The Next Best Book Club discussion

I used to be a huge reader as a child..and i had alot of favorites...what are some of your favorites of your adolescence?

Mine:

Little House on the Prairie
Nancy Drew
The Boxcar Children
The babysitters club
Sweet Valley High
The Saddle Club series
American Girls series

as a little child:

anything Dr. Seuess
The Berenstein Bears

I used to love the Babysitters Club, Sweet Valley High, and the Nancy Drew Files (I was never really into the original ones). And Judy Blume was a favorite...I read all of her books multiple times over, and I still love them as an adult! :)

oh my gosh..how could i forget about Judy Blume! Blubber! i feel like i want to read all the judy blume books again! maybe i'll appreciate them even more..i read alot of things like that way younger than i should.

Ooh, Blubber was one of my favorites! :) The two that I re-read every year are Starring Sally J Freedman as Herself and Just As Long As We're Together. It's funny how you pick up on so much more in them when you read them as an adult. :)

anything and everything by marguerite henry (Horses, Horses, Horses!)
Watership Down
Judy Blume was great
A wrinkle in time
black hearts in battersea, and that series cant rmember her name or the name of the first of these...

Interesting topic...

I too LOVED little house books - I read them all - though as she got older I was less impressed i.e. Happy Golden Years.

I also really enjoyed C.S. Lewis and Tolkien starting around 12 or so.

Wrinkle in Time was also one of my favorites.

While I love Watership Down - I read that as an adult as I did Ducton Wood which I always associate those two together.

Wife of GR author: Michael J. Sullivan | The Crown Conspiracy (10/08) | Avempartha (04/09)

Hey Jamie and Jen
I never read any of the Sweet Valley High books - but I did meet one of the ghost writers that wrote I think 15 or so of them. Apparently very few were written by Francine Pascal. I run a writer's group in Washington DC and I had this person come and do a talk. It was really interesting how you do a series like that where there are actually like 20 different authors writing them. It was an interesting couple of hours talk.

Robin.

Joan Aiken!! The Wolves of Willoby chase, etc.
Loved those

Robin, I always wondered about the ghostwriters. There are so many of those books - and all the spinoff series, too. Same with the Babysitters Club. I always wondered how just one person could write them all. I think being a ghostwriter for a series like that would be a fun job! But it would be a downer to write a book and not get any sort of credit for it...

My hubby came to the meeting with her - for him it would be a NIGHTMARE!! Because they give you the whole plot and they have a bunch of rules etc you have to follow. There is a huge notebook that is kind of a collection of all the books so you know the names of say - a cop from book 4 etc. It actually is a pretty ridgid environment. And ya I asked her about not getting any credit. She doesn't mind and has ghost writen for many people. One in particular she can't even tell us what series it was because she has a gag order in the contract - she is not allowed to divulge she was the ghost writer.

I also liked the babysitter's club but only read about three. Started too late with them. I can hardly remember having another favorite than Agatha Christie books when I was a child/adolescent.

I loved the Babysitter's Club, Sweet Valley Twins/Sweet Valley High. And who didn't love Judy Blume...."Are you there God, It's me Margaret?". I love this thread....I think I am going to get a few of these next time I'm in the library. And as a young child I used to love Amelia Bedelia.

oh my goodness..Amelia Bedelia!!

The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy and all of its various sequels.

Mine:
Dune (the whole series)
Stephen King (anything I could sneak!)
Tolkien (anything)
Flowers in the Attic (series-I know-yuck!)
Douglas Adam's (anything!)

I think I'm a slightly different generation, but:

As a small child:

Dr. Seuss
the "Little Bear" books
Sara's Granny and the Groodle (long out of print these days, but it had the most fabulous psychedelic illustrations)
Winnie the Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner
Uncle Remus

Older child:

the Mary Poppins books
the Narnia series
the Maida books
the Famous Five books
A Wrinkle in Time and A Wind in the Door
the Dark is Rising series
Harriet the Spy
the Betsy-Tacy books
the Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings
the Little House books
E. Nesbit (Five Children and it, the Phoenix and the Carpet, etc.)
Lloyd Alexander (The Book of Three, etc.)
Pippi Longstocking
Johnny Tremain
Joan Aiken (Black Hearts in Battersea, etc.)

There are a lot more, but I think those are the major ones.

There are just too many to mention and remember!

The Babysitter's Club
Sweet Valley High
any and all V.C. Andrews (Flowers in the Attic)
the Ramona Quimby books
Little House on the Prairie - I still have the boxed set my grandmother bought me when we toured the house in Mansfield, MO
Amelia Bedelia - totally forgot about her, but now remember loving her!
Judy Blume

And as a young child I used to love Amelia Bedelia.

never read any of those... must have been after "my time". I was a few years too young for Nancy Drew, who had a later come back, and then branched into the computer game scene. (Pretty good ones too btw.)

Susanna: Sara's Granny and the Groodle never heard of this one... US or UK?
We read Johnny Tremain as required reading in school. I remember liking it. There was a film, wasn't there?

Pam-I totally forgot about Ramona Quimby....loved her as much as Amelia....thanks for triggering the memory!

Did anyone ever read the All-of-A-Kind Family books, about the five sisters in NYC? I loved those so much! I'd check out the series one at a time from my school library, and then start it all over again when I was finished.

I loved the Little House books!

And Anne of Green Gables
Island of the Blue Dolphins
The Phantom Tollbooth
and the Beverly Cleary books

I know I read a lot as a child, but these are the only ones that really stick out for me at the moment

I just remember one, it used to be one of my mum her books and then my sister got it and I read it too. Maybe something with The treasure island....some young kids, maybe brothers and sisters, and they get on this island during summer holiday.......

Hayes - I grew up in the Carolinas, so I'm thinking US on Sara's Granny and the Groodle.

Jeane - That sounds something like Five on a Treasure Island.

Susanna, I think that is it!!! Oh I jsut want to reread that book. Even then, I was really young I remember, I loved the book for how it looked. Small pocket version, brownish paper (clean and so)and it felt like old and classic.....

I am gonna add it to my lists to remember...maybe my sister still has it....hmmm. Thanks again susanna!


I also remember a book I won at school which wasn't special but that time I really liked reading it. About I think three girls who go and work in anhotel during summer holiday...one falls in love, the other one does that. I just keep having that pic in my head of them during a break sitting at a table under the sun with a drink....

That sounds like a film I saw about 15-20 years ago, can't remember it's name. Irish girls? They sleep in a little attic room at the top of the hotel?

uhm....don't remember. I think on the cover they all had the same kind of dreass on but different colors, ... could be hayes. if it is that one, do you remember the name?

This is great because I was thinking about posting something just like this yesterday but time got away from me and I never did.

I remember my mom reading to my brother and I when we were younger. She use to read The Secret Garden, Chronicles of Narnia, and Anne of Green Gables.

I use to LOVE reading on my own. I loved The Ramona Quimby books, The Babysitter Club, pretty much anything from Madeline L'Engle, The Box Car Children, and so many others. I liked series, still do.

I used to read many of the ones that have been stated already such as Babysitters Club, Sweet Valley Teens/High, Boxcar Childen, Ramona, etc.

But ones that haven't been mentioned would be R.L. Stine (Goosebumps and Fear Street) and Christopher Pike...

Oh wow.. same as many, I read the Babysitters Club, Boxcar Children (I think that was my first series), and then mostly Sweet Valley High. I also read a lot of R.L. Stine's Fear Street and of course, Judy Blume. I think my favorite book was Tuck Everlasting though.. I often think about reading that one again!

ooh yes..RL Stine..i read all the Goosebumps & Fear Street. I used to read Christopher Pike books too. anyone else? they were so scary to me back then.

ooh and Ramona Quimby..i forgot about these books!!

ooh Jaime..i just saw that you wrote Christopher Pike! I'm so glad someone else read him!

I also used to read Christopher Pike. My favorite book of his was The Midnight Club. Actually, that was probably the last book of his that I really got into.

I was a little goth so my reading material of choice when I was a teenager was The Sandman (graphic novel series) by Neil Gaiman. The man is a remarkable storyteller and graphic novels really are, IMHO, the perfect format for his talents. When people say that they want to try some of his work, I usually point them in the direction of The Doll's House, the second book in the series. My imagination flew when I read those stories.

Oohhh I forgot until someone reminded me I did read a bunch of Agatha Christy as well as Sherlock Holmes for a stretch there - thanks for reminding me.

Robin.

Sweet Valley. Some Hardy Boys. And of course Nancy Drew,which would account for my continuing taste for mysteries/thrillers up to the present. :)

I really liked reading Where the Red Fern Grows and Summer of the Monkeys by Wilson Rawls. I read those two a bunch of times when I was young.

Plus I was/am a fan of the Piers Anthony Xanth series which was going throughout my childhood and is still going now. I think it's up to around 30 books long and I have them all. I can't bear to toss them out and my childhood with them! :)

Oh, and Sideways Stories from Wayside School and Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar. I loved those two books, as well. Read them a bunch of times.

Plus, I did like the Boxcar Children and others. When really young I liked those Frog and Toad books and Dr. Suess.

How fun to think back. I loved mysteries (still do!) so definately the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. I couldn't ever get enough of the Boxcar Children (the 'originals') so I would reread them over and over. Pipi Longstocking was a huge favorite, also all the Little House books although I agree the older ones weren't as good. I remember a couple books I got through elementary school book orders that I read a few thousand times - the Helen Keller story and a story about a girl going to girl scout camp! As I got older, I thought it was cool to tackle The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy!

Pippi was my hero! I loved her horse and of course the monkey, Mr. Nilson. I started to read the Wizard of Oz series until it became too complicated and just plain strange. :)

I also loved the book Where the Lilies Bloom. I was really drawn to self-sufficient main characters.

I loved...

Anything by R.L. Stine
Sweet Valley High
The Babysitter's Club
The Ramona series
Christopher Pike
Judy Blume

Hardy boys/Nancy drew
Judy Blume
The Pig man
The Peter pan Bag
anything buy S.E. hinton

My absolute favorites were The Boxcar Children and Goosebumps.

Oh yeah, I also really liked the Bailey School Kids.

Under 13 I read nurse stories, Cherry Ames (I think), Bobbsey Twins, What Katy Did/Next/At School (I loved Katy), Louisa Alcott, John Masefield - Midnight's Children, and those sort of classics.

At 13 my English teacher introduced me to D.H. Lawrence, so then I read him, Lawrence Durrell, Solzenitzin, Tolstoy, Gogol etc. except on Sundays.

On Saturdays my father had a long bath instead of a shower and read dirty books which spent the rest of the week drying out in the airing cupboard. So on Sundays I read Fanny Hill, the Ginger Man, Lady Chatterley's Lover et al.

I would love to be able to say I read some of those too........ but didn't......I was never sure if my memory was correct because I thought that when i was around 6-7 I started reading Agatha Christie...but it must be a real memory...don't know any of these stories!

As a young child, Little Golden books, Dr. Suess, Weekly Reader first readers, and the Happy Hollisters series.
Around fourth grade I discovered Mark Twain, Frances Burnett, the Tom Corbett, Space Cadet series, Betsy, Tacy and Tib series, Ramona series, Louisa May Alcott, and Nancy Drew.
In Jr. high, it was Tarzan, louis L'Amour westerns, Zane Grey, the Lord of the Rings, Madeline L'Engle, and any sci-fi my brothers brought home.
In high school I started reading Andre Norton, Robert Heinlein, H Beam Piper, Asimov, Alas Babylon, Lord of the Flies, Lloyd Alexander, Susan Cooper, Ursula LeGuin, etc.

I want to change my list from before, to a younger list.
Encylopedia Brown (series)
The Littles (series)
The Borrowers (series)
The Great Brain (series)
anything Beverly Cleary

My childhood favourite authors ( since I am not sure about the english titles ):

anything by
- Berte Bratt
- Enid Blyton
- Astrid Lindgren
- Ottfried Preußler

as well as fairytales and romantic novels...

my childhood list:
Encyclopedia Brown
Pippi Longstocking
Sweet Valley High (I owned up to number 103 plus 5 special editions) I already had the makings of a bibliophile.
Babysitter's Club
Once I got into middle school my tastes really took a turn. But I loved these books when I was young.

Wizard of Oz
The Wind in the Willows
Heidi
Hardy Boys
Nancy Drew
July Blume
Robinson Crusoe
The Three Musketeers
Robin Hood
Pippi Longstockings
1001 Nights/Arabian Nights
The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor
Tom Sawyer
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

wow, this brought back a lot of book memories!

i read the Little House on the Prarie, Sweet Valley, Babysitters Club, and Anne of Green Gables series. I tried CS Lewis, but couldn't get into them.

i know i read the Beverly Cleary books also, and i totally forgot about RL Stine, Christopher Pike, et al, until i saw them mentioned.

i got into the stephen king/dean koontz books somewhere around age 11 or 12, and started leaving the younger stuff behind.

The Betsy books, by Caroline Haywood