Books From Your Youth

[aggroculture]

I am currently re-reading Nina Bawden's Carrie's War:
http://www.thechestnut.com/wish/carrie-01.jpg
And it's an uncanny feeling, reading books you were inspired by as a child. Like sparks of recognition and memory going off in your brain. Remembering thoughts and words you thought long-forgotten. Like when I look at my old drawings: I know them and I recognize them and I rediscover them anew.
What books did you enjoy as a child? Do you re-read them as an adult?

[Space Suicide]

Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark (you know it)
Goodnight Moon (classic)
Where the Wild Things Are (classic)
The Troll Book (amazing illustrations, props if you know it)
Harry Potter series (duh)

[eversonpoe]

things i vividly remember reading before i started high school:

Fahrenheit 451
The Martian Chronicles
Something Wicked This Way Comes
by Ray Bradbury

I, Robot
by Isaac Asimov

I Was A Teenage Fairy
Violet & Claire
The Weetzie Bat Books
by Francesca Lia Block

The Perks Of Being A Wallflower
by Stephen Chbosky

Brave New Girl
by Luisa Luna

Lost Souls
Drawing Blood
by Poppy Z. Brite

Interview With The Vampire
by Anne Rice

so a weird mix of classic sci-fi, teenage realism and/or fantasy with really heavy subject matter (sexual abuse), and vampire erotica. i was a weird kid.

[ldopa]

shel silverstein!!!! i still randomly pick up his poems and 'the giving tree' to this day
'cloudy with a chance of meatballs' because of the crappy film, alot of kids don't even know it was a book first.
'the emperor's new clothes' even as a small child, i understood the humor and that book was hilarious to me.

in jr high and early high school, i was too busy fucking up...

late HS: all the staples: electric kool aid acid test, brave new world, one flew over the cuckoo's nest, catcher in the rye...etc.

post HS: I DISCOVERED HUNTER THOMPSON!!!

in my twenties i found zola and have been in love ever since.

as i posted, i just discovered jack london, i'm not interested in 'white fang' at all, i'm more interested in his california works.

[Lew]

my favourite book(s) as a child were mary stuart's "the crystal cave" trilogy.
i re read them every few years.
also loved gordon korman books.
judy bloom.
tolkein.
dr.seuss.
shel silverstein.
sendak.

love love love the alligators all around/one was johnny/chicken soup with rice/pierre set of four.

i love reading, period. i could be dropped on an isolated island for an infinite amount of time, and be fine if i had books. add music and i would choose to not leave. lol.

re reading some books with my kids was pretty awesome. plus they introduced me to some. :)
but you know which one makes me weep EVER time? the lorax. i can't read the "so unless someone cares a whole awful lot" onward without quavery voice.

[wizfan]

I'm Greek, so I've read Greek books.

One that stuck with me was Ilias Venezis' Aeolian Earth (http://www.worldcat.org/title/aioliki-yi-the-aeolian-earth/oclc/8466904). I hope somebody will bust their ass open to translate it into English, so you guys can read it. There's stories in there that get me every time. Fucking tears, man.

[kel]

anyone else who grew up in the late 80's remember a book called wait 'til helen comes?

[eversonpoe]

anyone else who grew up in the late 80's remember a book called wait 'til helen comes?

sounds vaguely familiar.

[kel]

it was a big deal in like 4th grade. everyone read it. there weren't a lot of "scary" books endorsed by scholastic back then.

also, i've always wanted to revisit a wrinkle in time. what i remember is so bizarre. i wonder what i'd think of it now.

[blake]

I read a lot of Alexander McCall Smith, one of my Mom's favorite writers. His most well known books are a series that began with a novel called The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, set in Botswana. McCall Smith is the son of a former UK government official and was born and raised in southern Africa, in the former country of Rhodesia. There are now 15 or so novels in the series, featuring the same characters and settings, the main character being Precious Ramotswe, the lady who started the detective agency. I love these books. They are not deep, but tell great stories, in my opinion.