Books you read as a child
 

Alex's Trip's thread reminded me of this book I read when I was younger, one that has for some reason remained far more prominent in my memory than most of the other books I read (and I was a serious book geek even as a kid).

I read "The Thief of Always" by Clive Barker when I was about ten or so, and to this day I am entranced by that book. It's fantastically entertaining, yet touches upon concepts far more complex than you'd find in any children's book.

Many of you have probably read it, so I won't give a tedious account. Essentially it's about this young boy who, bored one rainy day, wishes for some fun, and is magically escorted to another dimension of reality. He is taken to live, amongst two other children, in this magical 'holiday house' where each day encompasses all four seasons of the year, and he can have anything his heart desires. He then finds out (after discovering that age-old lesson of having too much of a good thing) that the power behind Holiday House is evil, and attempts to thwart it.

ANYWAY

I can read this book even now, and still be mesmerized by it. I'm not even sure there was anything THAT extraordinary about it; it just, for some inexplicable reason, will be burned into my memory for ages to come.

What books did you read as a child that particularly affected you?

the giving tree by silverstein

what a fucking depressing book, but yet i read it over and over and over again

rhoal dahl, judy blume, the diaries of adrian mole. thats about all i can remember oh that guy that they based the australian show 'round the twist,' on....

someone jennings

I don't know the Australian bit, nor have I ever read The Giving Tree (I can hardly believe it myself).

I LOVED the Adrian Mole diaries, I still read them now and again. Fucking hilarious.

Roald Dahl is an amazing writer. Another one of those that hide complexity within simply and colorfully packaged "children's" books.

Judy Blume was a pervert.

charlotte's web, the giver, a bunch of the boxcar children books, and when i was smaller a lot of dr. seuss -- i was reading dr. seuss's abc's before my 3rd birthday.

Showoff.

I'm going to call you Quentin, so I stop mistaking that "q" for an "a".

Goosebumps all the way.

animorphs

as a young child, this ruled my world:

my favourites were:

tintin
moomins
just william
roald dahl

my poison used to be the little prince

The book that made the biggest impression on me when I was a little kid is Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne.

I was about 8 and I remember sitting by the electric wall heater in our living room and getting lost in the language and the story.

I was fucking dumb back then.

I was JUST about to say Shel. I read all his stuff, he was my fav.

quentin, huey, muhammed, xiang, odegwo, raul, jacques, giuseppe, punjab, vladimir, adolph, jan . . . all the same to me.

I read a lot as a kid. I remember liking "Encyclopedia Brown" books, and "The Chronicles of Narnia" (although admittedly I never finished the series), and a ton of those "Choose Your Own Adventure" books.

did anyone else read the "dark forces" series?

I also liked some very sophisticated literature, like Captain Underpants.

I liked that first Harry Potter book, too. Little Critter was pretty good too, as was Clifford: The Big Red Dog.

Those orange movie monster books.

It's Paul Jennings.

My favourite book by Roald Dahl is "James and the Giant Peach". I remember being completely engrossed when my Year 2 teacher was reading that book to the class.

I also read the Harry Potter series..oh, and the Tale of Peter Rabbit! Man, I loved that book when I was a kid.

Catweazle, The Nose Knows and anything featuring the mighty Paddington Bear. He was my fictional hero (still is, really).

"Bunnicula" and "The Celery Stalks At Midnight" and "Truely Scary Stories"

Paddington Bear always manages to cheer you up and invoke nostalgia.

Paddington's the greatest.

There are two types of children's story characters, generally. Ones hat teach you to do nothing more than fulfil a societally conditioned role (Postman Pat, Bob the Builder etcc) and those who teach you to be an individual ans explore things (Paddington, etc). I prefer the latter, and I tink children should be generally dissuaded from the former. The exception to the above rules is the very funny and excellent Roobarb and Custard, which was all about spite, one-upmanship and and scorn.

peter rabbit
pigling bland
roald dahl
the train that was all "I think I can I think I can..."

i read a huge amount as a child. i prefered reading to any form of physical activity like spoerts or whatever so was constantly to be found with my head in a book.

i too read clive barker when i was younger although it didnt really have that much of an effect on me. it was the hellbound heart, from which hellraiser was spawned but it didnt get to me nearly as much as a book i read about the aftermath of a bombing the title of which forever escapes me.

I did'nt read much as a child.I spent most of the time by myself drawing and painting.

A Wrinkle in Time- Sorry , don't remember the author's name.
There's a part of the book where they go to this planet where everyone's the same and every kid is outside bouncing the ball at the same beat. That always stuck with me and I don't know why.

The Witch's Button - Again, can't remmeber the author.
I was so scared of that book I couldn't even finish it. Scared of a book! ha I was such a wimp. Eventually I did read the damn book and it wasn't even close to being scary. I pysched myself out.

yeahhh
Fantastic Mr. Fox

for sure

definitely roald dahl.. matilda was the first book i ever read (in one day-i was six) so i think that says enough :D his short stories are genius too

the velveteen rabbit, the little prince, roald dahl books, dr suess books, and where the wild things are

Where the Wild Things Are!
awesome

A Wrinkle in Time is by Madiliene Engels (can't spell it) I love that book and I liked some of her others.
Oh yeah, The Redwall series were the shit. I spent a whole year reading nothing but those books.

That is why I love Dr. Seuss.

I don't know why but I've always been fascinated with him.

Him and Houdini. Two crazy peeps.

suuss owns! ive heard alot about his stories being very metaphorical. which is rad!

velveteen rabbit is great!

That's her name! Thanks.

I think her name is spelled Madeleine L'Engle. Whatever it was, it was weird. I read A Wrinkle In Time and all of the books that were sort of sequels to it, in a way. Same basic characters. Some were way better than the others. A Wrinkle In Time was the best, of course. When I was in grade school I read the whole thing to my youngest brother, who was about four years old. I did the same thing with the Harry Potter books, which I still read obsessively.

Danny, The Champion of the World was, by far, my favorite Roald Dahl book.

The Werewolf of Fever Swamp was the best Goosebumps. I collected that series up until about #80 or so, I think. Haha, I guess I was in the third or fourth grade, and it finally hit me that the series was declining in quality.

It's difficult for me to remember all the books I read as a kid. I read so many. Whenever I would go to my friends' houses, they would always have TVs or computers in their rooms, or a basketball hoop outside, and there was never a shortage of things to do. The only cool thing I had at my house for the longest time was a Super Nintendo. I remember at first being too scared to play it. So I just read books all the time instead.

My absolute favorite book as a very small child was this one that came in a Reader's Digest children's book collection. It was called Rumples and Tumbles Go to the Country. In it, two toy rabbits search all over the countryside for a real live rabbit. On their way, they meet a bunch of different animals, and one of the rabbits always ends up saying, "If that's a rabbit, then I'm the Queen of England!" My favorite part was when they met a cow and it stuck its head through the bushes. I flipped to that page so many times that it fell out. Thankfully, my dad had memorized the entire page verbatim (and it was pretty long), so he wrote it all out on an index card and stuck it in place of the old page.