1
I miss Danny Dunn.

2 I stole my dad's Playboys for the articles.

3 Are You My Mother. We had all the Dr Seuss books.

4
I never could get very enthused about Winnie the Pooh after reading The Wind in the Willows.

Winnie the Pooh was better reading as an adult than as a child. The dry humor and sly mockery of adult foibles and attitudes makes for much entertainment.

5 Ah the Sunday book thread. I don't remember the first book I ever read. One that stands out early was an illustrated picture book that animals and large trees in a forest.

I do remember later on Grimm's and Anderson's Fairy Tales along with Wind in The Willows.

6 Another book I loved as a kid: Mr. Yowder and the Giant Bull Snake. My mom bought me that one at a garage sale, and I read it completely to pieces. I think it's out of print now, which is too bad -- it's a great book.

7
You remember The Five Chinese Brothers? I loved that story in 1st Grade.

Another victim of the racism mafia.

8

We're talking vintage, baby.  Mrs. Pigglewiggle's Magic showed how the childless widow of a sea captain could whip the brats in your neighborhood into shape with her inexplicable cures, like black smoke coming out of a kid's mouth if he/she told a lie.  It was esp. effective at the dinner table, back when families ate in the dining room every night.

The Happy Hollisters were sort of a forerunner to the Brady Bunch.  This series was a window into a big family who often traveled and gave you a voyeuristic look into their neuroses, well, whatever kind they could've had in the early '60s or beyond.

So, no, I wasn't reading hardcore classics, but I was loving reading.  I've still got a beat-up copy of a Scholastic Book's Pigglewiggle that's in pieces, but as an aspiring moron, it provided schadenfreude at an early age. 

 

9 The one I remember most from Elementary School was Island of the Blue Dolphin.  Have never read it since, but it always stuck with me.

10 OK.  I remember a book from my childhood that I've never been able to find again.  It was, I think, called Magnificat and it was about a stray kitten named Nimrod who was taken in by a bishop.  The title came from the fact that the cat liked to sit in the pews and listen to the choir practice "The Magnificat" because he thought it was about him.  The climax of the story was when the cat found some guys trying to blow up the church. He foiled the plot by biting the blasting cap, a heroic act of self-sacrifice in which he dies. So the story opens as St. Peter gets words that a "maximal saint" is on his way up to the Pearly Gates.  St. Peter's challenge, to figure out what to do with a kitten that's a maximal saint, is the narrative framework of the book.

Now if someone knows where to find a copy of this book, or for that matter has ever heard of it before, I'd love to know about it.

11 My 3 year old likes the Mercer Mayer "Little Critter" books.  They also have some humor in them that makes them fun enough for a parent to read several times without wanting to commit seppuku.

12 Popcorn: Is this the book you mean? If so, Abebooks is a good, reputable reseller. (Leo the Magnificat by Ann M. Martin.)

13 I'd like to put in some kind words for Walter R. Brooks's Freddy the Pig series, about the adventures of some clever (and very human) animals. My favorites would be Freddy the Detective and Freddy and the Ignormus. I loved them as a grade schooler, I love them now, and my daughter delighted in them just a few years ago.

And yes, #1, the Danny Dunns were nifty. I'm kind of surprised that no one brought up Madeleine L'Engle (A Wrinkle In Time) in the first few posts. Fine books.

14 Ender's Game will always be one of my favs.

15
I'd like to put in some kind words for Walter R. Brooks's Freddy the Pig series, about the adventures of some clever (and very human) animals.

Oh yes. I've been buying reprints and forcing my kids to read them.

16 CDR -- they've reissued the 3 Investigators series (although they've replaced Hitchcock with a generic film mogul -- tempus fugit.) I loved those as well, and saw myself as the Jupiter Jones of my circle of friends.

17 For me, it was all about Madeline L'Engle's "A Wrinkle in Time". Loved that book. Was obsessed with it. I think we read it in 4th grade. I really disliked "A Wind in the Willows" which we also read in 4th grade. Maybe I just didn't get it, but I was tired of the characters. I also loved Edith Hamilton's "Mythology".

18 I remember we had a whole set  Called "The Happy Hollisters".It was about a family with several kids who had different adventures.

19 The Little House series. Charlotte's Web and every other E. B. White book ever written. 

20
Colorado voters!  If you can vote in the 7th CD primary - help support and vote for Ryan Frazier .....  NOT Lang Sias.

Lang Sias, who has switched his party affiliation from democrat to republican, has given campaign donations to Mark Udall (D-CO-huge lefty)

I don't trust Sias.

21

The first particular book I remember reading is The Boxcar Children.  That was years before someone made it into a series, which, I'm sure ruined it.  Even at that age, I loved survivor stories.

22 I very vaguely remember a kids series about a family of tiny people who lived in the walls of a regular house. Can't remember the title..."The Littles" or something? Seems kind of creepy now that I think about it. Anyway, I liked it.

23 This isn't funny Monty...YOU KNOW I CAN'T READ!!!

<sobs>

24 Go Dog Go by P. D. Eastman is about the first book I can remember reading.

One of my aunts got me one of the Happy Hollisters books, and I ended up reading all the ones in the library.  They were mysteries, and that eventually got me into reading more of the books in the mystery section as I got older.  Some of them were historical mysteries, which got me into reading the history books as well.  It was possible back then to actually find history books in which the United States was not the focus of all evil in the world. That meant that my sojourn through the ranks of the Left was attenuated because I was better informed than the twerps who were attempting to indoctrinate me.

Around the time I was 10-11, I ran across I Robot, and ol' Isaac got me into the whole SF scene big-time.

25
Queers for Palestine.

26 Grimm's Fairy Tales, and not the prettified and bowdlerized ones either.  Daddy had gotten a set of the original versions from the Heritage Book Club, and, oh my goodness, are they different from the Disneyfied versions children are generally exposed to.  In "Cinderella," for example, when it's time for the wicked stepsisters to try on the glass slipper, one cuts off her big toe and the other slices off her heel.  As each in turn is riding away with the prince, doves come along and sing a little rhyme about how there's blood on the shoe so she's not the right bride at all.  Those stories were weird and bloody and I still love them.  We did have more normal reading material around, Dr. Suess and I suddenly remember P. D. Eastman and something called "Go, Dog, Go" and I remember reading the Mrs. Pigglewiggle books to my little sister, but for me it was the very grim fairy tales.

27 This isn't funny Monty...YOU KNOW I CAN'T READ!!! You're on thin ice, Floyd. Thin frigging ice.

28 "Winnie the Pooh was better reading as an adult than as a child. The dry humor and sly mockery of adult foibles and attitudes makes for much entertainment." Perhaps, but "Wind in the Willows" was the basis for "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride" -- the only Disney park ride that involves going through Hell. The Winnie the Pooh replacement is a poor substitute, existing solely because Pooh merchandise sells better.

29 Treasure Island

30 The first book I read myself was The Happy Little Whale, about a whale who faced whale hunters before being captured and taken to a Sea World-like park.   

My favorite book was the first of the Noddy series about a wooden boy toy.   This series was recently made into an achingly PC cartoon show, but the original book was highly racist, with pickaninny characters called Wogs.  The principal storyline was that Noddy and his kind shouldn't live with the other kinds. 

So, there we have it.  Sex, bondage and racism from a very early age.  No wonder I hang out at this site. 

31 #30 That's a testament to our marketing systems,
Pooh sells best

32

The first particular book I remember reading is The Boxcar Children.  That was years before someone made it into a series, which, I'm sure ruined it.  Even at that age, I loved survivor stories.

Posted by: katya at May 30, 2010 09:43 AM (R176e)

I was just going to post the same thing, sure that nobody would mention the Boxcar Children. That one really stayed with me. Same with A Wrinkle In Time.

33 My favorite book as a child was 'Corduroy'  I had the bear to go with the book.

As I got older it became Lord of the Rings, Red Badge of Courage, and Sherlock Holmes.  Couldn't get enough of the great detective.

34

Dij'ever put the skyscraper excavation page of Mike Mulligan up against a picture of the Manitowoc Octo at the ground zero hole?  It's Bucyrus eerie. 

 

35 I just want to say that although, apparently, I learned to read, I don't recall ever being read to by my parents; not saying they didn't; only that I don't remember. Also, while I remember books of youth, I remember the pictures, not the words. Also, it wasn't until very recently that I started to enjoy reading, and almost no fiction. What is wrong with me?

36 I grew up near naval airstations for most of my childhood. I was fascinated by aviation (still) and I could be found in the library section 630ish checking out the biggest books with pictures of military aircraft.

37 Lion at Large.

38 Can't read but can type??  That's an amazing talent!

Posted by: CDR M at May 30, 2010 09:58 AM (5I8G0)

The Daily Kos has loads of people like that.  They can't think, either.

39 #24

Was it The Borrowers?

40 Scuppers the Sailor Dog

41

I very vaguely remember a kids series about a family of tiny people who lived in the walls of a regular house. Can't remember the title..."The Littles" or something?

That was The Borrowers.  My mom used to read me fairy tales when I was very small to try and get me to fall asleep for naps.  If she fell asleep before she was finished, I would wake her up. 

When I was in first or second grade, we had this hot, British student teacher (Miss Carlson) who wore low-cut outfits that read us Charlotte's Web and Charlie and The Chocolate Factory.  There was something magical about hearing those books read aloud in an English accent.  (Plus the boys were absolutely captivated by her cleavage).

I've always loved to read.  Some of my favorite childhood books: Little Women, Laura Ingalls books, Encyclopedia Brown books, The Three Investigators, The Great Brain books, The Bobbsey Twins, Harriet The Spy, Trixie Belden books, Ann of Green Gables books etc.  My mom and I read Agatha Christie books when I was in middle school.  (I always liked a good mystery).  Two of the best books I read in 7th grade were To Kill A Mockingbird and Animal Farm (both given to me by my English teacher).  Now I'm reading mostly non-fiction. 

42 Ender's Game will always be one of my favs.

Posted by: elspeth at May 30, 2010 09:33 AM (AOIJi)

I hope you read 'em all then.  Bonus: Orson Scott Card is an outspoken conservative.

43 Oh, and for the record, 5 Chinese Brothers was racist--the 5 brothers were mistaken for one guy, reinforcing that stereotype that all Asians look alike--LOL!

44 Oh and Frog and Toad were Teh Awesome!  (Also, Amelia Bedelia and the Madeline books were good).

45 Harriet The Spy

I liked this one too.  And I'm very sorry that Fire-Can't-Melt-Steel was in the movie.  But in retrospect, I don't think it's a kids' book.  I mean, Harriet was batshit crazy.

The Great Brain books were awesome.

46 45 Nope, but that's what I found when I first "Googled" the keywords. (The Borrowers is another good one.) It's a series by John Peterson called "The Littles" that began in 1967. Oh, and the mini-people have tails and rodent-like ears. I read the wiki, and apparently this came after the Borrowers. There's been a cartoon series, a new author for the brand, etc. but I think the last real one was written in the '90s. Pretty good run.

47

This is off this topic, but in repsonse to your question way back when.

 

I applaud fellow morons and moronettes' reading list.

I am not as ambitious to tackle such weighty issues.  Currently I am reading two books each on "how to compost" and "home gardening, hydroponic system", and probably will start experimenting something small scale each.

48 I don't recall ever being read to by my parents

What is wrong with me?

Posted by: parisparamuss at May 30, 2010 09:58 AM (94AYw)

Whatever is wrong with you, your parents hated you for it.

49 mouse and the motorcycle.

50

When the Hatettes were wee tykes, I used to read to them every night from Italo Calvino's collection of "Italian Folk Tales for Children".  The book was huge (over 700 pages) and a lot of the tales were variations on the same theme (the guineas really admire craftiness in these) but the kids looked forward to it and almost 30 years later talk about it to their buds.

On books they read on their own, they wore the cover off of a large collection of Mother Goose poems, 2 copies of it.  Curious George and Where the Wild Things Are were frequently looked at.  Also regarding kids movies:  The Never Ending Story was outstanding because it accentuates how reading and imagination are such powerful things.

51 "home gardening, hydroponic system"

Posted by: always right at May 30, 2010 10:19 AM (8/wkb)

Need any help, holler.  I almost crapped my pants rewiring from the main box.

52

Twenty and Ten also known as The Secret Cave by Claire Huchet Bishop was a fictional story based on true about elementary school children in  France who hid Jewish children from the Nazis.  I read this book in third grade, and it was absolutely mesmerizing--plus it sparked an interest in WWII and The Holocaust.  Here's a link to Amazon:

http://tinyurl.com/24qmwp9

53 Rushbabe-I LOVED Mrs. Pigglewiggle books. I loved how she whipped those awful kids into shape, but loved them the whole time. I also appreciated that the reformed kids brought the unreformed to her to get them straightened out. A time when kids aspired to be good. I loved Ursula LeGuin's Baba Yaga stories. She took the old Russian folk tale, and wove them into new stories. Strangely, she made Baba Yaga into a positive character (my Russian grandmother told us Baba Yaga stories, but they were more like the original Grimm's fairy tales-the old hag was rather mean, and had taste for children.) The Three Musketeers was my favorite book when I was young. I read Walter Farley, Alcott, Little House, etc, but I loved Dumas. And thanks for the tip about Abebooks-I am always looking for a new way to feed my book habit.

54

Twenty and Ten also known as The Secret Cave by Claire Huchet Bishop was a fictional story based on true about elementary school children in  France who hid Jewish children from the Nazis.

Posted by: runningrn at May 30, 2010 10:21 AM (CfmlF)

Did their parents punish them for helping the Joooos?

Also: I hated The Secret Garden.

55 The first book I ever remember checking out of the library was Stop that Ball.

I read a lot Zane Grey's work very early in life. It was a compromise between me and my parents. Children's books bored me but they didn't want me reading to mature works. Grey seemed a good compromise because how radical could something written in 1910 be after all?

I read Grey's Spirit of the Border over and over, then discovered the concept of sequels. I still remember the slight unreality that hit me when I realized the characters from Spirit were the same people in The Last Trail.
I remember discussing the story with a teacher, and telling her that Last Trail was the first book that I had ever read where the hero died. I told her my Mom joked that that must mean I had never read the Bible. Freaked her out a little as this was in the fourth grade.

56

Brains Benton Mysteries, Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn. Loved Em.

57 Oh, and the William Dolch books--quick reads on so many different topics during elementary school--greek mythology, far east stories, you name it!

58 I also remember how wonderful is The Wind in the Willows.. There is another first-class read titled A wrinkle in Time. Right now I'm enjoying Obama's Horrible Terrible No-Good Very Bad Year.

59 The earliest book I can remember was called Snails on Whales.  Just a simple kid's rhyming book.  There was also Richard Scarry, Encyclopedia Brown, The Hardy Boys, and The Bobbsey Twins.

60

Did their parents punish them for helping the Joooos?

 

No, they were either orphans or parents had sent them for safety to the French countryside to live at a Catholic school.  I liked Francess Hodgson Burnett books, even Little Lord Fauntleroy!

I remember reading Oliver Twist in 7th grade and being just immersed in it--you could feel and smell the London grime and offal.  Although a little verbose, Dickens was a friggin wordsmith.  I got hooked on him.

61 I read a lot Zane Grey's work very early in life. I read Owen Wister's The Virginian when I was in fifth or sixth grade, and loved it. I went on a total Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour tear after that.

62

Btw, I fucked up the title:  It's just "Italian Folktales".  I guess I just personalized it for the Hatettes.

O/T kind of but this is a book thread:  Any Charles Stross fans out there?  A non-moron recommended Accelerando and I'm loving the hell out of every goddamn page.  I gave up on sci-fi a while back after immersing myself in it probably a bit too exclusively and they all started sounding the same; but this is the shizznit.

63 I remember "Watership Down" and I have read all the books you cite...is it our age that shows the classics were so important? I loved Roald Dahl especially. His books were just awesome. 
So many great books, so little time!!

64 Has anyone else noticed that Monty brings some sophistication and erudition to the blog?

_{I resent it.}

65 67 Wow...this thread got me thinking. Just looked it up, and it turns out that Penrod is still available. Is this the story that includes the boys trying to turn a horse hair in a bottle into a snake?

66 Any Charles Stross fans out there? Word up from this Moron. Stross is one of the best writers working, I think.

67 The Oz books were incredible.

68 I remember Ten and Twenty-our church library had that and a book on Russian Jews taken to Siberia-The Endless Steppes, I believe. I loved both of those. The library also had a series of books on the dinosaur digs in the Gobi Desert. I loved those as well. The Borrowers-I read those to my kids when they were little, as well as Mrs. Pigglewiggle. They didn't seem to enjoy them as much, but they both loved Orson Scott Card and Michael Crichton. (late elementary /middle school period.) As high schoolers, they read Lewis Carroll, J.M. Barrie and Terry Pratchett.

69 The Hollisters for me, too. They came every month, I believe, and they left quite an impression on this young boy. Probably would be forbidden nowadays. If I recall correctly, they were an close-knit, inventive, and independent family, with the kids solving mysteries.

70

Nancy Drew series, loved them, as a youngster.

Doing my best to raise a reader. I read to the Wee One, everyday.   At 4 yrs, she's pretty good at listening, and is beginning to read, too.   We do the newspaper together on Thursday-Sunday, and I swear, she rolled her eyes when I began  delving into Conservative Victory, apparently, the child is not a Hannity fan. 

71 Word up from this Moron. Stross is one of the best writers working, I think.

Posted by: Monty at May 30, 2010 10:31 AM (4Pleu)

I find myself marvelling at the insights he comes up with on extrapolating current things outward.  Having the moozik industry dinosaurs taken over by the Russian mob (Mafiya) is just fucking brutally apropos.  And the ex-wife from hell working for the IRS to try and drain every goddamn penny from productive youth to keep the welfare state on crutches.  And when Manfred Macx gets mugged and his techno-link glasses removed and turns into a feeble codger at 30 until he gets them back.  Very effectively thought provoking without hitting you over the fucking head with the dogma hammer.

72 The first books I read?  The Dick and Jane series.

73 I f you can read Dulce Domum and The Piper at the Gates of Dawn from WITW without tearing up or getting a chill up your spine then you're a fossilised curmudgeon.

74 You know what really captivated me? The Book Thread that Lasted until the ONT. A Sunday tradition, like Mass, football and grilling red meat.

75
katya, I'm like you: my first book was The Boxcar Children. A terrific read. And yes, there were several sequels, but they were pretty good.

One of my first books, too, were A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle, which also introduced me to science-fiction.

My own kids loved fairy tales and myths. In particular, The Greek Myths and The Norse Myths by Ingrid and Edgar d'Aulaire. The books are quite good, thorough, and beautifully illustrated. They do gloss over some of the stuff (for example, Zeus wants to marry Europe and Leda and the rest of them); but they're terrific reads. They also loved the Russian fairy tales with those marvelous illustrations by Ivan Bilibin.

76 What a strange website. You purport to be conservative but get all excited about a toad in a hall. I bet you even put maple syrup on your bacon. Blasphemy!

77 Bella Arabella was one of my faves. Beverly Clearly & all those Serendipity books like "Leo the Lop" and "Trapper", too. Loved the Sweet Pickles books. I'm still pissed my mom wouldn't buy me the Sweet Pickles Bus!

78 Anyone read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay? Or The Yiddish Policeman's Union? By Michael Chabon. Both really good. I can't remember which, but one of them won a Pulitzer. I'd particularly suggest Amazing Adventure..., but you really can't go wrong with either.

79

Misty of Chincoteague,  Harriet the Spy, Bobsey Twins, Encyclopedia Brown.

80

Hmmm- all the Dr. Seuss books. Mike Mulligan, and  Katy and the Big Snow. I particularly remember a book called Sam and the Firefly. I also loved the Classics Illustrated comics. They got me intetrested in reading the orginal books. The Classics Illustrated of  The Song of Hiawatha come to mind first.

Then I got interested in Sci-fi (this was the early '60's after all- the space race, etc.). I read ALL the Tom Swift Jr. books, and eagerly awaited the next one off the assembly line. There was a sort of competing series called "Rick Brant" that I read also.

One of my all-time favorites from my early reading which holds up rather well even today is "Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet". It held up a heckuva a lot better then Asimov's "Lucky Starr". Heinlein's juvenile's hold up pretty well even though he totally had Venus wrong. Citizen of the Galaxy, and Between Planets stand out there.

Gotta stop here or I'll type a small novel.

 

Have a great Memorial Day, and remember those who died to give us the freedom to read as we please (among many other freedoms).

81 I am so glad you chose the topic-made me remember some wonderful times in my childhood.  Sadly, I have not so much as thought about 'The Wind In The Willows' for years.  When I was a boy, books likes 'The Chronicles Of Narnia', 'A Wrinkle In Time', 'Aesop's Fables', 'A Light In The Attic' and 'Harold and The Purple Crayon' allowed my imagination to soar.  How fondly I remember [imagination]-As adults, do you we simply forget how to do it, or feel it's not important?  Either way, you brought me back to a very special place, thank you.

NRJ

82 I can't remember the name of one of my favorites, it was just about a kid going out into the snow and making snow angels. And of course Where the Wild Things Are.

83 I read ALL the Tom Swift Jr. books I used to love coming up with "Tom Swifties": "My oxygen tank is empty!" Tom said breathlessly. "There's room for one more," Tom admitted.

84 'A Wrinkle In Time'

That's a great book, i probably still have it stored in the attic.

85

Michael Chabon

He spoke at a local library (Mrs Hate wanted to see him because she's familiar with the books you mentioned) and he struck me as an extremely irritating douche.  His books are admired by a lot of my buds who have widely varying tastes so I'll take it on faith that they're good.

86 "The Little Engine That Could" & oddly enough "Mike Mulligan and His Steam-Shovel" were my first two. Still have my original copy of the Little Engine, gave it to my daughter.

87

When I was growing up we had a series of books in our house called I think The Book House Books. Ir had volumes 1 through 12, being age appropriate. In other words, the first volume was aimed at beginning reading, then as you get to volume 4 more like a 4th grader, etc. I have no idea when they were first published, but I read them a lot. And of course my mom would read the poems to us from the first volume before we had ourselves learned to read.

Amazing books.

Oh, and first book of course. Dick and Jane.

88

The Snowy Day

I remember crying my eyes out, in a book store, when I found that one, for my daughter.  I do remember begging my older sisters and brothers to "read me that book, again". over, and over. 

89 My kids are ages 7 and 5, and we read Go Dog. Go! and Are You My Mother? to tatters.  They were board books and got chewed on a bit too but I am definitely keeping those copies around for my grandkids.  For younger children, I also adore Silly Sally and Bear Snores On. 

My faves as a kid were The Time Quartet by L'Engle, The Great Brain series by John Fitzgerald, anything Judy Blume, Roald Dahl (that stupid James and the Giant Peach movie was awful, it could have been done so much better!), stuff like that.  I remember sneaking peeks at the book Helter Skelter on my parents' bookshelf and being firmly told "Not until you're older!"

90 Anybody read the Thornton-Burgess Animal Stories?

91 My sister still has all her old Frances the Badger books. I always considered them books for girls and so never read them until long after I grew up, but they are wonderful.

92 I have strong, but fragmented memories of a book about a sinking tugboat. I read it at a very early age and some of the images it made in my imagination stick with me to this day. Damned if I can remember the title or author.

93 90 I can't remember the name of one of my favorites, it was just about a kid going out into the snow and making snow angels.


96

The Snowy Day

I remember crying my eyes out, in a book store, when I found that one, for my daughter.  I do remember begging my older sisters and brothers to "read me that book, again". over, and over. 

That's it! Yeah, that was my favorite too.

That's it!

94

I read all kinds of books as a kid, still do.  What I remember best is reading to my younger brother and then to my nieces and nephews.  Dr. Seuss was best for this because all his characters were so different from each other and everyone needed a different voice and accent.  I loved that stuff.

95 Hated the Wilder Little House books because I am out here living it - 3 day blizzards with nothing to eat but crackers- yuck! I loved the Classic Illustrated comics which invited me to read the classics such as Ten Years After, Treasure Island, Tale of Two Cities, Hunchback of Notre Dame, etc.

96

DefendUSA just reminded me of the Roald Dahl books.  Unfortunately, I never came into contact with them when I was a kid, but my kids liked him.  Any and all morons MUST check to see if their local libraries have the audio version of  The Twits.  We listened to it on a car trip once and just howled.  It sounds like the guys from Monty Python doing the voices and is very dark in parts.

It got to be a tradition to get that audio book for long car trips, so much so that my kids started groaning, "Not again," but my husband and I loved it and we still quote lines from it around the house.

97 Posted by: Captain Hate He might be a prick. Probably is, actually. As an aside, if he's a flaming Lib he hides it pretty well. There's some hard-assed stuff in "Amazing Adventure" (to anyone who's read it, I'm thinking particularly of the wartime polar post and the subsequent death-match with the Russkie, ). Also, the Jewish legend of the Golem features prominently.

98 I also read several adventure books by Willard Price. They were tales about two young boys and their adventures in exoctic settings. Amazon Adventure, African Adventure. They were good, but predictable after a while.

99

I've always loved to read.  Some of my favorite childhood books: Little Women, Laura Ingalls books, Encyclopedia Brown books, The Three Investigators, The Great Brain books, The Bobbsey Twins, Harriet The Spy, Trixie Belden books, Ann of Green Gables books etc.  My mom and I read Agatha Christie books when I was in middle school.  (I always liked a good mystery). 

Ah! Get out of my brain!

Okay, I don't know "The Three Investigators" but the rest of the list is extremely familiar. Oh, and how about Cherry Ames, student nurse?

I'm teaching two of my kids to read with Seuss books right now and I have such vivid memories of some of the pages of the books. I spend a lot of time looking at all the details of the pictures.

100

I remember reading The Wizard of Oz as a kid and realizing at the time what a scam it was that you had to wear green tinted glasses when you entered the "Emerald City". Hmmm....

And when I read Peter Pan, I remember how depressing the ending was. Wendy grows up, but Peter just never understands.

101 R.L Stine's "Goosebumps" for me as a kid.  I also liked reading the Encyclopedia Brown series.  My gateway between R.L Stine and Dean Koontz and Tom Clancy was Christopher Pike.  Trashy teen drama stuff, but I dug the hell out of it.

One of my favorite Pike titles was "The Immortal".  Interestingly, it had a plot centered around Greek Mythology where two rival goddesses, one actually being half-Fury, are sent into the mortal world under drastically difference circumstances.  You have the first-person perspective of one of the these goddesses as she slowly remembers her true origins and why she's in the mortal world in the first place.  Not the best literature, but an interesting plot.

102 I remember many Little Golden Books (Little Red Hen, etc.) as my firsts. Unfortunately many of them were given away when I moved beyond them.
(A few of my Hardy Boys, Robinson Crusoe, Robin Hood, and of course The Wind in the Willows I still have).

103 I read all of the Nancy Drew books.  My mom had the entire collection as a child and I still have them.  Passed them on to my daughter. 

OT:  Went to the rally in support of the AZ law.  It was great ... a little long though.  MFM is reporting a "smaller crowd than expected".  I call BS on that one.  Had to be at least 10,000 there.  One of the highlights, besides hearing the original Sheriff Joe, was meeting Zo from PJTV.  He rocks.

104

There's a hole in the bottom of the sea,

there's a hole in the bottom of the sea,

but the flow is going slower,

ocean level's going lower,

there's a hole in the bottom of the sea.

B.H. Obama, taking full responsibility.

 

105 I'm surprised nobody mentions remembering Captain Kangaroo reading to them - he read aloud and showed the pictures of Mike Mulligan and Millions of Cats and Ping the Duckling and the Five Chinese Brothers and Stone Soup. My parents bought the record albums of those stories, al Caldecott Award winners. I loved Babar, and Put Me in the Zoo, and Sam and the Firefly. And in second grade my parents gave me a book that wasn't well-known but which I liked: Everything Happens to Stuey.

106 What is wrong with Paradise?

Nobody grows there.

107 @88,

Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet was also released as Assignment In Space with Rip Foster. One of my all-time favorite childhood books. I found a copy on Amazon a few months ago and it was just as fun to read as it was then.

Fighting commies in vacuum with spring-loaded knives to punch through their helmets - it is Teh Awsumm.

108

My oldest loved to be read to from ages 1-6, then wasn't very interested in books for a couple years.

I was patient.

Somewhere around 8 1/2, he started reading several books at once.

I gotta get us back to the library Tuesday and get some good beginner books for the 7 yr old. She can read plenty of words, but  v e r y  s l o w l y. I think she has the Seuss books memorized. I have a lot of board books and then longer books, but need more stuff like Seuss for where she is right now.

109 100. Could it have been Toot the Tugboat?

110 This post is freaking me out, dude. Childhood memories and emotions are being unearthed and brushed off. Going to need a boob/bacon post pretty soon.

111

MM&hSS was a terrific book, and Virginia Lee Burton wrote several others which I found much later, they're also good! Katy & The Big Snow

Horton Hears A Who gave me nightmares as a child

I liked Peanuts books & a book called The Big Green Thing which is about a kitten (this was long before the cat-crazies started, lolz!)

112

Oh, how could I forget the modern day classics of A Series of Unfortunate Events, by Lemony Snicket, featuring the Baudelaire orphans.  An absolute scream.  Each of the orphans, who stand to inherit big bucks -- if they make it to maturity -- has a special gift.  Klaus, the eldest, an avid reader, is intelligent; Violet, the middle kid, is an inventor; and Sunny, the baby, has razor sharp teeth that get the kids out of scrapes.  (She saved her siblings from certain death in a sawmill once!) They're constantly pursued by Count Olaf, an evil, distant relative, who stands to inherit if the kids get knocked off.

If you can get a chance to listen to the audiobooks (13 total), those read by Tim Curry will have you in stitches. 

113

Something I was thinking about reading this, especially from all the parents who try to pass down the same reading materials to their kids.

I bet we all played the same board games as kids.

The reason I say that, is I work in retail, and I see what sells at Christmas. Guess what flies off the shelves?  Candyland, Chutes and Ladders, Clue, Monopoly.

Parents passing on to the next gen what they loved when they were growing up.

114 Corduroy and Richard Scarry books for me as a kid. For my kids, Owen's Marshmallow Chick was the starter (in utero reading). Kids all recognized my voice at delivery, a nice calming bit after hours of hell. My kids have a big book selection for whenever they want to read. If the choice is 10 books or 1 PS3 game, I'll choose the books any day. The Little Red Hen is the finest conservative-messaged kids' book you'll find. It's the Anti-Rainbow Fish.

115 Could it have been Toot the Tugboat? Posted by: Commander-in-Chief B.H. O'Bama Nope. It was an older children's book. One of my first "grown-up" books. It had pencil illustrations and fairly dense text. I particularly remember a scene where the boat is near it's end, listing 90 degrees, and the captain has to get about on the boat by walking on the side of the hull.

116 I'm surprised nobody mentions remembering Captain Kangaroo reading to them....

LOL, different thread. Captain Kangaroo was the first TV program I ever saw.

117 My wife has one of her favorite books from childhood that I'd never heard of: Brave Baby Elephant. Baby Elephant equips himself for his first adventure alone, briefing his parents and grandparents on his preparations. Finally he sets out on his journey... to his bedroom, where he puts himself to bed for the very first time.

118 They should make a Captain Kangaroo movie with Bruce Willis as the Captain and Brian Dennehy as Mr. Green Jeans.

119 My 5th grade school teacher read books to the class out loud.  One of them was Roald Dahl's The BFG.  Nice book.  He also read The Elfstones of Shannara and The Dark is Rising.

120 Anyone with a kid around the age of 10? There's a current series by Rick Riordan (I think they made a movie from one of them, The Lightning Thief) that features a kid named Percy S. Jackson. Get it? Percy S...Perseus.. Anyway he's a kid whose mother is mortal and father is Neptune. He hangs out with other "heroes" and basically does a mythology-based rather than magic-based Harry Potter thing. Tons of great mythology allusions, etc. It's a far simpler book than the Potter ones, and the kid is kind of a wise-ass slacker from NYC. I read a couple of the books for kicks. Very good for kids, kinda dull for adults, but worth checking out.

121 I hated Mr. Green Jeans. I bet he was a kid-hating jerk off-camera.

122 Oh, yeah, Harriet the Spy and Encyclopedia Brown, Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys..  Then, some of Heinlein's books for (sort of) young'uns, Stranger in a Strange Land and Starship Troopers, which led me into other sci-fi and fantasy books.

123 #128  The Percy Jackson series has been mentioned a fair deal around here recently and has gotten good reviews.

I've never read them.  They'res revisionist Greek Mythology history.  Everyone knows that the Gods of Olympus are dead, except for Athena... . 

124 For slightly older kids, I recommend John Christopher's "Tripod" sci-fi trilogy. He's written others, too, that are good. I came across a recent inteview of him, and hooray, he sounds like a conservative.

125 I hated Mr. Green Jeans.

I bet he was a kid-hating jerk off-camera.

I don't know about him, but I've heard bad things about Captain Kangaroo.

126  In Cold Blood

127 129
I hated Mr. Green Jeans.

I bet he was a kid-hating jerk off-camera. Posted by: eman

You think he was bad, you should know about his son.

128 I don't know about him, but I've heard bad things about Captain Kangaroo.

Posted by: OregonMuse at May 30, 2010 11:27 AM (trjej)

Ouch; what kind of things?  Finding out he was a perv would not make this a good day.

129 I loved francis the badger!
and i really really loved this book called Andrew Henry's Meadow about a troublesome boy who liked to make things... when i got too old for the serendipity books i read Walter Farley's Black stallion books, a series called the Sweet Running Filly, Anything written by Will James, starting with Smokey the Cowhorse, but Sand turned out to be my favorite and is still one of my favorite books. Are you surprised i grew up to manage a studfarm?

When i got older, like 5th grade i graduated to Edgar Rice Burroughs, and read Carson Of Venus, and A Fighting Man of Mars. MY dad noticed and turned me on to hard science fiction like Niven, Pournelle, and i discovered Cyberpunk on my own when i found something by Stirling in the Kaneohe library, one summer.
My aunt just sort of left Mrs Piggle wiggle books around when i got a fever one time and i read em all before the measles were through with me... i guess i was a voracious reader as a kid. i havent scratched the surface. But my whole family was full of educators in a time when people still TAUGHT. I read the encyclopedia, a bunch of my great grammas readers from  when she was a schoolgirl, and a stack of history books.
wasnt i a weird child?

130

124 I'm surprised nobody mentions remembering Captain Kangaroo reading to them....

LOL, different thread. Captain Kangaroo was the first TV program I ever saw

different thread  yes, but is there anyone out there that was raised without a TV?   nope, not THAT old, that was my parent's choice.  

131

The Little Red Hen is the finest conservative-messaged kids' book you'll find. It's the Anti-Rainbow Fish.

Amen.  My sister, a well-meaning school teacher of 20-odd years, always bought my daughters books, and one day it was Rainbow Fish.  I wasn't really political and never expected a socialist lesson via such a beautiful looking book, but even I knew something wasn't right with trashing one stellar fish so all the rest could feel like they had part of his beauty to make themselves feel better.  Blech.

When I boxed up the books the kids had outgrown, I debated what to do with the hardback Rainbow Fish.  I decided to keep it as a lesson/discussion starter on how not to operate.

132 I don't know about him, but I've heard bad things about Captain Kangaroo. Posted by: OregonMuse I learned later that the Moose dropping the ping-pong balls on the Captain was symbolism for the mailman being your real Daddy.

133

There's a current series by Rick Riordan

I love his books for grown ups. Set in and around San Antonio. He paints an incredible picture. Big Red Tequila is the first in a series about a guy who isn't exactly a PI.

 

134

Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel was one of the first books I can remember my mother reading to me as a child. Also there was this one book that I can't remember the name of that had a dog named Sooner in it. If any of you m&m's can help me out with that one it would be much appreciated. I loved it so much that when we got our first dog, a dachsund/beagle mix, I named her Sooner. Gus and The Firefly was another one of my favorites as a young child.

135 129. I always heard the rumor that Mr. Greenjeans was a recovering dope addict. Me, I never trusted Bunny Rabbit. Wore reading glasses but never spoke. I'd have liked to have grabbed him by the throat and screamed, "Say something, you carrot-thieving rodent!"

136 "The Wind in the Willows".
Damn!  That brings back fond memories.  Thanks!

137 Why all the hate on Capatin Kangaroo and Mr. Greenjeans.  They are both dead, let them rest in peace. I wouldn't believe anything "perv" about them that was said anyway.

As for Zappa being the son of Mr. Geenjeans that is an urban legend and has no basis in fact.

138

wasnt i a weird child?

Possibly, but so were the rest of us.

139

I hated Mr. Green Jeans.

If anyone was teh ghey, it was him.  Come to think of it, the Cap'n looked rather light in the loafers, too.  How about that haircut?  Did he actually go out on the street with that?

 

140 Mike Mulligan and His Steam shovel, and the companion piece, The Happy Man and his Dump Truck.

141 Mr. Greenjeans was a Soviet spy.

142
Mr. Greenjeans was a Soviet spy.

Posted by: eman at May 30, 2010 11:37 AM (kgGdn)

Chuck Barris was his arch nemesis.

143 Watership Down, great book.

 A friend of mine can't say Fiver without choking up...

144 The Grandfather Clock was an Alien artifact recovered from Roswell in '47.

145

142

Blazer, Sooner is the name of the book. Patricia Calvert , author

I remember that one, as well

146 I second The Lightning Thief - my ten year old ate them up. The first book he ever read by himself was "Where's My Cow?" by Terry Pratchett.  (We had to tell him not to say "Buggerit" around any of our Irish friends.)

My family's favorite read-aloud was "Three Men in a Boat" by Jerome K. Jerome.  My grandparents read it to my mother, who read it to us;  I turned all my high school friends on to it, and then read it to my own kids, who've all read it for themselves now.  It isn't a kid's book, but the humor is plenty broad enough for all ages.

I loved "The Four Story Mistake" because it was the first of the Melendy family stories I read, and it's still my favorite.  It's about a family with a number of children who all have adventures, but I fell in love with the house.

I also love Strega Nona, and Tomi De Paola's 26 Fairmont Avenue series.  We did  a whole unit study during Advent once when my kids were young, using the De Paola books.

My most traumatic experience was reading the Moomintroll books at the bookstore at the mall.  I never bought any of them, because those Scandi trolls freaked the hell out of me, but I just couldn't stay away from them.

147

The Happy Hollisters were sort of a forerunner to the Brady Bunch.  This series was a window into a big family who often traveled and gave you a voyeuristic look into their neuroses, well, whatever kind they could've had in the early '60s or beyond.

Posted by: RushBabe

RushBabe,
I had forgotten that book!  Thanks for reminding me.  First book I remember?  The, Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.  All of the Nancy Drew series.

148

Dr. Seuss

Five Children and It

Half Magic

Magic by the Lake

Pippi Longstocking

The Boxcar Children

Chronicles of Narnia

Orphans of the Sky

The Dragon and the George

The Star Beast

Encyclopedia Brown

Nancy Drew/Trixie Belden

Peanuts

Tumbleweeds

Have Space Suit -- Will Travel (probably the book that had the most influence on me as a kid)

Classics -- Three Musketeers, Little Women (total crap, don't know why we're supposed to read that), Animal Farm, Gulliver's Travels, 1001 Arabian Nights, Aesop's Fables, etc etc...

And about a few thousand others.  In my teen years it was Tolkein, Bradbury, and Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber.

149 Watership Down is actually political commentary. Read it again as an adult and you'll see it. Richard Adam's other book, The Girl in a Swing is awesome in a disturbing sort of way, and is taught in advanced 20th century british literature courses.

150 We mentioned these last week on another book thread, but a couple of my favorites were Beautiful Joe and Champion Dog, Prince Tom.  The former had some serious aspects so really wasn't great for most younger kids. 

Watership Down was a great book, but I don't think of it as a children's book.  Too much of a downer.

The James Herriott books were good, again more for pre-teen/teen than for children. 

I also liked Misty of Chincoteague. 

Yeah, I guess I liked animal books. 

Oh, and of course I loved Dennis Hopper's children's books.  Especially the ones about cheap sex and drugs.  _{See how I punched down there just for PaulRevere?}

151 Daddy, Can I please read another book not by Mr. Alinsky?

152 I didn't read Watership Down until after I'd seen the movie.  Both are really very good.

153 Madeline.
I had a hat just like her and wanted to live in France.  Maybe that's why I learned French.

154 Oh, forgot Old Yeller and Savage Sam.

155 I'm pretty sure I read a book-length version of the Bremen Town Musicians when I was in second grade; It had a plain green hardback cover, but I haven't been able to find it when I've searched in the past.  Also, Harriet the Spy was one of my all-time favorites, and The Phantom Tollbooth.

When I was older I read all of the collections of Star Trek stories; I'm sure I had the (adolescent) hots for Captain Kirk!

156 Any Catholics here remember those paperbacks on glossy paper with illustrations that recounted bible stories?  My dad used to read them to us at bedtime.  I think they must've been Catholic ones b/c he was pretty strict about going Roman Catholic with that sort of thing rather than generic Christian so he would've bought them at a Catholic bookstore, but I could be wrong, perhaps Protestant sects used them too. 

157
Oh, and of course I loved Dennis Hopper's children's books.  Especially the ones about cheap sex and drugs.  _{See how I punched down there just for PaulRevere?}

Posted by: Y-not at May 30, 2010 11:50 AM (Kn9r7)

One of my favorite Hopper children's books was Where The Red Bud Grows. Man, this thread is bringing back a lot of memories.

158 I loved Go Dog Go and a version of The Night Before Christmas that had neat etching type drawings in it as a very little child. The Christmas book tended to disappear around June as my parents got tired of reading it. I apparently had them memorized as my parents couldn't skip a word because I'd correct them.

When I was older I loved Bruce Coville's sci-fi and fantasy books. And then Jane Yolen's.

Heck I still go to the kids sections in book stores when I want some fun, silly, adventurous fantasy without all of the politics weighing them down. Especially when real world politics are getting me down and I really don't want to read fantasy of the same.

159 Old Yeller once.  I was traumatized by that book.

160 Who remembers Pop-Up books?

161 Not really story books, but still very vivid parts of my childhood were the Golden Guide series of nature books. 

162
Who remembers Pop-Up books?

Posted by: mpfs at May 30, 2010 11:55 AM (QuP9W)

I didn't get into mean Hustler and Penthouse until my mid to late teens.

163 Ouch; what kind of things?  Finding out he was a perv would not make this a good day.

Well, one incident:

Some old school comedian or writer related the incident of actually going to a TV studio back in the 50s to see "The Howdy Doody Show" being taped, and the guy talked about how he wandered off set somewhere where he shouldn't have gone, and then he was accosted by Clarabelle the Clown who grabbed him roughly, yelled at him, and shoved him back into place, and he explained how the incongruity of being treated in such a hostile manner by what he had always thought of before as a happy, benign TV character has fueled macabre sense of himor.

Anyway, Clarabelle the Clown was played by Bob Keeshan, who was later Captain Kangaroo.

164 Blazer you are a pig. 

165 So many greats kids books; Some I have even enjoyed again as an adult. My favorites have included The Witch Family, The Wolves Of Willoughby Chase, Half Magic, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Calico Captive, Pippi Longstocking, I didn't read Narnia or Madeline l'Engle until I was an adult and loved them.

166
Watership Down is actually political commentary.

Same with The Wizard of Oz.

Explanation here.

167 Oh, also Sideways Stories from Wayside School, so weird and so funny.

168 hop on pop and inside, outside, upside down

169 Nobody remembers Harold And The Purple Crayon?

170 Another great memory was of my mom pulling out this old (even then) dictionary or encyclopedia-sized book called "The Big Fun Book."  It was deep red fake leather on the outside with the ultra-thin dictionary pages on the inside.  It contained all sorts of games, word puzzles, activities, etc.  Smelled old, too.  Really great. 

I have it stored away somewhere and always reminds me of my mom and how great she was. 

171 Blazer is in a randy mood today!  

Is Mrs. Blazer out of town or something?

172 he was accosted by Clarabelle the Clown who grabbed him roughly, yelled at him, and shoved him back into place, and he explained how the incongruity of being treated in such a hostile manner by what he had always thought of before as a happy, benign TV character has fueled macabre sense of himor.

Anyway, Clarabelle the Clown was played by Bob Keeshan, who was later Captain Kangaroo.

Posted by: OregonMuse at May 30, 2010 11:57 AM (trjej)

Meh, a lot of things could've triggered an incident like that, including being lectured by the producer on not letting dumbass kids wander off where they could get hurt and/or break shit.  I'm not letting that mar the image of the Captain.

173 #166  When I was older I loved Bruce Coville's sci-fi and fantasy books. And then Jane Yolen's.

I was turned off for a while to Bruce Coville by his "My Teacher is an Alien" Series. Personal preference, but that series was too much of a "humans-are-teh-suck, and us perfect aliens don't want them blighting our perfect universe" for me.

That being said, I really enjoyed Coville's "Book of Monsters", especially the last story - Timor and the Furnace Troll (Coville actually wrote a short preface to that story warning that it indeed "sick").

/"You're the sweetest elf I've ever known".  And she was too.

174 Children of Green Knowe - Boston
Wheel on the School - DeJong
Mrs. Mike - Freedman
Prisoner of Zenda - Hope
Captains Courageous - Kipling
Big Red - Kjelgaard
White Fang - London
Betsy-Tacy - Lovelace
Snow Treasure - McSwigan
Swallows and Amazons - Ransome
Black Arrow - Stevenson
Mistress Masham's Repose - T.H White
39 Steps - Buchan

so many good ones

175 Captain Kangaroo was a fine human being. 

176 My family's favorite read-aloud was "Three Men in a Boat" by Jerome K. Jerome.

Is there any moron on here who can read this without snickering like a dirty old man?

177 Blazer is in a randy mood today!  

Is Mrs. Blazer out of town or something?

Posted by: Y-not at May 30, 2010 12:03 PM (Kn9r7)

  I'm in a randy mood everyday. Plus, I'm really happy I don't have to work for the next two days

178 Meh, a lot of things could've triggered an incident like that, including being lectured by the producer on not letting dumbass kids wander off where they could get hurt and/or break shit.

You're probably right, but I like to think it was because he had one fuck of a hangover.

179 157 Watership Down is actually political commentary.

Really?  Adams explained that Watership Down was "only a made-up story... in no sense an allegory or parable or any kind of political myth. I simply wrote down a story I told to my little girls" in a 2007 BBC radio interview.

180 @185

How you doin'? 

181 I remember having the curious george books, and the Dr Seuss books. Green eggs and ham and cat in the hat were a few. Peanuts books were another.

Go Dog Go, now that one was a favorite of mine.

182 I stand corrected first book I remember?

The Hopper reciting Dr. Seuss to me as a child.

183

Contrast Disney's Ariel to the real little mermaid of Hans Christian Anderson.  I still remember the agonizing burn she felt as her tail morphed into feet.  

The dark side of Cindrella was mentioned above.  I can't remember if it was the book or TV version with Leslie Ann Warren that still makes me remember the doves' chant of  "coo-ca-ree-coo, coo-ca-ree-coo, there's blood on the shoe." 

My older sister and I had warped senses of humor and thought that was a scream and used to rattle it off to each other all the time, eliciting paroxysms of laughter at the weirdest times.

184 Anybody mention Pat the Bunny? 

That book always makes me smile. 

Another smile-inducer:  Velveteen Rabbit. 

185 Where The Red Fern Grows. Tears, tears, tears.

186 Ah, yes, children's books! I remember "Kaless and the Dilithium Miners" well. A Warrior's book!

187
All of these childrens books you guys are mentioning are part of the fifth column communist conspiracy and have subliminal references to rampant drug use and violent sex !

188

I remember lots of Golden Books, especially Little Toot or The Engine That Could

Books For Boys Blog
http://booksandboys.blogspot.com

189 The dark side of Cindrella was mentioned above.  I can't remember if it was the book or TV version with Leslie Ann Warren that still makes me remember the doves' chant of  "coo-ca-ree-coo, coo-ca-ree-coo, there's blood on the shoe."

I think the original version of Cinderella, with the hacked off toe and heel, would make excellent fodder for a Tim Burton movie.

190 Anybody remember those "Choose Your Own Adventure" stories?

Neat gimmick at first, but those books quickly became lame.  It least they got me to use my imagination to make my own choices in those books...hehe.

191

195
All of these childrens books you guys are mentioning are part of the fifth column communist conspiracy and have subliminal references to rampant drug use and violent sex !

and a good time was had, by all, Mr Herman.

192

Anybody remember those "Choose Your Own Adventure" stories?

Yeh, Kratos, I liked them and got them for my kids, too. My son definitely loved the idea of them.

 

193 Say goodnight, Gracie.

194

my Mom used to read stuff like the "Littles" and "Charolette's Web" (and Bible stories) to my brothers, sister and me, but the first book I ever read on my own was a book of greek mythology for kids, I wore that book out until I found a book about the Founding Fathers and the Revolution, later on I discovered the classic sci-fi writers like Asimov, Bradbury and Anderson.

my Dad thought I was weird because I read so many books as a kid, but my Mom encouraged it, so it all worked out.

195

arrrghh, sock puppet...

 

196 did it again!

197 Some old school comedian or writer related the incident of actually going to a TV studio back in the 50s to see "The Howdy Doody Show" being taped, and the guy talked about how he wandered off set somewhere where he shouldn't have gone, and then he was accosted by Clarabelle the Clown who grabbed him roughly, yelled at him, and shoved him back into place, and he explained how the incongruity of being treated in such a hostile manner by what he had always thought of before as a happy, benign TV character has fueled macabre sense of himor.

Anyway, Clarabelle the Clown was played by Bob Keeshan, who was later Captain Kangaroo.

Posted by: OregonMuse at May 30, 2010 11:57 AM

Hmmm....my cousin was in the Peanut Gallery many times, they lived close to the studio and her mother knew people who worked for NBC.  She said that Bob Keeshan was very gentle and kind, but also very fussy about having everything just so...especially his make-up.  Keeshan left the show in 1952 so the Clarablle you're referring to probably wasn't him.   I know that Lew Anderson took over a couple of years later but I don't know who played him for those few years in between.  

198 Anybody remember those "Choose Your Own Adventure" stories?

Posted by: Kratos (missing from the side of Mt Olympus) at May 30, 2010 12:12 PM (9hSKh)

The gheyest, lamest gimmick ever.  I had 1 or 2 D&D choose your own adventure books.

Mr. Green Jeans - my sources tell me that he was busted with pounds of pot.

199

How about Caddie Woodlawn, Henry Huggins, Ramona the Pest, The Little House in the Big Woods, Pippi Longstockings, How to  Eat Fried Worms, and Cheaper by the Dozen?

200 Anyone else read the Lloyd Alexander Prydain books?  I loved those and my oldest read them until they fell apart. 

201 134  In Cold Blood Posted by: Frank G at May 30, 2010 11:28 AM (4X0aT)     Hah, I read that when I was 13 or 14.  Scared the hell out of me.  I suppose Capote was trying to drum up sympathy for the killers, but they didn't get any from me. 

202 I suppose Capote was trying to drum up sympathy for the killers, but they didn't get any from me. 

Posted by: huerfano at May 30, 2010 12:27 PM (Updet)

I read it recently and didn't think Capote, a weird fuck if ever there was one, did anything other than report it pretty straight.  He certainly didn't present the murdered family as anything other than model citizens whose brutal deaths would appall anybody.

203 Das Kapital, The Anarchist's Cookbook, anything about Che.

204 Oh yeah, The Mouse and the Motorcycle, great book.

205 209 Neighbors at the Cape had Helter Skelter on a bookshelf in their family room. I'd looked at it sitting there for a couple summers and never saw anyone reading it. Had no real clue what it could be about, but it had that slashy/scary type of font on the cover, so I figured I better not ask anyone or they might tell me it was "too violent/obscene/whatever for me. Finally pulled it down one summer when I was 11 or 12. Holy crap! I actually didn't get to finish it that first summer I cracked it (we were only there for a week or so and there's lots to do), but the next summer I finished it up and became the resident expert on all things Manson (among the 11-14 year old set).

206

Anyone else read the Lloyd Alexander Prydain books? 

Oh yeh.

Must

stay

away

from

Amazon

today.

Books my kids love: anything by Sandra Boynton. Funny stuff and enjoyable silliness and music.

207

First book I remember reading: Green Eggs and Ham.

Other books read to me by Captain Kangaroo include both the aforementioned Mike Mulligan and Five Chinese Brothers, as well as Millions of Cats, Make Way for Ducklings, and Caps for Sale.

Books read to me by my pretty fourth grade teacher: Charlotte's Web and The Hundred and One Dalmatians.  I had a crush that teacher, though I've since forgotten her name.  She had great taste in books.

I loved the Alice books for the Tenniel illustrations.  They were even funnier when I re-read them as an adult.

Two books I read on my own before puberty hit and I stopped reading for a while: A Wrinkle in Time and The Phantom Tollbooth.  I haven't read Tollbooth in a while and wonder how much it holds up, but I've recently revisited Wrinkle, and I was struck by how it used Fascist and Communist imagery in a science-fiction context to critique all social conformity and secularism.  It was like the script for an extended Twilight Zone episode (not surprising for a book written in 1962).  Oddly enough, I was not disturbed by L'Engle putting Jesus on the same level as Shakespeare and J.S. Bach, because, quite frankly, I don't expect theological rigor from an Episcopalian.

208

I read it recently and didn't think Capote, a weird fuck if ever there was one, did anything other than report it pretty straight.  He certainly didn't present the murdered family as anything other than model citizens whose brutal deaths would appall anybody.

 

Well, it was forty years ago that I read it, so my memory of it is more vague than yours.  Perhaps it was the (original) movie that portrayed them as feckless losers who were  doomed by their association.  I did see the movie about twenty years ago.

209

I haven't read Tollbooth in a while and wonder how much it holds up

I loved it and got it to read to my son, but it starts off slowly and he lost interest.

I'll put in a plug for the series that starts off with Dodger and Me. We all enjoyed it.

210

Anybody remember those "Choose Your Own Adventure" stories?

Posted by: Kratos (missing from the side of Mt Olympus) at May 30, 2010 12:12 PM (9hSKh)

Yes I do.  I read a few of them.  And you should enjoy this one of them was about going back in time to the Greek Olympics.  The only option I remember was standing infront of the statue of Zeus wishing to never leave and turning into a statue myself.

211

@211

 

that's funny, scary and probably true all at the same time.

212 I think my parent still have Goodnight Moon somewhere.  I remember that book.

213 In addition to teaching children about anger, pain, fear and death, Watership Down gave some important lessons on boredom.

214 I'll carbon-date myself and note the Tom Corbett, Space Cadet and Tom Swift Jr. books. Along with the Hardy Boys mysteries. Snips, snails and puppydog tails...

215 222 I'll carbon-date myself

I find carbon-based life forms very sexy.

216 I loved the Five Chinese Brothers and actually found a copy to give to my grandson. It's nonsense to suggest it is racist because they five brothers were mistaken for one another. Sheesh!

Other goodies include: The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, Grimms -  Wow, the Juniper Tree is especially grotesque. The Boxcar Children, The Bobbsey Twins, The 500 Dresses, There was a book of Random House classics that were wonderful reading. I also enjoyed reading stories about historial figures that were in the Childcraft series by World Book encylclodedia.

217 Many of the titles listed here are familiar. I remember borrowing my older brothers' 'readers', which were anthologies. The Catholic schools we attended used the 'John, Jean and Judy' books. I also remember reading a series written for kids about the Presidents (there were two or three Presidents per book), as well as a companion series of biographies.

218

I was lucky to have a dad and grandpa who loved to read -- entire works of Mark Twain, the Leatherstocking Tales (which were boring), Poe, Thoreau, Emerson, Robert Frost (my grandfather's favorite poet), London, Walt Whitman,  Roland, Beowulf, King Arthur stories, all of Tolkien, the Narnia set, the Arabian Nights, the entire works of Kipling, a book of fairy tales and myths from around the world (that my dad would read instead of kid's books and make up stories of his own every night), and lots of history books of every kind imaginable  -- read a lot of Tuchman as an older pre-teen, early teen, she's easily read by that age group.

And I had a great grandma and grandma that liked to read and were horse trainers: Black Beauty, everything by Walter Farley and Marguarite Henry wound up under the Christmas tree or for my birthday.

I was also taught to take very good care of my books, so they all got passed on to my kids (who have been a bit rougher on them, grr, but read them all just the same -- yay, my kids like books). 

 

219 Helter Skelter 

Posted by: Lincolntf at May 30, 2010 12:38 PM (7EDH5)

One time in high school my girlfriend and I rented Helter Skelter and Scarface and brought them back to my house.  My father was not pleased.

220 Perhaps it was the (original) movie that portrayed them as feckless losers who were  doomed by their association.  I did see the movie about twenty years ago.

Posted by: huerfano at May 30, 2010 12:49 PM (Updet)

One of the murderers was an American Indian (not doing that "native american" shit, which applies to everybody born in North and South America) who, it looked like, didn't have the easiest time growing up and was easily manipulated.  He was more a dumbass loser than anything.  The other guy was a malignant fuck about whom the only thing you could regret about killing him is that you didn't make it prolonged and painful enough.

221 Did no one read "The Little Prince" by St. Ex?

222 I am trying to remember a book I read as kid back in the 70's.

The story was something like this: a boy comes across a whale with an injury, and puts a band-aid on it.
Then, dozens of other whales show up, and they all want band-aids too.
So, the whales all line up, and he puts a band-aid on each one. Everyone lives happily ever after.

Anyone ever heard of this book or know the title?

223

Dana Girls mysteries (Nancy Drew was too perfect).

Lois Lenski books

The Witch of Blackbird Pond

Dracula

224 Mom bought all 10 volumes of Collier's Junior Classics.  Good times.

225 #233 That be me.

226 Anything by Roald Dahl. Anything by David Macaulay (especially Motel of the Mysteries). The Great Brain series. (Can't believe it took me so long to get into Westerns after I enjoyed these so much.) Mark Alan Stamaty: Small in the Saddle and Who Needs Donuts? You can spend hours looking for all the little weird details. Lots of fish in cowboy hats smoking pipes (tobacco pipes, of course). Encyclopedia Brown series. For younger kids, Richard Scarry's books were great, especially the one with stories from all over the world (don't remember a lot about it but I have this mental image of a canine detective sneaking through a bazaar in Algiers).

227

There was one book I read when I was a child that had some kid sailing in a boat and he had to hide in a sack of oranges or something like that.

Pretty vague description, I know, but does anyone know this book?

228 Also, as an adult I read the collected Tales of Uncle Remus and IMHO they'd be great for kids. It's a sad irony that they're often deemed "politically incorrect" today, since Uncle Remus is one of the most likable characters in literature (and though he's a kind man, he doesn't brook any foolishness).

229 My friend's Daughter loved 'Tropic of Cancer'!

230

The Great Brain series. (Can't believe it took me so long to get into Westerns after I enjoyed these so much.)

Yeah. The best one is where Tom and his brother Sweyn go to Catholic school in Salt Lake City. Tom helps catch a card shark on the train and once he gets to school he opens up a clandestine candy store that makes him and his friends a small fortune.

I haven't read that book in a couple of decades and I still remember the plot really well. 

231 Dack, I remember that one!  The Great Brain also develops the idea of beating the spread when the school gets that new-fangled "basketball" game.

Was that the one where he uses a soap impression to make a key for somewhere?

That was my favorite Great Brain book, too.

232 My best friend loved Roald Dahli always privately thought that guy secretly hated kids after reading James and The Giant Peach.The things that happen to the kids in his stories were often so awful!
i did also read the uncle remus stories and from it i got my very first political idea from the quote "You can hide de fire, but what you gonna do wit de smoke?"
that stuck with me. Lies dont work.
I still have a copy of Goodnight Moon in a drawer next to my bed. Sometimes i take it out and read it when my insomnia bothers me or i feel bad. Just touching the old book makes me feel better.

I read Atlas Shrugged when i was fourteen, same summer i read Watership Down. And loved it then. read it again at eighteen and understood it better. now know it by heart.

233

Dack, I remember that one!  The Great Brain also develops the idea of beating the spread when the school gets that new-fangled "basketball" game.

Was that the one where he uses a soap impression to make a key for somewhere?

Yep. Tom's parents buy him a basketball and the rules to the game over Christmas break and he takes the idea back to school and convinces the priests to start a basketball league with other schools.

The key in the soap was related to the candy store. Tom needed to get into the attic of the school so he could use a rope ladder to climb down into the street to go buy candy. So he sneaks the key out of the priest's office and makes an impression of it in a bar of soap so he can use that to whittle a key out of wood.

He also writes a letter to the pope complaining about the strictness of the school. There's also a great episode in the book where the kids go see a mentalist at a show and Tom figures out how he does the trick and then proceeds to fool his classmates by doing the same thing.

234 The first book I remember reading that left an impression was "Ribsy" by Beverly Cleary (best known for her tween books). It was published in the 1960's and it's about a boy and his dog and the adventures the dog has when he gets lost. I don't think it's in print anymore - if you look at her list of books, it's not there. I still have my copy and am currently reading it to my 5 year old.

I remember reading the Encyclopedia Brown series and I also had a compilation of Aesop's Fables.

By the time I was 12 and into my early teens, I was reading my mom's trash romance novels (which are actually pretty good historical fiction), Stephen King's early works and the Reader's Digest condensed books. Later on, I moved to SF/Fantasy.

235

I read Atlas Shrugged when i was fourteen, same summer i read Watership Down. And loved it then. read it again at eighteen and understood it better. now know it by heart.

When I was in 8th grade, us "smart" kids had to pick one of two books to read and do a presentation. The choices were Atlas Shrugged or Leon Uris's Exodus. I chose Exodus.

236 At the risk of dating myself, I do remember learning to read in the first grade using the See Dick and Jane books.

Don't think they use those anymore.

237 Do kids these days ever read Babar the Elephant books? They were written in French originally, but they've been available in translation for a long time. I love the names in those books: Babar himself, of course, but also Hatchibombitar the street-sweeper and Poutifor and the wicked Lord Rataxes the Rhinoceros. (It didn't escape me even then, though, that Babar is essentially an argument for benevolent despotism rather than democracy. Leave it to the French....)

238 Little House in the Big Woods Anne of Green Gables Bullfinch's Mythology The 5 Little Peppers Trixie Belden Nancy Drew on and on....

239 Where the Red Fern Grows, is a book I remember reading in grade school.  I don't really remember anything about it though.

240 Leon Uris always bored me   same with mitchner, largely leaving me cold all my life.
the shame! the shame!
I just read A Fighting Man Of Mars recently.  The Gutenberg Project has it online. it was just as good as ever and suddenly i was eight again, and there really were Tharks and Zitidars on Mars, and not just dust. I used to call my blue heeler, Wally, "Woola" after John Carter's Martian watchdog. He was ugly and bugeyed and dreadfully loyal too.

241 Did no one read "The Little Prince" by St. Ex?

Posted by: ChrisP at May 30, 2010 01:25 PM (A1QN7)

No, but I have a cool picture of a snake with an elephant in him.

242 Wow, the memories.  I remember reading every Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys mystery book in the series.  So much so that the library in Gardendale, AL had to buy some of the older ones at mom's request.

As a teenager I read most of Tom Clancy's novels.  Always loved The Hunt for Red October - still use one of the phrases from the novel, "It's scattered from hell to breakfast".

243

Nurse Nancy, a Little Golden Book, is the 1st one I remember reading by myself.  Think I was in kindergarten.  It was cool because it had real band-aids inside the book.  That got me started.  The next I remember devouring were The Boxcar Children.  Of course, all of the Dr. Seuss stories.  I've been an avid reader ever since.  Thanks, Mom, for getting Nurse Nancy for me!

 

244 I'm currently writing a collection of children's stories. I'm thinking of calling it Let Me Put My Stories In Your Children.

245 I'm currently writing a collection of children's stories. I'm thinking of calling it Let Me Put My Stories In Your Children. For shame! ...though I've always wanted to see a kid's book entitled Why You Were God's Little Unexpected Miracle! (Or: Why Mommy Stopped Drinking Bushmill's)

246 Corduroy the Bear was the first book I remember reading on my own, then as I got older, I read all of the Hardy Boy Mysteries (still have most of them, looking forward to getting my 9 year old interested in them now) and a lot of Louis L'Amor books. Plus my grandfather gave me a huge box of books that he had when he was a kid; 2 series of books called Bomba the Jungle Boy, and Baseball Joe. Still have those, too.

247 I remember Mike Mulligan and Curious George well. Also Babar the Elephant. Never got Winnie the Pooh - but my mom liked him. Then, the Hardy Boys. Then, I found the War section and the Science Fiction section in the school library and it was all downhill.

248 Many of the titles listed here are familiar. I remember borrowing my older brothers' 'readers', which were anthologies. The Catholic schools we attended used the 'John, Jean and Judy' books.

Yes! I grew up reading John, Jean, and Judy, which I thought was just a Catholic rip-off of Dick, Jane, and Sally.

249 And for those of us growing up Catholic...Remember Treasure Chest Comics?

250 8 RushBabe the Happy Hollisters were great!

251

How could I forget Phantom Tollbooth, Pippi Longstocking and The Wolves of Willoughby Chase--Thanks for the reminders!  Those were great books I read in elementary school!  And yeah, anything by Beverly Cleary was great.  Can you believe she's still alive, and still living in Portland, OR (although, she hasn't written anything in years).

I never could get through Watership Down.  All my sibs loved and read it.  I couldn't get past the "rabbit language" and having to refer to the definitions every time.  Too tedious!  I also tried to read The Hobbit as a kid, but couldn't plow through that either.  It wasn't til watching The Lord of The Rings movies as an adult that I went and got The Trilogy (cause I couldn't wait for the movie sequels to come out to find out what happened).  I still never did go back and read The Hobbit, though. 

The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe was the best C. S. Lewis book.  I had a hard time reading the rest of them, they just weren't as good.

252 I just realized... no Indy 500 thread?  Ah well, it's a kinder, gentler AoS. 

253 Hey Monty, (if you are around), thanks for a fun Sunday thread!  You are Teh Best!

254 I also tried to read The Hobbit as a kid, but couldn't plow through that either.

I received a set of four books, LoTR plus The Hobbit, as a kid.  I tried reading The Hobbit, but found it boring, so I skipped to LoTR and was hooked. 

I went back to read The Hobbit.  It's ok, but really inferior to LoTR.  I think that makes sense because my recollection is he wrote it as a story for a child (son or niece or nephew, I can't recall), so it's much more fairy tail in flavor. 

255 Remember those awesome calendars by the brothers Hildebrandt?  They were the best. 

256 I had this poster, too. Different illustrator.  Also awesome.

257 When I was growing up nothing was better than reading The Hardy Boys books. When i was 13 my grandma gave me a leatherbound copy of The Hobbit, and i really fell in love with reading, after that it was the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I still read that once a year. Dune by Frank Herbert was great.

I was a weird kid, loved reading at an early age i barely understood some of the deeper books at that age , i just knew i loved reading them

258

Remember those awesome calendars by the brothers Hildebrandt? 

I do remember them. Never really cared for the style. Just sort of lifeless.

Had Frank Frazetta done some of those, well then a whole different ball game.

259
For younger kids, Richard Scarry's books were great, especially the one with stories from all over the world (don't remember a lot about it but I have this mental image of a canine detective sneaking through a bazaar in Algiers).

Posted by: The Chap in the Deerstalker Cap at May 30, 2010 01:49 PM

That is Sniff the Detecive.  My son devoured all the Scarry books and now his kids love them.  Also Macaulay's How things Work and then the more advanced ones that followed by other authors. 

My kids all loved the Value Tales series...Curie, Franklin, Confucious, Churchill, etc.  They couldn't wait to get a new one each month.  The grandkids read them now.

260 Here's a Frazetta. 

I dunno, I like the Hildebrandts.  Different strokes for different folks.

261

Well thank ya Y-not, very cool. Hadn't seen that before.

 

262 Frazetta is darker, more Michelangelo-esque (to coin a term for it).  I like them both, but Frazetta does better "dark" than Hildebrandt imo.

263 First books I remember are Caps for Sale and Ping the Duck. I loved Ping the most.

264

I had an unusual childhood. My father taught me how to read from the newspapers when I was four. He did the same thing with my younger sister to show it was no fluke the following year. My sister was normal and prefered being read to by an adult. I, on the other hand, became a readaholic.

I read anything I could get my hands on. My parents had a five shelf bookcase in the living room. The books included Bullfinches Mythology, Casanova's Memours, Kenneth Robert's Northwest Pssage, Celtic Songs & Stories, a book with the plots of most operas, as well as a college dictionary and an encyclopedia set. I read them all.

 When, as a third grader, I got my first library card, I was in Heaven.  I was reading, at the same time, Freddy the Pig, Clarence Mumford's original Hoppalong books, the Lensman series, and Xenophon's The March of the Ten Thousand.  For old times sake, I just finished re-reading The Wind in the Willows. 

I would not recommend anyone making a child read books in the manner that I did but it did not seem to bother me. The liberians were quite distressed by my reading habits but, after a confrontation with my mother, left me to my own devices.

I liked the Tarzan books and Bomba the Jungle Boy. Casanova's escape from the Pombi and his work with the lottery was interesting but, for the life of me, I could not understand his "thing" with ladies's stockings.

265 My dad used to take us to the library every Sat. a.m.  We would check out an huge stack of books, and then try to get them all read by the following Saturday. 

266 The first book I remember reading is Lorna Doone.  After that I was addicted and have read thousands since. 

267

Loved Nancy Drew - we would buy them used at Haslam's where we did not go often enough.  I fear that deprivation traumatized me and that's why most of the sitting space in my living room has stacks of books on it.

When I was in 6th grade, I read "The Boston Strangler" and wrote a book report on it. Embarassed the hell out of my mother, but I still love true-crime writing to this day.

268 Books that I HIGHLY recommend to those of you who have not already read or heard of them, are the Flashman books by George MacDonald Fraser.  ABSOLUTE TREASURE!!!!

269

My reading interest style was from left to right through the library we went to as a kid - once I finished the kids books there were books on the states - I read all 50 - the next block over was science. The bigger books were better since we didn't go there that often - like once a week or so.

One time my mother was staying in the car with the younger kids while the rest of us went in to grab out dose of books. This one librarian wouldn't let me check out the stack of books I had because I was supposedly too young to read them and I had too many. I had to go get my mom and make everyone wait. I think I've hated government bullcrap ever since.

Well about then we started going to a different branch. About 10 years later my mother is working at that branch and I go back to pick her up after work and I recognized that same woman working the desk. It made my mom laugh that I was still annoyed at her.

Come to think of it., I still am..

270

are the Flashman books by George MacDonald Fraser.  ABSOLUTE TREASURE!!!!

Yes, they are. Flashman at the Charge!

271 mike mulligun! i still have that book. loved it as a kid.

272 Brown Line (#83)'s daughter here. All of us kids grew up with good memories of fairy tales and myths from all around the world. The Norse and the Greek stuff was great, but they weren't the only thing; we had a book of Isaac Bashevis Singer's Jewish folktales, which overlapped well with the Russian fairy tales. And I'm grateful we kids got to read that at a young age--especially because it's become the basis for my current career.

There were also the Dorrie books--Dorrie, the little witch. Every book began the same way. "This is Dorrie. She is a witch. A little witch. Her hat is always on crooked, and her socks never match. She lives in a big house with her mother the Big Witch, Cook, and her black cat Gink." Cue hijinks, people getting turned into teacups, and flying schoolhouses.

273 I remember a great big book full of bedtime stories - my Dad would let me pick which one I wanted him to read to me each night. I almost always picked one about a dragon who had lost one of its sneakers (or something like that). When I started reading well, I had a bunch of Encyclopedia Brown and those Which-Way adventures, Choose-your-own-adventure books. When I was in about maybe third grade, the teacher would have storytime after lunch each day. She'd turn off the lights, except for the little desk lamp, and read to us. I loved one of the books so much, but couldn't remember what it was called. Finally remembered enough details that I could do an effective search. It was "From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler" by E.L. Konigsburg. The thought of running away from home to live in a museum (dodging guards, finding somewhere to sleep, eat, and bathe) and solve a mystery just had me fascinated. I read that book to my older two several years ago and am planning to read it to my little one over the summer. After we finish The Mouse and The Motorcycle. Oh, and the first time I encountered A Wrinkle In Time, I had to put it down because it freaked me out so badly. My oldest girl read that and the others and loved them.

274

Brown Line (#83)'s daughter here. All of us kids grew up with good memories of fairy tales and myths from all around the world.

Well that is just too cool. Great parent, great kid.

275 91 I read ALL the Tom Swift Jr. books

I used to love coming up with "Tom Swifties":

"My oxygen tank is empty!" Tom said breathlessly.
"There's room for one more," Tom admitted.

Posted by: Monty at May 30, 2010 10:52 AM (4Pleu)

"It's the best way to unclog the drain," Tom said succinctly.

276 I started reading with a book about angels (that's all I remember about it). When I got to grade school I monopolized my school's copy of Matt Christopher's The Kid Who Only Hit Homers. I must've read that thing a dozen times in second grade. I was also a big fan of Encyclopedia Brown and John Fitzgerald's Great Brain series. I moved on to Le Guin (couldn't get past A Wizard of Earthsea) and A Wrinkle in Time in fifth grade and then pretty much everything I could carry home from the library.

277 98 Anybody read the Thornton-Burgess Animal Stories?

Posted by: Captain Hate at May 30, 2010 10:58 AM (G9PIC)

Yes.. I did when I was a kid and I loved them..  They were great how they incorporated real world animal behaviors into their anamorphic presentations.  The rabbit was run from the fox, the squirrel would hide from the hawk..  Stuff like that..

Great books.   If you can find them on Amazon or E-bay, get them. 

278 I love that this place has active threads on children's books and weaponry... simultaneously. 

279

Yeah,

Tom Swift and The Death Ray.

280 My favorite book as a child was The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Warner. I adored that book.

281 I didn't have time to read through all these, but if someone hasn't mentioned Sarah's Granny and the Groodle then someone should have, so I will.  It's a great read-aloud to 4-7 year olds or so, and encourages them to read.

282 I remember enjoying: The Mouse and the Motorcycle series, the Bunnicula series, Witches, the Indian in the Cupboard series; Chronicles of Narnia of course; The Dragonlance Chronicles; Magic Kingdom for Sale - Sold; and too many more to remember.

283 Hot Damn.  I thought I was the only person alive who read Phantom Tollbooth... cause the answer to every thing is NOT 42; it's 17!!! and absolutely none of my friends knows what I'm talking about.

My parent had a stack of Classic Comicbooks a mile high, so I had fun there.

3 Investigators, Tom Swift, Half Magic, The Egyptian Game, lots of Greek mythology, Nancy Drew, Bobsey Twins, Trixie Beldon.  One about a boy who build 4 robots who "come to life" after getting hit by lightning - but not in a Frankenstein kind of way.  My Zoo Family - about  Helen Martini (?) who helped her husband hand raise animals at a zoo in NYC (?)

And was lucky enough to read a couple books by Enid Blyton(?)  She was very popular in English tween literature.  But I loved Mystery Island, and The Castle of Adventure, and Kiki the talking parrot who could imitate an express train whistle.

My dad had lots of naval history and warfare books ... Was born too late in life to be a Naval Pyrotechnic Engineer.

But my mom had a book on the shelf ... never read it - a Western of sorts but I remember asking her what was on the cover... She said 'Lightning'. And I argued that lightning doesn't look like that. And she says 'well, that's the way the artist drew it !' Flash forward 20 years and I was working in Wichita, KS.  Am walking home from the mall, a storm rolls in, and for the first time in my life I watch lightning roll across the sky like a hand with fingers from one side of the horizon to the other!!! Grew up in Florida with only cloud to ground lightning. I've never seen anything like this before in my life.  And all at once, I remember my mom's book and realize, duh! that was what the artist meant.

'Please put me back in the water for I am Paddle-To-The-Sea...' The nice librarian helped me find it when I could not remember the name, only the plot.

And finally, thank you Grandma! who taught me to read.

284

#98 Anybody read the Thornton-Burgess Animal Stories?

Yes! I was wondering if anybody would remember those. Thickly, vividly illustrated -- but it was a book, and I read it. My first.

My first "novel" was a Hardy Boys. "The Mystery of Cabin Island," I beieve.

My mother was a novelist, and she would encourage me to write the authors of books I really enjoyed. Two were "Pilot Down, Presumed Dead," and "Toyon, a Dog of the North."  In both cases I got return letters. Big moments in the life of a young reader.

 

285 In addition to teaching children about anger, pain, fear and death, Watership Down gave some important lessons on boredom.

Posted by: wallydog at May 30, 2010 01:00 PM (AqDEA)

Excellent.

286 @167- I've already decided that if my kids want to read Old Yeller or Where The Red Fern Grows, they will do it on their own.  No shared bedtime reading of either of those books for me.  I can't even think about Where The Red Fern Grows without choking up.

287 @235 Mark Alan Stamaty: Small in the Saddle and Who Needs Donuts? You can spend hours looking for all the little weird details. Lots of fish in cowboy hats smoking pipes (tobacco pipes, of course).

Yes yes yes!  I bought Who Needs Donuts three years ago, without ever having heard of it before.  I just thought the story was quirky and the pictures were outstanding.  I would trail off while reading it to my eldest because I would be so fascinated by the pictures.

288 300!

289 My son loved Sam & the Firefly.

290 The Wind In The Willows was my favorite book too, along with Sherlock Holmes,the older Tom Swift books,the Danny Dunn series,Anatole the Mouse,and Young Thomas Edison, and the works of Jules Verne.
The World Book Encyclopedia was my World Wide Web.I learned a lot about the natural sciences from the Golden Book series.
I'm 59, and I still read most of these wonderful books for the pleasure they give me, plus I love the mellow paper and ink scent of an older book!

291 Renee Sharp, the California director in the Washington-based Environmental Operating Group,cheap wholesale also stated she hoped the law would dissuade customers from obtaining reasonably higher radiation phones until their impact for the human body is totally understood. The advocacy group supplied reports as well as other counsel to the city's Department of the Environment as they developed the policy. "We're also hoping it'll spur greater debate about whether the existing federal standards are satisfactory or not," Sharp stated. "We certainly don't think that folks aren't going to buy cellular cell phones because of radiation." Market officials would not speculate about the effect to their company, cheap cell phones but a lot of the nation's most favorite mobile phones have relatively high SAR levels. That is since a lot of those common mobile phones are smart cell phones, which have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth receivers, as well as basic cellular capability, that add to their total SAR rating, according to Walls. Below the law, larger chains may have to spot SAR notices beginning in February, whilst other retailers may have until 2012. While the supervisors were largely unanimous, reaction outside of City Hall and across the country was mixed.

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294 I loved Ursula LeGuin's Baba Yaga stories. She took the old Russian folk tale, and wove them into new stories.
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