but the old issues of Reader's Digest from my father's subscription way back in the late '60s which he saved on one of our bookshelves (tons of it) and the newer ones he still was getting when I was a kid. I started reading them when I was five. Stammering and trying to make out the letters that were all written there. It just had a different effect in me because I was reading about real people's stories. The life-dramas, Real life heroes, even the "Laughter is the Best Medicine" section entertained me. It gave me some realistic perception with what's really going on in the world. It even helped me when I took the NCEE as I used their section "Word Power" as a review material for all those vocabulary I have to learn. It kinda stick with me. As an adult, I subscribe with the magazine and even buy those compiled stories books.

[muffdiver]

1.) The Red Balloon

2.) Cat in the Hat

3.) Robinson Crusoe

[Z]

So true freakish. How could I forget Reader's Digest?

[strangedays]

I grew up reading Hans Christian Andersens Faerie Tales. There was also an old story book, the name I could not remember but it was filled with lots of different stories like king arthur and his knights, william tell, etc. During my elementary days, I loved reading Encyclopedia Brown, Hardy Boys, some Nancy Drew books as well as lots of books on world history (Knights have always intrigued me), and books on dinosaurs. :cool:

[firealessandra]

I loved Little Women, Gulliver's Travels, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry fin and Nancy Drew.

 

But what I loved most, are books of Roald Dahl

[avarez]

I will never forget Cat in the Hat, Disney Books like Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and the Donald Duck Books. Nung bata pa ako lagi ako pinapabasa ni mama ng mga Old Reader's Digest na books.

[bruno frankelli]

As a kid, I did not go through the usual Hardy Boys phase. I tried reading a Hardy Boys book once but I had to put it down after just page ten. I never got into it. The books that I looked as a kid were written by Robert Cromier and were intended for older kids. The first novel I ever read was by him called "After the first death". After that, I became a voracious reader, picking up some pretty unconventional reading materials like Enid Blyton's "Up The Faraway Tree" and "The Alien In The Attic".

 

I was particularly fond of Edgar Allan Poe.

[missmanners]

nothing elicits fond childhood memories like books... i remember many lazy days spent cuddled with a book, often lying down, which my mom always told me would ruin my eyes... and true enough..

 

i digress...

 

i attribute the person i am now largely to my love of reading and what i have read. and i must say i started out pretty young. i was lucky to have had parents who encouraged this obsession with words and paper... when my friends were out sweating under the sun, jumping over garters, i was someplace else... with anne in avonlea... with winnie the pooh in the hundred acre wood... with nancy drew in some fabulous mystery... with the bennets in regency britain... with the little women in post-civil war new england... with the cat in the hat... with shel silverstein's poetry... even with the twins over at sweet valley...

 

sigh.

 

how nice it would be to go back to that now... the luxury of childhood that buys you time to leave the drudgery of adult life.

 

oh well.

[orionpax]

books?....hmmmm i love reading Hardy Boys, Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs & Ham, DC & Marvel hardbound series, The Illiad & Oddysey, and Choose Your Own Adventure Series books..(more than 60 titles! :boo:)

Edited September 13, 2004 by orionpax

[Mayella]

started reading at an early age because my mom loved to read as well. it was mostly compilations of faerie tales by different authors, nancy drew/hardy boys/bobbsie twins mystery books, choose your own adventure, sweet dreams, sweet valley high.

 

kasali rin ba archie comics dito? i loved archie comics and their double digests!

[KristinLavransdatr]

i remember crying an ocean over Sweet Dreams' PS I LOVE YOU.

 

:heart:

 

haaaay!!!

 

when i was little, like before-school age, i used to sneak into my mothers cabinet to browse through this old and tattered "pasyon" book. i would ask her to read it to me, holy week or not.

[batang_yakult]

Yep same here pero I didnt become a total book worm.

 

Mama ko rin adik sa libro. Pero she doesnt like romance things. She is more on the detective thriller types. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle... ayan..

 

nung bata ako i loved reading the Diney Aladdin book pero it was the naked face by sidney sheldon na aksidente kong binasa.. wala lang then i got so hooked

 

hmm... ano pa ba.. minsan nag aattempt na magbasa ng agatha christie pero then i get bored.

 

i alos loved r.l stine ( siyempre pambata e) pero later on na tripan ko na rin si christopher pike.