Ohhhh I read sooo many books growing up. But my favorite was and still is The Farthest Away Mountain by Lynn Reid Banks. She also wrote The Indian in The Cupboard.
Bridge to Terabithia, the Anne of Green Gables series, The Secret Garden, Little Women, Tuck Everlasting, The Lion the With and the Wardrobe, Nancy Drew books… I read A LOT as a kid
The Princess was the first book I found on my own at the library (I grew up in a family of readers so many books were introduced to me). I reread The Light Princess not too long ago and still loved it, even as an adult. I need to reread Princess!
By the time I was 9, I had read all the Nancy Drew, Bobsey Twins and Hardy Boys books. My favorites books, though, were centered around horses — Black Beauty and Misty of Chincoteague (sp?).
This is hard to answer, too may favs. I loved the bobbsey twins and read every book in the series. I loved Anne of green gables and that entire series. But my favorite was probably the trolley car family, about a family that decides to live in the trolley car that their dad drove when it gets retired for the bus lines.
“Margaret” by Janet Sebring Lowry; “An Old Fashioned Girl” by Lousia May Alcott; “Little Women”; “A Little Princess” and “The Secret Garden” by Frances Hodgson Burnett. All things Nancy Drew, “Black Beauty”; “The Witch of Blackbird Pond”.
Nancy Drew, the Dana Girls, Trixie Belden, Cherry Ames, my brother’s Tom Swift and Hardy Boys, The Swiss Family Robinson, Little Women, and then my first “grown up” book — A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. 58 or so years later it remains my all-time favorite, one I’ve read many times since.
Mio, My Son by Astrid Lundgren. Its like Harry Potter in Fairytale land. I bet JK Rowlings read it too! Cloak of invisiblity, evil villian, mean foster parents, need I say more?
If I had to pick only one favorite, it’s Peggy Parish’s “Key to the Treasure”. It was one of the first chapter books I could read and understand on my own. I was 6 or 7.
The Hardy Boys series. Between my cohorts Jeff & Bruce & I we bought and read and traded the entire series at the time (around 45) because back in the ‘60s those kid series were banned in libraries.
The Borrowers by Mary Norton, The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks, the Nancy Drew books, and The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. I was obsessed with Isaac Asimov’s robot stories. Oh, and everything by Roald Dahl, Dr. Suess, Kate DiCamillo, Beverly Cleary, and E.B. White! I also read and reread the Redwall series by Brian Jacques.
I would spend whole Saturdays in my room finishing an entire R.L. Stine. Plus, Little Women, Black Beauty, the SuperFudge series, American Girl, Girl Talk, Babysitters Club, Dr. Seuss and pretty much every Golden Book ever written.
Favorite early childhood book is The Little Engine That Could. Favorites that I read to my sons are Stuart Little and The Dancing Bear, as well as the Narnia series.
As a little girl: How Fletcher was Hatched by Wende & Harry Devlin, The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton, and Peter’s Chair by Ezra Jack Keats. As a child: The Little House on the Prairie books, Trixie Belden books, and Lois Lenski books. There are truly many more, but these are the ones that came to mind first. There was also an abridged version of Anne of Green Gables that we had in our country school. It was an extra large book and had color pictures. The cover has Anne’s head/face on the cover. It took me a long time, but I found a copy of that book. I read it too many times to count when I was in school.
Diary of Anne Frank, Anne of Green Gables, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, Native Son, Black Like Me, the Bible and whatever my older siblings were reading.
How funny that ‘A Wrinkle in Time’ was 1st published when I was 8 yrs old and yet I had never heard of it until the film version was released this year. Did it somehow bypass Racine, Wisconsin??? ?
I was reading really weird stuff when I was a kid. The Circle of Light Series by Niel Hancock was my favorite series and I read them over and over again obsessively.
Weeellll…The Hobbit lead me to beg for the Lord of the Rings for my 12th birthday, and LOTR is still my absolute favorite. But it’s not really a young adult or kids book. So The Hobbit maybe? I also loved a book called Birth of the Firebringer (unicorns…pitter pat went my preteen heart) and one called A Murder For Her Majesty.
I have a few, ..as I went from six to 12 years old…Charlotte’s Web, Watership Down, Mixed up files of Mrs. BEF., A Wrinkle in Time, Boxcar Children, Black Beauty, Misty of Chinntoquage, Nancy Drew books, and more. I love seeing the comments here!
The Once and Future King was my favorite as a teen. I also loved the Sherlock Holmes stories. Before that, I liked Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys, preceeded by Amelia Bedelia and Beverly Cleary books. The first book I really loved, though, was The Poky Little Puppy. My mom says I had it memorized before I could even read.
Beginner reader, The Fire Cat by Esther Averill. Chapter books: Marguerite Henry horse books, Outlaw Red by Jim Kjelgaard, The Crossbreed by Allan Eckert, Yellow Eyes by Rutherford Montgomery, Lad of Sunny bank by Albert Paysone Terhune (all animal stories).
As a tween, I stumbled upon Amelia Atwater-Rhodes and “In the Forest of the Night,” and I fell in love with her characters and books. She was like a teen version of Anne Rice and got me into Anne Rice, actually (read Interview with the Vampire at 14). These are the books that stuck with me and I still have them. She also inspired me to write.
I was just talking about Wind in the Willows. Great NPR performance once. Mine is Tom Sawyer. I still remember the chills when Tom and Becky are in the caves.
Misty of Chincoteague, by Marguerite Henry. My Mom took me downtown Cleveland on the bus to meet the author and get a signed book. I remember it like it was yesterday!!
Me too! Was this in the ’50’s, and she showed a filmstrip of the horses and the islands? I grew up in Alliance about 60 miles SE of Cleveland. Man, I loved those books.
Where the Red Fern Grows. My third grade teacher read it to the class, and we all sobbed together. And then I read it alone many times. And sobbed alone.
Little Women and The Chronicles of Narnia were my most well read books growing up. I was just thinking about how different my adolescence would have been if Harry Potter had been available when I was growing up. Today’s kids have no idea how lucky they are!
I loved Heidi and the other books about her, Peter and the Alm Uncle, as did my mom so she read all of them to me and compared Heidi’s environment to hers growing up in the foothills of Mt. Adams and they raised goats, too. ?
I love Heidi also. I have my Mother’s copy. A few years ago I began. looking for different versions. I now have 10 or so different editions. I enjoy seeing how various illustrators choose to depict Heidi and the story.
@Fleta Keep looking! There must be a few of these around if mine has managed to survive…although I don’t think I let my sister’s read it, or they weren’t interested!
This is interesting – so many of us have copies of Heidi that belonged to our mothers . . . mine, too, is falling apart. But I love the illustrations. 1924 edition
I thought about the swinging poem the other day when I saw from my window the little girl next door on her swing set. “Up in the air and over the wall ’til I can see so wide, Rivers and trees and cattle and all over the countryside. (Then?) I look down on the garden (wall?), down on the roof so brown, Up in the air I go flying again, Up in the air and down.”
@Darby I recently went on a quest to get a whole set of them, which I was able to do. I read them all again, in order. I enjoyed them but I must say, I did not remember that they treat racial differences in a seriously inappropriate way! I’m pretty sure my mom never read them or she would never have allowed me to read them!!
The Little House on the Prairie series, and the Ramona Quimby books by Beverly Cleary were always my favorite!! Then, as I got a little older, Judy Blume books were all I read and re-read!!
My first favorite book was in the 3rd grade I read the original Black Beauty by Anna Sewell. I have read so many others, but some favorites include Night by Eli Weisel, All Quiet on the Western Front, Hiroshima, The Winthrop Woman, all of Mary Higgins Clark, James Patterson, especially his Alex Cross series, and so many more! Love books, love reading!
Me 2 along w So many other books! I especially remember liking the Radish Cure, the Tattle-Tale Cure, the Slow Eater Tiny Bite Taker Cure, the Thought You Saiders Cure & the Fighter Quarrelers Cure! Synopsis all on Wikipedia ???
I own all of the Moffats books. Are you aware of a couple of others she wrote: “The Alley” and “The Tunnel of Hugsy Goode”? They go together and I love them, too!
It’s a toss between “A Bridge to Terebithia” and “Tuck Everlasting” (though if I had to back up further into my childhood, I might choose “Anne of Green Gables”).
As a child, I loved Charlotte’s Web, The Little House On the Prairie Series (especially Farmer Boy), A Wrinkle in Time, and the Nancy Drew Series. As a teen, I loved Anne of Green Gables, Ghosts I Have Been, Sweet Valley High Series, Pride and Prejudice, Gone with the Wind, & Rebecca.
The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E Frankweiler, Chartotte’s Web, Wrinkle in Time (Or anything by L’Engle), Anne of Green Gables, Eight Cousins, Winnie the Pooh, Secret Garden, Railway Children, Heidi, 5 Little Peppers, The Borrowers, Narnia, Pippi Longstocking, The Colored Fairy Tale books, Gone-Away Lake—there were just SOOOO many. I can’t quite part with them, yet. Once in a while I have a children’s book splurge. and read a bunch again. They never disappoint.
From different times in childhood – Charlotte’s Web, Little House on the Prairie series, Jane Eyre, all the Dr. Seuss books, All Things Bright and Beautiful series, Misty of Chincoteague series or anything by Marguerite Henry.. So many!! Thanks for making me remember! Would like to read them again!!
So hard to choose one favorite. Partial list in no particular order: Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, Charlotte’s Web, Ramona books by Beverly Cleary, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books, The Wizard of Oz, Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, Superfudge, Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, Little Women
I did that too. In the old days when we had actual sets of encyclopedias in the house, I would pull out a volume and read it. I also had a small set of childrens illustrated encyclopedias I used to read.
I think my grandmother’s was a set of Colliers, but whatever the name it had beautiful full color illustrations. The only rule was to wash your hands before reading?
@Laurie Ours was some inexpensive set, I think my brother was selling them door to door as a summer job one year and we got a cheap deal on them. No matter, they still held a lot of interesting information. The kids set I had were sold as a premium at the grocery store, book a week. My mum purchased them for me, illustrated encyclopedia and an illustrated dictionary set. Loved them. That’s how I learned my planets.
@Judith We had encyclopedias bought from a door to door salesman, too, when I was young. As newlyweds that was one of our first purchases and we also bought their set of art books. I kept those and still enjoy them.
I did that too, but I read the Childcraft set that we got when my folks bought the World Book Encyclopedia. Some books were more well read than others!
LOVE Caddie Woodlawn. Did you know there’s a sequel? It’s called Magical Melons. Also . . . did you know that you can visit her house in Wisconsin? We unexpectedly discovered it one day while search for Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House in the Big Woods – they aren’t very far away from each other!
There are so many including the Little House series, Misty of Chincoteague, Black Beauty, the Bobbsey Twins, Andrew Lang’s Fairy series, especially the Blue Fairy book, etc. etc. etc.
The Pokey Little Puppy The Little House The Secret Garden The Little Princess The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins The entire Betsy-Tacy series The Night Before Christmas
I never read these as a kid but we’ve been listening to them on audio with my eldest son, Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet, The River, Brian’s Winter, Brian’s Return, and now Brian’s Hunt.
The 500 Hats of Barthlomew Cubbins. My brother & I had our parents read us to it so much that my dad knew by heart into his 60s ? Also loved Barthlomew& the Ooblek.
The Narnia series (The Magician’s Nephew was the very first book I bought with my chores money – cost $7.00 in the 50s); The Lost Queen of Egypt by Lucille Morrison (1937) launched my on my archaeologist path. It’s now a collectible, but I was finally able to purchase a copy on eBay back before the prices skyrocketed.
I, too, loved Nancy Drew! So much so that, as an adult, I revisited the series. Then I found that Mildred Wirt Benson was the true Carolyn Keene, who fell out with the Syndicate and started writing her own books. I bought all I could find on eBay, and they are far superior to Nancy Drew, in that the character substituted for Nancy Drew is not so annoying! 🙂 You might like Benson’s version!!
My fifth/sixth graders just loved it and one of my fellow teachers knew how to make whistles and when the tree branches were just right he cut a lot and had his students make them as he came to that part of the book. Several times he came into my room and taught my kids how to do it during his planning period. Kids just loved him?. And the book!
Heidi and Old Yeller are 2 that come to mind when I think of the books I read when I was a child. Heidi was given to me as a Christmas gift from a favorite aunt. I still have it.
It depends on how you define childhood, but… Monster at the End of this Book by Jon Stone when I was a very young kid in the 80s. Robin Hood by Howard Pyle Some of the King Arthur mythology – Sir Gawain got to me a bit, but I loved it. My dad introduced me to The Raven and El Dorado by Poe when I was 10 or so, and Poe is still an obsession…
Also, I loved a book series – My Teacher is an Alien by Bruce Coville – probably should go back and read that one as I teach myself- wonder how many students think I am an alien….
Mandy (Julie Andrews Edwards), Gone-Away Lake (Elizabeth Enright), From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (E.L. Konigsburg), I could go on and on….
Gulliver’s Travels. I was in fifth grade and became enthralled with the power of sarcasm, and the permissibility of talking about civil injustice within a fantasy setting. I know, I was a wise-ass kid.
@Kelsey i had the map that showed almost all areas of all the books now I cant find it maybe if my grandson likes them as much as my son and i did we can make our own.
The Little House series and horse-themed books by Walter Farley and Marguerite Henry. I work for American Girl and would have loved all of our historical character books if they had existed back in the 1970s!
In elem. school I loved the book Twig about a little girl who lives in the city and wants to see a fairy visit her backyard….I read it to my girls and they loved it
Me, too! Though I never kept a notebook like Harriet’s (read and learn…), reading this book—many times—was the beginning of my keeping a notebook…a habit I have almost 50 years later! Thank you, Louise Fitzhugh.
“The Quilt Makers Gift” my grandmother read this to me every night until i was 12. it is such a beautiful book with a very important lesson. MUST READ ?
I found An Old Fashioned Girl so wonderful a read. Had no one to talk to about it though. My grandmother would go to the second hand stores and buy grocery bags full of mysteries and westerns. I found Louis L’Amour and Hondo through her. She read every day after cleaning house. AND you did not bother her while she was reading!!
I read them the first time when I was 11. For the last several years, I read them once a year, as a tradition, and because they bring up so many warm memories of reading them on summer days in a hammock in my grandma’s garden.
We read it in my 5/6 grade class then saw a film and did a compare/contrast exercise. There were actually three film versions and we critiqued them all. One portrayed the governess as a physically abusive person much harsher than the others. It created a very lively discussion. Kids love good triumphing over evil, but I didn’t do that ever again. I was upset!
I would rather see categories such as children’s books, young adults, adults etc. Disliked the emphasis of Vieira on “Vote, vote, vote!” Thought this was supposed to be a series, we could be seeing the backstory of these works–say each episode could have 6 books @ 10 minutes apiece. Glad books are being put forth, but it does not seem like much of a discussion or for that matter, a series.
A Wrinkle in Time. My impression was entirely different than the recent movie. Meg was so much braver and it was so much more of an adventure. It was exhilarating to read.
@Vicki I was excited to go and took my husband with. YIKES! It was totally “Oprahfied” and I had to explain that that was not at all like the book. He was totally underwhelmed. I would tell anyone not to go.
Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan is, to this day, the best book I ever had to read for school in 5th grade. I loved Harry Potter (as long as my mom was reading them to me haha), Because of Winn Dixie, and all of the Dear America/My America historical fiction books- especially the My America: Hope’s Revolutionary War Diaries 1-3
We were going through our books, looking to make room for more books. My husband put into the giveaway pile an autographed copy of his short stories. You better believe I rescued that from the pile!
It wasn’t from my childhood, but I work in a nursing home and one of my residents is author Nancy McArthur. She wrote The Plant That Ate Dirty Socks, a series about two brothers who share their room with their pet plants. These books are clever and funny.
To this day, I enjoy books in series. Some of my favorites from childhood are: Little House books, Chronicles of Narnia, Anne of Green Gables, Pippi Longstocking, The Great Brain, Encyclopedia Brown, The Borrowers and Babar.
The Wind in the Willows is the one I miss the most from the 100 list. But the Odyssey of Homer (children’s version) had a profound effect me. Three of us boys (sometimes a 4th) would act out the Gods. And then there was Tom Swift Jr, and the Doctor Doolittle series.
Robinson Caruso, My Side of the Mountain, Little House in the Big Woods because my mother read it to me before I could read. And , Island of the Blue Dolphins.
Loved all of Louisa May Alcott’s books, but Little Women was by far my favorite ?. I would open the book directly to Beth’s final chapter whenever I felt like I needed a good cry.
Peterkin Papers, Uncle Remus stories (had a teacher who read them aloud in a great voice, can still hear her – we recently went to the town where Joel Chandler Harris grew up in Georgia and learned the true story behind the tales), Mary Poppins, Little House books, Misty series, Louisa May Alcott’s books, Charlotte’s Web……
I loved horses, so when my sister introduced me to the library I thought I had died and gone to heaven… two books stand out in my mind (and I still have them) My Friend Flicka by Mary O’Hara and the Album of Horses. (Old horse lovers never die, they just gallop away… lol)
I can’t remember the author’s name but she wrote many horse books that turned my daughter onto reading. Misty and King of the Wind were two of her books.
@Melinda I read all of the horse stories in our elementary school library and drew horses constantly, then moved on to dog stories, but was terrible at drawing dogs! Then moved on to other stories in Jr. high.
Me too @Laurie…. and i collected Breuer horses… matter of fact I still have them. It’s wonderful that a love for horses turned me on to books and all the great authors. 😉
@Roberta I would have if I could have! Too long ago for that, but I watched every tv show with horses or dogs and old black and white films on the topic when I could!
@Roberta Yes, I was like that… in the 50’s there were lots of them… 😉 When I reached 23 I finally was able to satisfy my dream and bought a horse. Then I read every book out there on keeping one… lol
@Sue my daughter was renting an old half blind paint. On her 13th birthday the owner gave her the horse without our permission! We made her make up a budget for the monthly expenses for the horse. Shawnee was then given her trainer who in turn found a young family with horse property who could use a gentle horse for their young children. Living in Southern California, we couldn’t afford a horse.
@Sue A friend let me ride with her on her very gentle horse and I was so happy on those occasions, but as an adult I lived for a few years in a small town in California’s Central Valley where many homes were on an acre and had horses. That’s when I realized I might be allergic to them, which was verified later. My dream of owning horses but the dust☹️
Did anyone else read the Judy Bolton Mystery series that predated Nancy Drew? They were my mothers. I found them in a trunk in the attic in the late 50s so I guess she read them in the 40s. I haven’t seen them in used book stores.
@Jules It was a definite girl detective series originally published between 1932 and 1967. I didn’t realize there were 38 books in the series, but I probably read a couple dozen. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judy_Bolton_Series
@Karen …. I am going to be on the lookout for some. This definitely looks like something I would have loved as a teen. Along a similar note, have you heard of The Happy Hollisters? I had a couple of their books in my elementary years. They were a family of amateur sleuths but what made the books different was that you needed a “secret decoder” device to read the print. (If I recall it was a red or maybe blue piece of plastic that you had to run over the print for you to read). Loved those books!
The story of Little Black Sambo. He wandered into a dangerous place, outsmarted the Tigers and brought home enough butter to have stacks of pancakes. A great story!
It was changed, and like the Uncle Remus stories which are no longer written in dialect, it’s a real shame. I think Little Black Sambo was a heroic character, especially to a little kid 🙂
Heidi! (Johanna Spry) First real book I read. It was a gift from a family friend given to me when I was about 5. I tried reading it every year until I could master it. Next favorite, possibly Bambi by Felix Salten. Also love The Little Prince, a favorite to this day. Read the whole book on my first flight to visit grandparents in Germany when I was 8. A poignant masterpiece!
My daughter loved and loves the Little House books. We would read 1-2 chapters a night starting when she was 4. Of course it helped that the tv series was so popular. I know now how to make a ”keylatch lock” and “dried cinnamon apple” . Such detail was sometimes tedious, but the descriptions of such hard winters and the ongoing grinding of wheat just to have bread really stuck with me. Reading to your children is such a joy.
Kathy Martin I am currently reading Prairie Fires by Carolyn Fraser, which is a well written and thorough biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder. It discusses so much of the history of the areas in which they lived and traveled, adding a lot of context to the stories. It also discusses, as did Pioneer Girl, how Laura and her daughter Rose Wilder Lane (a newspaper reporter, editor and writer) edited the original manuscripts of the stories to make them readable, popular and to give some dignity to the poverty and deprivations they faced throughout the years
Try some Shakespeare, maybe a sonnet or two and then maybe Midsummer Night’s Dream (there are two great movie versions to watch after you’ve read and discussed the play – the older one with James Cagney as Bottom and Mickey Rooney as Puck, and the newer one – both are fun). My other favorites as a tween (used to read them with my mom) were Twelfth Night and The Tempest
Kenneth Brannaugh’s Much Ado About Nothing is very funny. My husband just yesterday was referencing a scene in it. I fell in love with Shakespeare as an insecure 13 year old who skipped 7th grade. Books and my best friend helped me with the transition.
@Roberta I love Kenneth Branagh’s Much Ado About Nothing, and all his Shakespeare movies! My mom used to love to spend weekend afternoons sewing and would have me read to her, starting when I was around 10 – and it was usually Shakespeare! When I got to high school and found that my classmates didn’t like Shakespeare’s plays, I couldn’t understand why!
@Mary I love Pippi!!! I remember ordering the first book in her series from the Scholastic Book Club flyer. That was the only thing I looked forward to in school, getting that flyer!
@Sheri I loved book fairs so much I took over running the elementary school where my boys attended. We went from $300 to $30000 profit and 8% teacher participation to 100% in the first year. I loved connecting not just the kids but the teachers & parents. Noe my grandkids are in school & tomorrow afternoon I’m going over to their school’s Scholastic book fair.
James and the Giant Peach was my favorite.
You mean James and the Giant Peach. I loved that and Matilda also.
Nancy Drew Mysteries
When I first started reading
The secret garden
Little Women, Trixie Belden mysteries, Nancy Drew
Winnie the Pooh, Black Beauty.
I was a bookworm even then though so … that is only 2 out of the 1000’s of books I have read
“The Hobbit” in 6th grade. I picked up reading fairly quickly.
The Phantom Tollbooth. Still re-read it every few years.
Choose your own adventure books!
The Secret Garden and Little Women.
Ohhhh I read sooo many books growing up. But my favorite was and still is The Farthest Away Mountain by Lynn Reid Banks. She also wrote The Indian in The Cupboard.
Charlotte’s Web turned me into an avid reader beginning in 1st grade.
Anne of Green Gables and Little Women
Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans
Charlotte’s Web
Stuart Little and Anne of Green Gables
Little House on the Prairie series. The Long Winter broke in half, I read it so many times.
Danny the Champion of the World by Roald Dahl.
I scared the crap out of my little sister with this one (she was only five).
Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, the Little House books, Secret Garden and Little Princess, and Nancy Drew.
Jane Eyre
Anything by Judy Blume!
Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret, Judy Blume.
Charlotte’s Web
The Black Stallion
The oldest I recall loving was Bartholomew and the Oobleck and, of course, Bartholomew and the 500 Hats.
Are you there God? It’s me Margaret ❤️ Judy Blume
Ferdinand
“The Night Before Christmas” and “Where the Sidewalk Ends.”
A Wrinkle in Time
Definitely “The Boxcar Children.” Any book from the series I called a favorite, and still do.
Loved that series also!
The Borrowers by Mary Norton.
Bridge to Terabithia, the Anne of Green Gables series, The Secret Garden, Little Women, Tuck Everlasting, The Lion the With and the Wardrobe, Nancy Drew books… I read A LOT as a kid
Yes yes! Lots of my favorites on this list also!
Me too. It was my saving.
The Little Princess by Francis Hodgeson Burnett and all the Dr
Seuss books- esp. Horton Hatches the egg.
The Lion the witch and the Wardrobe.
The Malory Towers Series by Enid Blython
Nancy Drew was a big favorite of mine. I think I read every book in the series!
Heidi, The Little Princess and Nancy Drew! I still have my Nancy books.
Secret Garden……
From my 9 year old granddaughter-Percy Jackson series.
Those books are fantastic.
Mr. Popper’s Penguins!!
Walter Farley Black Stallion books and Little House on the Prairie series
Too many! Almost everything that everyone else has listed, haha. I’d add The Light Princess and The Princess and the Goblins by George MacDonald.
I loved The Princess and the Goblin! 😀
The Princess was the first book I found on my own at the library (I grew up in a family of readers so many books were introduced to me). I reread The Light Princess not too long ago and still loved it, even as an adult. I need to reread Princess!
A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Lion the witch and the Wardrobe
The Pilgrim’s Progress and the Jill pony books by Ruby Ferguson.
Hiedi
The Velveteen Rabbit, The Little Red Hen.
By the time I was 9, I had read all the Nancy Drew, Bobsey Twins and Hardy Boys books. My favorites books, though, were centered around horses — Black Beauty and Misty of Chincoteague (sp?).
oh yes, I had so many Marguerite Henry books. Loved them!
@Jennifer Yes, King of the Wind and Black Gold were my favorites!
This is hard to answer, too may favs. I loved the bobbsey twins and read every book in the series. I loved Anne of green gables and that entire series. But my favorite was probably the trolley car family, about a family that decides to live in the trolley car that their dad drove when it gets retired for the bus lines.
“Margaret” by Janet Sebring Lowry; “An Old Fashioned Girl” by Lousia May Alcott; “Little Women”; “A Little Princess” and “The Secret Garden” by Frances Hodgson Burnett. All things Nancy Drew, “Black Beauty”; “The Witch of Blackbird Pond”.
Every Judy Blume book. I read them until they fell apart.
Where the Red Fern Grows and The Secret Garden
Nancy Drew, Little House…
Heidi
The Hardy Boys, Harriett the Spy, Treasure island and Swiss Family Robinson, Trixie Beldon,
Me too
Black Beauty!
The Phantom Tollbooth
Nancy Drew, the Dana Girls, Trixie Belden, Cherry Ames, my brother’s Tom Swift and Hardy Boys, The Swiss Family Robinson, Little Women, and then my first “grown up” book — A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. 58 or so years later it remains my all-time favorite, one I’ve read many times since.
I LOVED Trixie Belden!!
Choose your own adventure & Goosebumps
The Black Stallion.
Holes
Nancy Drew books.
Everything by Roald Dahl
The Secret Garden
Probably Anne of Green Gables series. We even went on a vacation to PEI once and went to the house.
Mio, My Son by Astrid Lundgren. Its like Harry Potter in Fairytale land. I bet JK Rowlings read it too! Cloak of invisiblity, evil villian, mean foster parents, need I say more?
When I read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I had to go back and re-read her Pippi Longstocking series. ?
the secret garden
Mrs. Piggle Wiggle.
Charlottes Web
Also Mrs Frisby and the Rats of Nimh
If I had to pick only one favorite, it’s Peggy Parish’s “Key to the Treasure”. It was one of the first chapter books I could read and understand on my own. I was 6 or 7.
Black Beauty
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Stuart Little
Caddie Woodlawn, The Secret Garden, Pippi Longstocking, Half Magic, Little Witch, The Black Stallion
My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George.
As a very young child my favorite book was “Quick as a Cricket.” It’s one of my favorites to read to my child.
Little Women. Wanted to be Jo then, now I wish I was more like Marmee.
Little Women.
A Wrinkle in Time and the Little House series
Little Women
The Hardy Boys series. Between my cohorts Jeff & Bruce & I we bought and read and traded the entire series at the time (around 45) because back in the ‘60s those kid series were banned in libraries.
Bridge to Terabithia.
The Secret Garden
Andy Buckram’s “Tin Men”.
Laura Ingalls Wilder “Little House” series!
Preschool -Ferdinand by Munro Leaf
Elementary-anything Ramona Quimby then later Judy Bloom
Junior High and Forever After- To Kill a Mockingbird
Not a book, but rather two stories. By fourth grade, my favorites were The Murders in the Rue Morgue and Hop Frog, both by Poe.
“Mrs. Mike” by Nancy Freedman
I loved the Raggedy Ann books, Mary Poppins, Charlotte’s Web, and Farmer McBroom books.
The Borrowers by Mary Norton, The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks, the Nancy Drew books, and The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. I was obsessed with Isaac Asimov’s robot stories. Oh, and everything by Roald Dahl, Dr. Suess, Kate DiCamillo, Beverly Cleary, and E.B. White! I also read and reread the Redwall series by Brian Jacques.
Loved the Redwall series!
I loved Indian in the Cupboard! Castle in the Attic was a similar one I loved!
@Ashley I have to add it to my TBR!
@Elizabeth It was THE BEST!
Loved The Borrowers. Can’t tell you how many little things I left out under my bed for them…lol…
@Lynne Same here! My belief in borrowers was integral to my childhood development.
The Secret Garden
Little House on the Prairie. I couldn’t watch the famous TV series because it was terrible compared to those books!
The wizard of Oz
Stuart Little when quite young. Nancy Drew mysteries in elementary school. The Secret Garden.
I would spend whole Saturdays in my room finishing an entire R.L. Stine. Plus, Little Women, Black Beauty, the SuperFudge series, American Girl, Girl Talk, Babysitters Club, Dr. Seuss and pretty much every Golden Book ever written.
How could I forget Dr. Suess?! ❤
I loved the book Heidi and all The Nancy Drew books.
Charlotte’s web , little princess, the Secret Garden, Little Women, Nancy Drew series
I loved A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, and All-of-a-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor.
Little Women
Emily of New Moon series, and everything else written by L.M. Montgomery. There were paperbacks released of her short stories in collections.
I’m an Anne fan, but I didn’t get to know her until my late teens.
Charlotte’s Web & anything Nancy Drew; I loved mysteries from an early age! ?
Nancy drew series.
Anne of Green Gables and Island of the Blue Dolphins
I love Island of the Blue Dolphins growing up. 🙂
Nancy Drew or Trixie Belden
A Wrinkle in Time.
The Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Oh I forgot the Chronicles of Narnia!
@Heidi
The Betsy, Tacy, and Tib series by Maud Hart Lovelace. These books deserve a comeback in popularity.
Secret Garden
Five Little Peppers and How They Grew
Charlotte’s Web, Mrs. Piggle Wiggle
All of Louisa Mae (May?) Alcott
The Pokey Little Puppy
Alice in Wonderland and The Secret Garden
Nancy Drew books
A Wrinkle in Time
The Westing Game and anything by E. L. Konigsburg
@Jennifer – I had friends that did that too!
There are so many! I was a major bookworm as a child. I love the Beezus and Ramona books, Nancy Drew, Charlotte’s Web, The Oz books, Dr. Seuss.
Anne of Green Gables
all of the above plus Donna Parker and Cherry Ames
Diary of Anne Frank. I was her age when I first read it.
Charlotte’s Web
Secret Garden, Nancy Drew, the Betsy series, Lois Lenski books, and Little House series
Loved all of these!
🙂
The. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Heidi, the Wizard of Oz, Wind in the Willows, Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, Little House series.
Wind in the Willow was the first book I remember but The Little House on the Prairie books were the first books that made me love reading.
All the Beverly Cleary books!
Little Women
Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew, and The Boxcar Children
Heidi, Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, Black Beauty, Five Little Peppers, Nancy Drew, Little House Books
The Bobbsey Twins, The Boxcar Children, The Honey Bunch series, Nancy Drew.
Ditto
The Neverending Story
Favorite early childhood book is The Little Engine That Could. Favorites that I read to my sons are Stuart Little and The Dancing Bear, as well as the Narnia series.
The Little House series
Charlotte’s Web
When really young loved “Honey Bunch”. Bobbsey Twins
As a little girl: How Fletcher was Hatched by Wende & Harry Devlin, The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton, and Peter’s Chair by Ezra Jack Keats. As a child: The Little House on the Prairie books, Trixie Belden books, and Lois Lenski books. There are truly many more, but these are the ones that came to mind first. There was also an abridged version of Anne of Green Gables that we had in our country school. It was an extra large book and had color pictures. The cover has Anne’s head/face on the cover. It took me a long time, but I found a copy of that book. I read it too many times to count when I was in school.
Wind in the Willows is one of my favs too! I read a lot of the Redwall series, by Brian Jacques, and also several of Roald Dahl’s books
My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George and A Summer to Die by Lois Lowry. I read these two books over and over again.
Diary of Anne Frank, Anne of Green Gables, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, Native Son, Black Like Me, the Bible and whatever my older siblings were reading.
Little House on the Prairie.
Hands down Anne of Green Gables! All of them!
Hmm…Harriet the Spy and From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler-so many from which to choose!
A Little Princess
Ramona the Pest
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
My Side of the Mountain and Charlotte’s Web
A Wrinkle in Time, and I will not be seeing the movie. Nothing can live up to my own imaginings.
Wrinkle in Time
James and the Giant Peach
The Pink Maple House
The Anne of Green Gables series followed by a serious obsession with Gone With the Wind. I literally have read both over 100 times.
The Secret Garden and The little Prince
The Wizard of Oz.
Winnie the Pooh books
How funny that ‘A Wrinkle in Time’ was 1st published when I was 8 yrs old and yet I had never heard of it until the film version was released this year. Did it somehow bypass Racine, Wisconsin??? ?
East of the Sun, West of the Moon.
Matilda and The Babysitters Club
Summer of the Monkeys by Wilson Rawls, The Little Princess, The Secret Garden, and A Wrinkle in Time were some of my favorites.
The Lord of the Rings. (Yes, I was a strange child.)
*raises hand* Lord of the Rings was the only thing I asked for for my 12th birthday. So I’m right there with ya! 🙂
@Kim *high-fives* I was 7 or 8. I encountered the Rankin-Bass ROTK first, then sought out the boxed sets.
Nancy Drew
The Boxcar Children
Sarah, Plain and Tall
Stuart Little
She was Nice to Mice written by Ally Sheedy. Yes that Ally Sheedy.
I was reading really weird stuff when I was a kid. The Circle of Light Series by Niel Hancock was my favorite series and I read them over and over again obsessively.
I also loved the Freddy The Pig series.
Winnie the Pooh
Charlotte’s Web. That’s the book that made me realize that I was going to love reading for the rest of my life. ♥️♥️??♥️♥️
Island of the Blue Dolphins
Trixie Belden and the Gatehouse Mystery
Nancy Drew
The Phantom Tollbooth
Sweet Valley High Series (the original) in 6th grade is how I found my love for reading!
Weeellll…The Hobbit lead me to beg for the Lord of the Rings for my 12th birthday, and LOTR is still my absolute favorite. But it’s not really a young adult or kids book. So The Hobbit maybe? I also loved a book called Birth of the Firebringer (unicorns…pitter pat went my preteen heart) and one called A Murder For Her Majesty.
Cherry Ames and Nancy Drew.
The Wizard of Oz, my parents read it to me at bedtime
In the 4th grade I read Mandy by Julie (Andrews) Edwards and that book started my lifelong love of reading.
A friend mentioned that she loved this book too but for the record, the author is Edwards( you probably had a brain fart)?
@Frances yes of course you’re right! I knew that! I have to change it now! 😀
I loved that one too. I don’t hear of many people who have read it.
My daughter loved “The Last of the Really Great Wangdoodles” by Julie Andrews and the “Dinotopia” series.
I love that book, too. My favorite from childhood is Alice in Wonderland.
Little House on the Prairie was the start to my love of reading.
Chronicles of Narnia
Witch of Blackbird Pond- it had just come out….when I think about it that must have started my love of historical fiction
I loved that book!
I also loved that book!
WOW! There are some really great titles listed!
Ginny Gordon and the Lending Library
All of The Black Stallion books.
I loved it when my parents read the Wizard of OZ to me❤️
A Little Princess and The Secret Garden.
The Secret Garden … and Nancy Drew
Uncle Wiggley read to me or Winnie the Pooh. Reading to myself, The Boxcar Children, Nancy Drew.
I have a few, ..as I went from six to 12 years old…Charlotte’s Web, Watership Down, Mixed up files of Mrs. BEF., A Wrinkle in Time, Boxcar Children, Black Beauty, Misty of Chinntoquage, Nancy Drew books, and more. I love seeing the comments here!
My granddaughters LOVE the Magic Tree house series, and I love listening to them read, can’t wait to see what happens next.
Jealous, Jaylen never wanted to be read to and still hates reading to this day!
@Sharon Alder used to be a big reader, Carly said he read these books when he was younger. He always was reading something.
The Once and Future King was my favorite as a teen. I also loved the Sherlock Holmes stories. Before that, I liked Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys, preceeded by Amelia Bedelia and Beverly Cleary books. The first book I really loved, though, was The Poky Little Puppy. My mom says I had it memorized before I could even read.
Oh, I loved The Poky Little Puppy! ??
Black Beauty
Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh
Beginner reader, The Fire Cat by Esther Averill. Chapter books: Marguerite Henry horse books, Outlaw Red by Jim Kjelgaard, The Crossbreed by Allan Eckert, Yellow Eyes by Rutherford Montgomery, Lad of Sunny bank by Albert Paysone Terhune (all animal stories).
Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingles Wilder
The White Stallion
A Wrinkle in Time.
Also “Where the Sidewalk Ends” Shel Silverstein
Charlotte’s Web
Where the Red Fern Grows
Huckleberry Finn
The Mouse and the Motorcycle
WATERSHIP DOWN by Richard Adams…loved all his books but this was my fave; also lovedTHE SILENT MEOW
The Silver Nutmeg by Palmer Brown.
The Black Stallion
Those are great ones! I forgot Black Beauty too. I was obsessed with horses!
Me too. Absolutely. All those girls in love with horses.
Corduroy; Ramona Quimby
The Phantom Tollbooth
Island of the blue dolphins
I Can’t Said the Ant and The Penguin that Hated the Cold
Misty of Chincoteague ?
I devoured these Childhood History books when I was in elementary school. There were whole shelves of them at the library!
I loved these books! I think I must have read every one I found in our little school library.
Yes! Loved these.
The first “chapter book” I rember reading was Amelia Erhart — loved these!
The Betsy-Tacy-Tib books by Maud Hart Lovelace
I own them all!
The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe ?
“A Lantern in her Hand” by Bess Streeter Audrich
I absolutely adore her books, but especially that one!
“A Secret Garden”
Black Beauty
The Trumpeter of Krakow.
The Oz books, Charlotte’s Web, The Witch of Blackbird Pond.
I loved the Dan Frontier books!
Harriet the Spy. ?
And all the Wizard of Oz books!
James and the giant peach
Little house books
Twice freed
Were the wild things are
Bible bed time stories
The Tail of Emily Windsnap series, the Magic Treehouse series, and the Harry Potter series.
“Little Women” and “The Secret Garden” as well as anything by Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume.
The Wizard of Oz- and all the Oz books. By L. Frank Baum. So many happy memories! And now I love reading the Wicked Books by Gregory Maguire
My Side of the Mountain, Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little, The Hobbit, His Dark Materials, and Harry Potter. 🙂
The Secret Garden and Heidi
American Girl Series 🙂
Charlotte’s Web.
The Shark Lady & M is for Muggie
“A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”
Charlotte’s Web
Mandy by Julie Andrews, read and reread.
I loved that one too! Don’t hear from many others that they have read it.
Where the Red Fern Grows – Read it until the binding was broke and the cover had fallen off
All of the Little House on the Prairie books. Read them all multiple times.
As a tween, I stumbled upon Amelia Atwater-Rhodes and “In the Forest of the Night,” and I fell in love with her characters and books. She was like a teen version of Anne Rice and got me into Anne Rice, actually (read Interview with the Vampire at 14). These are the books that stuck with me and I still have them. She also inspired me to write.
A Wrinkle in Time By Madeline L’Engle.
The Princess and the Goblin.
Black Beauty
Anne of Green Gables.
Heidi and every Nancy Drew Book and Beatrice Potter
Heidi, Little Women, Nancy Drew, Cherry Ames, Little House on the Prairie
“Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH” by Robert C. O’Brien.
Little Women, Little Men, etc. ,Cherry Ames series
I was just talking about Wind in the Willows. Great NPR performance once. Mine is Tom Sawyer. I still remember the chills when Tom and Becky are in the caves.
Heidi
The Secret Garden
Anne of Green Gables, the Secret Garden
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIHM read by my 5th grade teacher everyday after recess.
Johnny Tremaine and the Liberty Tree.
Misty of Chincoteague, by Marguerite Henry. My Mom took me downtown Cleveland on the bus to meet the author and get a signed book. I remember it like it was yesterday!!
Me too! Was this in the ’50’s, and she showed a filmstrip of the horses and the islands? I grew up in Alliance about 60 miles SE of Cleveland. Man, I loved those books.
I loved all of those. Want to take my grand daughter to see the horses next summer.
@Karen, yes, it was the 50’s at Higbee’s or Halle’s. I still want to go see the horses!
So do I! It was at Higbee’s, I think, if that was the one where you could get an egg cream in the basement cafe afterward.
@Karen, one of the marvelous malts for me. Haha!
King of the Dollhouse by Patricia Clapp
Wrinkle In Time
Little House on the Prairie
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
I loved this book
Tuck Everlasting, the Chronicles of Narnia and Bunnicula ?
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster 🙂
Charlotte’s Web
Where the Red Fern Grows. My third grade teacher read it to the class, and we all sobbed together. And then I read it alone many times. And sobbed alone.
My fourth grade teacher read it to us. I do love that book. I wore my copy out.
Betsy Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace love ?
Tales Of A Fourth Grade Nothing, James And The Giant Peach, My Side Of The Mountain….many others!
Little Women and The Chronicles of Narnia were my most well read books growing up. I was just thinking about how different my adolescence would have been if Harry Potter had been available when I was growing up. Today’s kids have no idea how lucky they are!
Charlotte’s Web and The Trumpet of the Swan
All of a Kind Family by Sydney Taylor
Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls.
I loved Shel Silverstein! And of course the Babysitters Club series
Maida’s Little Store by Inez Haynes Irwin. It was my Mom’s book!
Never heard of it! There goes another one on my “after The List” List!
It’s an old-timer but I think still available!
I loved Maida’s little
School. but my favorite was Little Women
I loved Heidi and the other books about her, Peter and the Alm Uncle, as did my mom so she read all of them to me and compared Heidi’s environment to hers growing up in the foothills of Mt. Adams and they raised goats, too. ?
I love Heidi also. I have my Mother’s copy. A few years ago I began. looking for different versions. I now have 10 or so different editions. I enjoy seeing how various illustrators choose to depict Heidi and the story.
@Fleta That’s great!
Here’s my book which was a birthday gift for my ninth birthday!
@Laurie I do not have this one. I like the picture.
Someone else got my Mom’s ancient book, but I have her copy of Pinocchio that’s falling apart!
@Fleta Keep looking! There must be a few of these around if mine has managed to survive…although I don’t think I let my sister’s read it, or they weren’t interested!
@Laurie My Mom’s is falling apart too
The paper is crumbly. I found another copy of the same edition that is not as fragile
@Fleta That was so lucky!
This is interesting – so many of us have copies of Heidi that belonged to our mothers . . . mine, too, is falling apart. But I love the illustrations. 1924 edition
@Jean Beautiful cover.
When pigs fly
Stuart Little (elementary)
The Outsiders (middle school)
Blackhearts at Battersea, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, A Wrinkle in Time, Star Girl (all elementary school reads)
I remember the Witch of Blackbird Pond!!
I love Wind in the Willows even as an adult but it disturbs me that the chapter Piper at the Gates of Dawn is sometimes deleted
I’m going to read this tonight, never did as a child but always on the shelf for-someday. Chapter sited is included 😉
@Jennifer lucky you. I have so many favorite parts..please smile for me when mole visits his old home at Christmas
Mole’s home at Christmas is one of THE BEST parts! I would gladly live in Mole End.
The Outsiders
Oh, I loved that book?
Loved biographies. Nellie Bly, Girl Reporter and Jenny Lind, The Swedish Nightingale to name a couple.
Yes. Yes, yes to all of these.
The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstien
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
A Child’s Garden of Verses, A Wrinkle in Time, Island of the Blue Dolphins, Heidi, all of the Louisa May Alcott books, all of the Little House books.
Ramona
Heidi
Child’s Garden of Verses
Yes. We had this book as children and I read it many times. I had forgotten! Thanks for the reminder!
I thought about the swinging poem the other day when I saw from my window the little girl next door on her swing set. “Up in the air and over the wall ’til I can see so wide, Rivers and trees and cattle and all over the countryside. (Then?) I look down on the garden (wall?), down on the roof so brown, Up in the air I go flying again, Up in the air and down.”
Hatchet by Gary Paulsen!
Brians Winter too
Just Plain Maggie
“Hounds of the Morrigan” by Pat O’Shea, Watership Down, and the Chronicles of Narnia! And, and, and…
Watership Down… what an imagination Richard Adams had let’s all go out and silfay
Mrs. Nelson is Missing, White Fang and The Witches are some favorites!
White Fang?
@Laurie yes. I bawled!
Little House Books, Bobsey Twins, Charlotte’s Web, Mr Popper’s Penguins.
Omg Bobbsey Twins !
@Darby I recently went on a quest to get a whole set of them, which I was able to do. I read them all again, in order. I enjoyed them but I must say, I did not remember that they treat racial differences in a seriously inappropriate way! I’m pretty sure my mom never read them or she would never have allowed me to read them!!
@Beth yes Beth you are right about that. I have never been able to find a full set. Thankfully , time changes things for the better . Sometimes .
Wow! What a great prompt! Everyone is posting and you can just feel the loving energy spinning through it!
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
The Little House on the Prairie series, and the Ramona Quimby books by Beverly Cleary were always my favorite!! Then, as I got a little older, Judy Blume books were all I read and re-read!!
I loved the Ramona books. I always wanted to be her, but I’m more of a Beezus.
The Little House series. I also loved Anne of Green Gables?
The Little Old Man who Could not read.
Talking to Dragons by Patricia Wrede
From the Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankenweiler
Winnie the Pooh
I want to spend this summer reading these again. Such wonderful memories.
Out of the Silent Planet C.S. Lewis.
Pippi Longstocking
My first favorite book was in the 3rd grade I read the original Black Beauty by Anna Sewell. I have read so many others, but some favorites include Night by Eli Weisel, All Quiet on the Western Front, Hiroshima, The Winthrop Woman, all of Mary Higgins Clark, James Patterson, especially his Alex Cross series, and so many more! Love books, love reading!
I loved horses so any book by Walter Farley.
My sister joined the Walter Farley fan club
A Wrinkle in Time
Heidi
Heidi
Charlotte’s Web
Loved loved Wind in the Willows but I have to say my favorite was Winnie the Pooh because my mother read it so brilliantly
The Westing Game, A Wrinkle in Time, A Girl of the Limberlost
Winnie-the-Pooh, and I still have it!
I was given a Winnie the Pooh book when I was born and still have it 60+ years later.
I still have mine, too !,
The Phantom Tollbooth
Another one I read as an adult and loved
The Girl of the Limberlost. I read it when I was 7 and fell in love. I think I’ve read it about twice a year since.
I just read it again. It was one of my mom’s favorites.
Little Women, Heidi
The Boxcar Children , Mrs Piggle Wiggle & also Encyclopedia Brown ?
There’s a movie coming out with The Boxcar Children
I ❤️❤️❤️the Mrs. Piggle Wiggle books!!! And Encyclopedia Brown! OMG such memories!
Me 2 along w So many other books! I especially remember liking the Radish Cure, the Tattle-Tale Cure, the Slow Eater Tiny Bite Taker Cure, the Thought You Saiders Cure & the Fighter Quarrelers Cure! Synopsis all on Wikipedia ???
Dark Hour of Noon by Christine Szambelan-Strevinsky
The Phantom Tollbooth!
Yes
Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Mrs Piggle Wiggle, Bobbsey Twins. More then one ? Have loved reading my whole life!
Loved Nancy Drew! Read all those books!
The Secret Garden
The Moffat Family series
Oh, I LOVE that series!
I own all of the Moffats books. Are you aware of a couple of others she wrote: “The Alley” and “The Tunnel of Hugsy Goode”? They go together and I love them, too!
@Jean, Thank you for telling me. I didn’t know about them but I’m excited to read them! ?
Definitely fun! I love this community of readers!
The Yearling. Movie was so lovely too.
I remember the boy named Millwheel ?
Little Women
“Misty of Chincoteague” by Marguerite Henry (when I was very young) and “The Yearling” by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
Song of the South and I loved the Yearling too
The Phantom Tollbooth (plus Encyclopedia Brown and Trixie Belden)
I forgot about Trixie, and I loved her.
Trixie Belden ❤️
I LOVED Trixie I have the best memories reading those books
Heidi
That was one of my favorites.
Watership Down ?????
Yes! Forgot about this one.
Little Women
Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh
Anne of Green Gables
Black Beauty
Any Nancy Drew Book
It’s a toss between “A Bridge to Terebithia” and “Tuck Everlasting” (though if I had to back up further into my childhood, I might choose “Anne of Green Gables”).
A little older, I loved Judy Blume’s books.
The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe also Gone Away Lake
Island of the Blue Dolphins.
I couldn’t get enough of Walter Farley’s books about the black stallion & the island stallion. Also Love Hardy Boys series.
Mrs. Piggle Wiggle
Loved it!
As a child, I loved Charlotte’s Web, The Little House On the Prairie Series (especially Farmer Boy), A Wrinkle in Time, and the Nancy Drew Series. As a teen, I loved Anne of Green Gables, Ghosts I Have Been, Sweet Valley High Series, Pride and Prejudice, Gone with the Wind, & Rebecca.
Sweet Valley High – I loved those books.
Wizard of Oz
The Indian in the Cupboard
YES! I cannot convince Emery to read this ?
Dick and Jane, Spot and Fluff and Sally
Puff, the little tabby kitten. I found 3 copies on eBay. Had to buy them! They are the reason why I love to read ❤️
that’s right, Puff it’s hell being 68, lol
Matilda and anything by Roald Dahl, Bill Bryson and Enid Blyton, and the Sweet Valley High series.
Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech.
The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E Frankweiler, Chartotte’s Web, Wrinkle in Time (Or anything by L’Engle), Anne of Green Gables, Eight Cousins, Winnie the Pooh, Secret Garden, Railway Children, Heidi, 5 Little Peppers, The Borrowers, Narnia, Pippi Longstocking, The Colored Fairy Tale books, Gone-Away Lake—there were just SOOOO many. I can’t quite part with them, yet. Once in a while I have a children’s book splurge. and read a bunch again. They never disappoint.
I am reading through the Nancy Drew series again from the beginning. So much fun. They are hard to find so have to get some through Thrift Books.
The Mixed Up Files…is one of my favorite books! Reading it has made me want to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art someday!
From different times in childhood – Charlotte’s Web, Little House on the Prairie series, Jane Eyre, all the Dr. Seuss books, All Things Bright and Beautiful series, Misty of Chincoteague series or anything by Marguerite Henry.. So many!! Thanks for making me remember! Would like to read them again!!
Little Women
Swiss Family Robinson. Also, Dr. Doolittle, who could talk to animals.
“The Good Master” and “Rufus M” are tied.
As a teen, “To Kill a Mocking Bird” had the greatest impact.
“Dreams of Victory,” forgot the author.
Little Women
This Sunday on Masterpiece Theater At 8!
I didn’t read as a child……………….
So hard to choose one favorite. Partial list in no particular order: Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, Charlotte’s Web, Ramona books by Beverly Cleary, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books, The Wizard of Oz, Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, Superfudge, Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, Little Women
Loved Judy Blume!
I was a big Blume fan too.
I forgot Mrs Piggle Wiggle!!
Little Women
A Wrinkle in time.
My Life and Hard Times by James Thurber
I loved ALL Nancy Drew books. Guess it explains why I still enjoy mysteries best.
Laura Ingalls Wilder series.
Old Yeller
paul bunyan and his big blue ox
Swiss Family Robinson because my dad read it to me
Has to be the Little House on the Prairie series!
Black Beauty by Anna Sewell!
A Little Princess and Phantom Tollbooth
Compton Encyclopedias…..lottsa good stuff in there. On rainy days, I sat on the floor and read only those articles that interested a 10 year old…
I did that too. In the old days when we had actual sets of encyclopedias in the house, I would pull out a volume and read it. I also had a small set of childrens illustrated encyclopedias I used to read.
I think my grandmother’s was a set of Colliers, but whatever the name it had beautiful full color illustrations. The only rule was to wash your hands before reading?
@Laurie Ours was some inexpensive set, I think my brother was selling them door to door as a summer job one year and we got a cheap deal on them. No matter, they still held a lot of interesting information. The kids set I had were sold as a premium at the grocery store, book a week. My mum purchased them for me, illustrated encyclopedia and an illustrated dictionary set. Loved them. That’s how I learned my planets.
@Judith We had encyclopedias bought from a door to door salesman, too, when I was young. As newlyweds that was one of our first purchases and we also bought their set of art books. I kept those and still enjoy them.
I did that too, but I read the Childcraft set that we got when my folks bought the World Book Encyclopedia. Some books were more well read than others!
I read World Book and Childcraft also!
Black beauty, Enid Blyton series.
Pippi Longstocking close to 80 years ago and 75 years ago, Girl of the LimberLlost.
Pippi Longstocking, yes!! And A Wrinkle in Time, too!
Little House
Island of the Blue Dolphins
L. Frank Baum brought up here in Chittenango where they have OZ fest here every year
Charlotte’s Web.
I remember my mom reading The Wind in the Willows to my brother and I. My first “real” book that I can remember reading was “Heidi”.
The Hobbit
Oh my goodness! Yes! I read The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy when I was in high school in the 70’s. Loved them!
I read all the Tolkien books. Love the Hobbit.
The Westing Game. It’s when I first realized how much I love a good mystery!
To Kill a Mockingbird. I read it in 7th or 8th grade the first time, then had to read it again in high school.
Charlotte’s Web
Harriet the Spy and Little House in the Big Woods.
Anne of Green Gables, hands down.
Pokey little puppy
Caddie Woodlawn
LOVE Caddie Woodlawn. Did you know there’s a sequel? It’s called Magical Melons. Also . . . did you know that you can visit her house in Wisconsin? We unexpectedly discovered it one day while search for Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House in the Big Woods – they aren’t very far away from each other!
My childhood was a long time ago. I read the Bobsey twins and Hardy boys
I also read the Bobbsey Twins!
Narnia!
Box car children
Loved these
Teenage favorite: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
My favorite childhood authors were Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume. Oh, and I remember loving Charlotte’s Webb.
The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton
The Mouse and The Motorcycle series by Beverly Cleary
The Black Stallion, Little House on the Prairie series, or any Beverly Cleary book.
Little Women
The book i read to my children so many times,,shel silverstein’s The Giving Tree..
I read so much as a child it’s hard to pick! The Bobbsey Twins, Little House, anything by Beverly Cleary!!!
Peanuts for Billy Ben by Lois Lenski was the first chapter book I could read by myself. Her books have a special place in my heart.
Hands down Laura Ingalls Wilder “Little House” series especially The Long Hard Winter and On the Banks of Plum Creek.
Gone away lake by elizabeth enright
The Cat in the Hat
That was a LONG time ago.
The Secret Garden
Charlotte’s Web
So many favorites! Curious George, Madeline, Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, and anything by Judy Blume are just a few. 🙂
A Wrinkle in Time, Trixie Belden, Nancy Drew, anything by Dr. Seuss. So many years ago! lol
The Bobbsey Twins and all The Black Stallion Books.
I had forgotten about the Bobbsey Twins- loved those books
Kon Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl
Betsy and the Boys and that series! I read them all in the second grade. Loved them!!
Winnie the Pooh
Flash the Dash. LUAP. Has anyone else heard of these?
The Giving Tree
Little House in the Big woods
Elizabeth Enright’s series about the Melendy family, starting with “The Saturdays.”
There are so many including the Little House series, Misty of Chincoteague, Black Beauty, the Bobbsey Twins, Andrew Lang’s Fairy series, especially the Blue Fairy book, etc. etc. etc.
Loved the Bobbseys!
Nationa Velvet
Smokey, the Cow horse was a favorite I read several times as a fifth and sixth grader and the Margaret Henry horse,etc. stories were wonderful, too.
Where the RedFern Grows
Little House on the Prairie
Bobbsey Twins and later Little Women
Anything Enid Blyton
The Pokey Little Puppy
The Little House
The Secret Garden
The Little Princess
The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins
The entire Betsy-Tacy series
The Night Before Christmas
I never read these as a kid but we’ve been listening to them on audio with my eldest son, Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet, The River, Brian’s Winter, Brian’s Return, and now Brian’s Hunt.
As an adult I recommend Paulsen bi
Autobiography
Mrs Piggle-Wiggle and all the Patty Fairfield books that my great aunt bequeathed to me
I loved Mrs. Piggle Wiggle!! And how about “Where the Red Fern Grows” and “The Yearling”? And Black Beauty?
I loved Mrs. Piggies Wiggle so much that…..as an adult…. I sought out and purchased every book in the series.
My favorites
I read those to my daughter when she was younger.
Little Women, Heidi, My Friend Flicka, Royal Velvet….
The “magic” books by Edward Eager.
I loved those books growing up!!
@Elaine Yay! So glad to find someone else who likes them! They don’t seem to be very well known.
@Jean, I bought copies of them as an adult to share with my grandchildren when they’re ready to read. I was so happy when I saw your post!
I loved the Encyclopedia Brown books and Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIHM
Charlottes Web
Naya Nuki and The Witch of Blackberry Pond.
Too many favorites to list.
Me too!
The 500 Hats of Barthlomew Cubbins. My brother & I had our parents read us to it so much that my dad knew by heart into his 60s ? Also loved Barthlomew& the Ooblek.
I loved that book!!
I also read all of the Hardy Boys & Black Stallion books by Walter Farley
Here’s a book I loved as a young girl and can’t find anywhere: “The Princess With Rose-Colored Glasses.” Anyone else?
Anne of Green Gables, nothing else ever came close. But when I was in third grade our teacher read James and the Giant Peach and I adored it.
Buffalo Gal by Bill Wallace is one of my all time favorites.
The Narnia series (The Magician’s Nephew was the very first book I bought with my chores money – cost $7.00 in the 50s); The Lost Queen of Egypt by Lucille Morrison (1937) launched my on my archaeologist path. It’s now a collectible, but I was finally able to purchase a copy on eBay back before the prices skyrocketed.
Little Women
Nancy Drew for a series and Little Women for my ALL TIME favorite book ever
I, too, loved Nancy Drew! So much so that, as an adult, I revisited the series. Then I found that Mildred Wirt Benson was the true Carolyn Keene, who fell out with the Syndicate and started writing her own books. I bought all I could find on eBay, and they are far superior to Nancy Drew, in that the character substituted for Nancy Drew is not so annoying! 🙂 You might like Benson’s version!!
@Marilyn I’m going to have to look for them. Thanks!!!!
The Lion, The Witch snd the Wardrobe; the Little House books, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
loved the Little House series
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Anne of Green Gables!
Amelia Bedilia was good too!
My students loved those books!
My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George ❤️
My fifth/sixth graders just loved it and one of my fellow teachers knew how to make whistles and when the tree branches were just right he cut a lot and had his students make them as he came to that part of the book. Several times he came into my room and taught my kids how to do it during his planning period. Kids just loved him?. And the book!
My 4th grade teacher read it aloud and I was riveted. To this day, when in the woods, I’m still looking for a tree to move into.
I loved that book. Escapism at its best.
I must have read that book twenty times when I was a boy.
Where The Red Fern Grows! ?
A Wrinkle in Time
Charlotte’s Web and Caddie Woodlawn
Anything by Beatrix Potter. I still reread her books
Did you see the wonderful movie about her with Renee zellwenger
Not yet
@Laurie I did recently and learned so much I hadn’t known about her. Loved it!
Little Women
Movie.
Heidi and Old Yeller are 2 that come to mind when I think of the books I read when I was a child. Heidi was given to me as a Christmas gift from a favorite aunt. I still have it.
Oh, I forgot about the Little House on the Prairie series. Wonderful books!
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster is at the top of my childhood memories. I still think about it 30 plus years later.
Marjorie Morningstar by Herman Wouk
Wonderful book! The film with was great, too!
It depends on how you define childhood, but…
Monster at the End of this Book by Jon Stone when I was a very young kid in the 80s.
Robin Hood by Howard Pyle
Some of the King Arthur mythology – Sir Gawain got to me a bit, but I loved it.
My dad introduced me to The Raven and El Dorado by Poe when I was 10 or so, and Poe is still an obsession…
That is what comes to mind…
Also, I loved a book series – My Teacher is an Alien by Bruce Coville – probably should go back and read that one as I teach myself- wonder how many students think I am an alien….
Monster at the end of this book!!! I remember that one too!!
@Adrienne Great family favorite?
Mandy (Julie Andrews Edwards), Gone-Away Lake (Elizabeth Enright), From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (E.L. Konigsburg), I could go on and on….
The whispering rabbit(first book I could read by myself), wrinkle in time, chronicles of narnia and tales of a fourth grade nothing.
The House with the Clock in its Walls.
Anything by Judy Blume. I was a big Roald Dahl fan as well.
Charlotte’s Web
Ferdinand
Paddington
A Little Princess.
Little Women
King of the Wind!!!!!!
I already posted here but another favorite was Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
Little Women….still my absolute favorite of all time!!! Also loved Peter Pan!
Mine was Harriett the Spy
Charlotte’s Web
Also Stuart Little !
There are so many. The Little House books, Anne of Green Gables, and A Wrinkle in Time.
Gulliver’s Travels. I was in fifth grade and became enthralled with the power of sarcasm, and the permissibility of talking about civil injustice within a fantasy setting.
I know, I was a wise-ass kid.
Where the Red Fern Grows
The Borrowers, and Redwall series
OMG I love the Redwall series!!! Man I should reread those. I used to watch the show too
@Kelsey i had the map that showed almost all areas of all the books now I cant find it maybe if my grandson likes them as much as my son and i did we can make our own.
https://www.amazon.com/Redwall-Map-Riddler-Brian-Jacques/dp/0399232486 Gabrielle Malbrough
My husband and I hoped Wind in the Willows would be on the list because it is one of the most perfect books ever written.
I haven’t read it since childhood. Don’t know why I didn’t read it to my children and grandchildren. I need to reread it.
My Friend Flicka – and still read it occasionally.
Boxcar Children
And all of Nancy Drew – I’m still a huge mystery fan and she started it all
A Wrinkle In Time
The Ghost of Opalina by Peggy Bacon. It was a wonderful book that chronicled the 9 lives of a cat that spanned through many decades.
All of a Kind Family books..
The first chapter book that I read as a child was “Heidi” – loved it!
A Cricket in Times Square and Misty of Chincoteague!!
Little Women, Still my all time favorite
Charlotte’s Web
Read this as an adult and enjoyed it.
A tree grows in Brooklyn
Little women
Pygmalion
Old Yeller. Taught me to love to read. Still love dogs and still love to read.
All the books by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Little House series and horse-themed books by Walter Farley and Marguerite Henry. I work for American Girl and would have loved all of our historical character books if they had existed back in the 1970s!
My daughter just started the series. She loves them now too!
Black Beauty, Call of the Wild, and The Hobbit.
Harriet the Spy
Ramona the Pest
The Black Stallion series by Walter Farley
Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier
I loved A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I must have read a hundred times!
*Little Women*
Oh I forgot about the Ramona books!! Love!!
I LOVED those…and now my daughter does too.
found my Miss Minerva and William Green Hill today….My elementary teacher used to read it after lunch everyday…loved it…Old Yeller is a good one too.
A Little Princess, Frances Hodgson Burnett
Little Woman. Red Badge of Courage.
In elem. school I loved the book Twig about a little girl who lives in the city and wants to see a fairy visit her backyard….I read it to my girls and they loved it
Black Beauty
Little women ,lion ,witch and the wardrobe ,catcher in the rye,Steven King all of them but dark tower series was my all time fav ,Harry potter series
Searching for Shona——this is the first book that made me love reading!
Catcher In The Rye
Little House books, Charlotte’s Web, Black Beauty, Nancy Drew’s.
loved Black Beauty !
Hardy boys. I had older brothers so I read hand me down books. I never had Nancy Drew.
Mr Bass and the Mushroom Planet, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret
Watership Down was always a favorite. Read that and The Hobbit to my kids when they were old enough.
Little Women
My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George.
Mine too, Donna!
I’ve had the pleasure of reading it aloud to my two daughters and oldest grandson. I always wanted to be Sam. 😉
My sixth grade teacher read it to us. And many years later as an adult I met Jean George. What treasured memories!
The Absolute true Diary Of Part-Time Indian
The Wind in the Willows is still one of my favorites. I reread it on a regular basis.
The Gateway to Storyland. ❤️
Island of the Blue Dolphins, Perelandra trilogy, Mr. Bass and the Mushroom Planet.
Harriet the Spy, Island of the Blue Dolphins, Blubber (most all of Judy Blume’s books, for that matter).
Harriet the Spy, oh my gosh I’d forgotten. Loved this!
Me, too! Though I never kept a notebook like Harriet’s (read and learn…), reading this book—many times—was the beginning of my keeping a notebook…a habit I have almost 50 years later! Thank you, Louise Fitzhugh.
YES!!! Although i didn’t read it until I was 27 or so. Have 2 copies. A go-to book for me
My favorite childhood books were: Heidi, Tom Sawyer, & Treasure Island
The yearling……box car children
I dreamed of living in a boxcar with my three siblings like the book?
Me too
“The Quilt Makers Gift” my grandmother read this to me every night until i was 12. it is such a beautiful book with a very important lesson. MUST READ ?
Nancy Drew books. My mom gave me the ones she read to help her learn English language when she came to US from Poland
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and all the Laura Ingalls Wilder Little House…books
Anthony Buckeridge’s “Jennings” series. That was, until I was sent away to boarding school myself…
I found An Old Fashioned Girl so wonderful a read. Had no one to talk to about it though.
My grandmother would go to the second hand stores and buy grocery bags full of mysteries and westerns. I found Louis L’Amour and Hondo through her. She read every day after cleaning house. AND you did not bother her while she was reading!!
I have my mother’s copy of An Old Fashioned Girl. I loved it.
One of my favorites
Little House series!
Watership Down
Beatrix Potter; Heidi; Nancy Drew
“Piccoli” by Philippe Halsman, which I paid $400 for as an adult so my kids could have my favorite childhood book. Now it is priced at over $1,000. https://www.amazon.com/Piccoli-fairy-tale-Philippe-Halsman/dp/B0007E8OB6
Secret Garden, then A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
rereading wind and the willows now
The early years….1st grade….
The middle years….5th grade….
High School….
High School II….
College….
My favorite from adulthood.
A series of books by Elswyth Thane, called the Williamsburg Series.
Hadn’t thought of those in years. Enjoyed them back in the day.
I read them the first time when I was 11. For the last several years, I read them once a year, as a tradition, and because they bring up so many warm memories of reading them on summer days in a hammock in my grandma’s garden.
The Secret Garden. I read it when I was nine or ten and think of it every year as my garden comes back to life.
We read it in my 5/6 grade class then saw a film and did a compare/contrast exercise. There were actually three film versions and we critiqued them all. One portrayed the governess as a physically abusive person much harsher than the others. It created a very lively discussion. Kids love good triumphing over evil, but I didn’t do that ever again. I was upset!
The Little Prince. One of the few books I’ve read more than once.
Black Beauty, Charlotte’s Web, A Wrinkle in Time, Bridge Over Terabithia, Call of the Wild, books by Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume.
the lorax
Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, The Good Earth to name a few
Indian in the cupboard
I would rather see categories such as children’s books, young adults, adults etc. Disliked the emphasis of Vieira on “Vote, vote, vote!” Thought this was supposed to be a series, we could be seeing the backstory of these works–say each episode could have 6 books @ 10 minutes apiece. Glad books are being put forth, but it does not seem like much of a discussion or for that matter, a series.
Yes i thought they were going to do a show with story lines about each book 10 a night for the summer looks like i was wrong.
Agreed who needs the competition. Why not celebrate each book and author, and learn more about them. Next year do another hundred.
The Black Stallion!
I adored The Secret Garden when I first read it–and again when I read it aloud to my daughter. Still can’t believe it didn’t make this 100 list!
Agree!
Me, too. Son’s middle name is Colin
IKR?
My grandmother, who was born in 1900, gave me her 1911 first edition of this when I was nine. Beautiful book.
A Wrinkle in Time. My impression was entirely different than the recent movie. Meg was so much braver and it was so much more of an adventure. It was exhilarating to read.
Not going to see the movie. Saw it in my mind as I read it.
@Vicki I was excited to go and took my husband with. YIKES! It was totally “Oprahfied” and I had to explain that that was not at all like the book. He was totally underwhelmed. I would tell anyone not to go.
WATERSHIP DOWN and 100 YEARS OF SOLITUDE and THE CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES being my two favorites on the list.
How did A Wrinkle in Time NOT make the list? Or did it and I missed it?
My favorites were Little Women and The Secret Garden.
Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan is, to this day, the best book I ever had to read for school in 5th grade. I loved Harry Potter (as long as my mom was reading them to me haha), Because of Winn Dixie, and all of the Dear America/My America historical fiction books- especially the My America: Hope’s Revolutionary War Diaries 1-3
Call of the Wild. I read it so many times from elementary through high school. At least once a year, I took that trip to Alaska with Buck!
I loved that book…& White Fang
Mine were the Tolkien books
Robert Louis Stevenson
Science Fiction (Vonnegut, Ursula K. LeGuin, Philip K. Dick, Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, etc)
Anything by VC Andrews.
Incest?
I had Flowers in the Attic nearly memorized. I understand, and you are not alone.
But for children?
I wouldn’t recommend it to a child!! but I read it starting in like the 5th grade.
@Sharon Yes, that’s when I started reading them.
Ray Bradbury’s short stories are still some of my favorites. What a wonderful writer he was. May start rereading them soon.
We were going through our books, looking to make room for more books. My husband put into the giveaway pile an autographed copy of his short stories. You better believe I rescued that from the pile!
As was Issac Asimov, who also wrote speculative theological essays I discovered in seminary
Watership Down. Rereading it now reveals much more.
First read it in my 20s and then had to read all his…WD is in my top 10 fave books, one of my few re-reads!
Any book with a horse or a dog.
Wind in the Willows, Heidi, My Friend Flicka, Mr. Popper’s Penguins, Little House series, Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden series.
Lorna Doone
I think you’re the first to post Lorna Doone. I’d forgotten about it, but now I remember. I also loved it.
Loved it too!
Also truly loved reading A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute. Amazing story!
I had also forgotten Lorna Doone…it opened my world to classics
I never hear it mentioned so I’m glad to know others enjoyed it as well.
The Boxcar Children.
It wasn’t from my childhood, but I work in a nursing home and one of my residents is author Nancy McArthur. She wrote The Plant That Ate Dirty Socks, a series about two brothers who share their room with their pet plants. These books are clever and funny.
Little House on the Prairie and The Borrowers
I forgot the Borrowers. I loved them.
Loved Roald Dahl. Though Pig will stay with me forever and is not for kiddos, unless you want to pay for therapy.
A Wrinkle in Time!
A Wrinkle in Time, The Westing Game, and The Giver
Watership Down ?
Lassie Come Home…..love adventure drama grief trials success ‘dog’
The Yearling
To this day, I enjoy books in series. Some of my favorites from childhood are: Little House books, Chronicles of Narnia, Anne of Green Gables, Pippi Longstocking, The Great Brain, Encyclopedia Brown, The Borrowers and Babar.
I loved Pippi! Thanks for the reminder, I’ll have to order for our grandchildren!
Harriet the Spy and the Ribsy books by Beverley Cleary.
The Wind in the Willows is the one I miss the most from the 100 list. But the Odyssey of Homer (children’s version) had a profound effect me. Three of us boys (sometimes a 4th) would act out the Gods. And then there was Tom Swift Jr, and the Doctor Doolittle series.
Robinson Caruso, My Side of the Mountain, Little House in the Big Woods because my mother read it to me before I could read. And , Island of the Blue Dolphins.
I loved My Side of the Mountain!!! I also enjoyed Little House… Island, I is on my ‘will read list’.
I would read anything with animals, especially horses. Misty of Chincoteague or anything else by Marguerite Henry.
Did you read The Black Stallion books? Like you I read anything with horses.
@Donna I read all of Walter Farley’s books & loved them!
Yes. And The Incredible Journey and Born Free. I got hooked on Henry when my 3rd grade teacher read us Brighty of the Grand Canyon.
Oh my goodness, yes, loved Misty of Chincoteague!!
Mine was The Wizard of Oz, Little House on the Prairie, The Witch of Blackbird Pond.
King of the Wind
Man O’ War by Walter Farley.
Love Farley’s books!
Have not thought of these in years! I loved them as a child!
Can I mention two? *Black Beauty* (heads up, horse lovers!) and *Little Women*.
(I loved many books – I was quite the bookworm as a girl.)
Love both! When librarian would ask me what I like to read, it was always horses & girls! 🙂
Watership Down or The Yearling
esp The Yearling edition illustrated by NC Wyeth
Read these when I was older, in college, and loved them!
Loved all of Louisa May Alcott’s books, but Little Women was by far my favorite ?. I would open the book directly to Beth’s final chapter whenever I felt like I needed a good cry.
Black Beauty.
The little Bear series. Especially .. Little Bear goes to the Moon! Read them all to my boys when they were little, as well.
Read them to our children, and now to our grandchildren, they always love them!
@Heidi …i will be reading to my Grandson as well.
Little Women
Peterkin Papers, Uncle Remus stories (had a teacher who read them aloud in a great voice, can still hear her – we recently went to the town where Joel Chandler Harris grew up in Georgia and learned the true story behind the tales), Mary Poppins, Little House books, Misty series, Louisa May Alcott’s books, Charlotte’s Web……
Forgot about the Little House on the Prairie books, yes, read them all, loved them!
Charlotte’s Web is my favorite.
oh yes….Charlotte’s Web as a youngster. Little Women as a tween.
“A Wrinkle in Time”
Good choice, Steph Campbell
The Baby-Sitter Club was my favorite series as a kid. Anne of Green Gables was another favoriite.
I loved horses, so when my sister introduced me to the library I thought I had died and gone to heaven… two books stand out in my mind (and I still have them) My Friend Flicka by Mary O’Hara and the Album of Horses. (Old horse lovers never die, they just gallop away… lol)
I can’t remember the author’s name but she wrote many horse books that turned my daughter onto reading. Misty and King of the Wind were two of her books.
@Roberta, her name was Marguerite Henry. Loved her books and so did my older daughter.
@Melinda thank you! I knew it started with an M but that was it!? My daughter collected the Breyer horses too.
@Roberta, so did mine! I think they’re still in my garage… ☺
@Melinda half of them are in my closet the rest are in her home.?
We are in the same boat… or… barn… ?
@Melinda I read all of the horse stories in our elementary school library and drew horses constantly, then moved on to dog stories, but was terrible at drawing dogs! Then moved on to other stories in Jr. high.
Me too @Laurie…. and i collected Breuer horses… matter of fact I still have them. It’s wonderful that a love for horses turned me on to books and all the great authors. 😉
@Laurie darn spell check… Breyer 🙂
@Sue if you are like my daughter it also meant renting every horse related movie!
@Roberta I would have if I could have! Too long ago for that, but I watched every tv show with horses or dogs and old black and white films on the topic when I could!
@Roberta Yes, I was like that… in the 50’s there were lots of them… 😉 When I reached 23 I finally was able to satisfy my dream and bought a horse. Then I read every book out there on keeping one… lol
@Sue my daughter was renting an old half blind paint. On her 13th birthday the owner gave her the horse without our permission! We made her make up a budget for the monthly expenses for the horse. Shawnee was then given her trainer who in turn found a young family with horse property who could use a gentle horse for their young children. Living in Southern California, we couldn’t afford a horse.
@Sue A friend let me ride with her on her very gentle horse and I was so happy on those occasions, but as an adult I lived for a few years in a small town in California’s Central Valley where many homes were on an acre and had horses. That’s when I realized I might be allergic to them, which was verified later. My dream of owning horses but the dust☹️
@Roberta Nice resolution of that impossible situation.
Dr. Seuss’ Happy Birthday to You & The Velveteen Rabbit.
The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, and the series !
The Silver Skates
I also loved The Mouse and the Motorcycle.
Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret.
I liked Judy Blume’s books a lot and this was my favorite.
Thanks, yes, love the Judy Bloom books!
The Chronicles of Narnia.I read them as a child and at 54 I still love reading them
The Shoe Books, Phantom Tollbooth, Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys series
I fought with my sister’s over Nancy Drew books. Read everyone I could get my hands on.
Wow, yes, loved the Nancy Drew books, read them all, some several times over & over! 🙂
Did anyone else read the Judy Bolton Mystery series that predated Nancy Drew? They were my mothers. I found them in a trunk in the attic in the late 50s so I guess she read them in the 40s. I haven’t seen them in used book stores.
Haven’t heard of them. Definitely interesting. I still have my Nancy drew collection from the early 70s. ?
@Jules It was a definite girl detective series originally published between 1932 and 1967. I didn’t realize there were 38 books in the series, but I probably read a couple dozen.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judy_Bolton_Series
@Karen …. I am going to be on the lookout for some. This definitely looks like something I would have loved as a teen. Along a similar note, have you heard of The Happy Hollisters? I had a couple of their books in my elementary years. They were a family of amateur sleuths but what made the books different was that you needed a “secret decoder” device to read the print. (If I recall it was a red or maybe blue piece of plastic that you had to run over the print for you to read). Loved those books!
@Karen … https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Happy_Hollisters maybe it was only one book in the series that needed the decoder but it definitely made an impression on me.
@Jules Yes, I had some of the Happy Hollister books too, along with Trixie Belden, and Cherry Ames.
@Karen … and now you just gave me more to research! 🙂 Fun stuff!
I hadn’t heard of that series, but I loved the Trixie Beldon series that came after Nancy Drew.
I still have my Happy Hollisters books. I have most of the series. I don’t even know how many times I read them as a child.
@Terri … How wonderful! I know I treasure my old Nancy Drews.
_The Little Prince_
The story of Little Black Sambo. He wandered into a dangerous place, outsmarted the Tigers and brought home enough butter to have stacks of pancakes. A great story!
Love that story!!!!!
I still have a copy!
@Robyn Me, too!
We read that book too!
The book was changed to be more Politically Correct, I believe.
@Kathy That was unfortunate. When I was a little girl, he was a hero to me.
It was changed, and like the Uncle Remus stories which are no longer written in dialect, it’s a real shame. I think Little Black Sambo was a heroic character, especially to a little kid 🙂
I loved that book!
Harriet the Spy.
Heidi! (Johanna Spry) First real book I read. It was a gift from a family friend given to me when I was about 5. I tried reading it every year until I could master it. Next favorite, possibly Bambi by Felix Salten. Also love The
Little Prince, a favorite to this day. Read the whole book on my first flight to visit grandparents in Germany when I was 8. A poignant masterpiece!
I still read Heidi! At least every few months – that’s where I got my love for mountains, and wished I had a Grandfather.
I loved Shel Silverstein Books
The Velvet Room, The Mouse and the Motorcycle, The Borrowers, A Cricket in Times Square,
Nancy Drew series. I could go on, but I’ll stop here. ?
A Cricket in Times Square! How could I forget about that one?!
Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Long Winter was my favorite. It broke in half and I had to use a rubber band to hold it together!
Beverly Cleary and Ramona!!
Black Beauty
How could I have forgotten about this old friend. now I have to find it and read it again.
Hope you find it and enjoy!?
The Secret Garden
E.B White
The Heidi series. And The Black Stallion
I loved Heidi!
I loved the Black Stallion series..that was my first introduction to our local library and I read anything that had to do with horses… 🙂
Treasure Island and Jo’ Boys.
Secret Garden
I was picking lilacs yesterday and thought of that moment in the book when Dickon asks Mary somewhat incredulously: “Has’t tha never seen lilacs?”
Mr. Popper’s Penguins.
The Velveteen Rabbit, Black Beauty, Call of the Wild, Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe…
Anyone else going through these posts and making lists? ? ?
Yep ?
I used myGoodreads
My daughter loved and loves the Little House books. We would read 1-2 chapters a night starting when she was 4. Of course it helped that the tv series was so popular. I know now how to make a ”keylatch lock” and “dried cinnamon apple” . Such detail was sometimes tedious, but the descriptions of such hard winters and the ongoing grinding of wheat just to have bread really stuck with me. Reading to your children is such a joy.
yes
Kathy Martin I am currently reading Prairie Fires by Carolyn Fraser, which is a well written and thorough biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder. It discusses so much of the history of the areas in which they lived and traveled, adding a lot of context to the stories. It also discusses, as did Pioneer Girl, how Laura and her daughter Rose Wilder Lane (a newspaper reporter, editor and writer) edited the original manuscripts of the stories to make them readable, popular and to give some dignity to the poverty and deprivations they faced throughout the years
Prairie Fires was just awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Well deserved!
It is a terrific read, taking me a long time because I am savoring the history and descriptions
@Robyn Great to know. Will check it out.
Our 6 and 8 year old grandsons are reading the Magic Treehouse books, so many stories!
Mine did at that age, too! They were popular with some students of mine, too!
It was a library book that I checked out over and over titled Hubbles Bubble. I think it’s out-of print now.
Beauty & The Beast. First book to read in children’s library of a neighbor. Started my love affair with reading.
Loved it as a classic comic
Black Beauty and anything Nancy @Drew
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Barbara and Madeline, I made my Dad read them over and over. ?
Any book by Margaret Henry.
I loved the “Black Stallion” series by Walter Farley.
Yes. And I also loved Smokey by Will James
Also a “Touch of Greatness” and “Big Red” by C.W. Anderson. Those author/illustrators of early horse books were amazing!
The Boxcar Children books were my favorite as a kid!
I so wanted to run away so I could be a Boxcar Child. ?
KJV Bible; When I was in primary school, I didn’t know how much it would help me read and understand Shakespeare faster than other kids.
Little Women. Before chapter books it was Robert the Rose Horse.
Elizabeth Goudge : Little White Horse
I went through everything by Elizabeth Goudge. Pilgrims Inn and Green Dolphin Street are my favorites.
I am Sam by Lois Lowry
Try some Shakespeare, maybe a sonnet or two and then maybe Midsummer Night’s Dream (there are two great movie versions to watch after you’ve read and discussed the play – the older one with James Cagney as Bottom and Mickey Rooney as Puck, and the newer one – both are fun). My other favorites as a tween (used to read them with my mom) were Twelfth Night and The Tempest
Kenneth Brannaugh’s Much Ado About Nothing is very funny. My husband just yesterday was referencing a scene in it. I fell in love with Shakespeare as an insecure 13 year old who skipped 7th grade. Books and my best friend helped me with the transition.
@Roberta I love Kenneth Branagh’s Much Ado About Nothing, and all his Shakespeare movies! My mom used to love to spend weekend afternoons sewing and would have me read to her, starting when I was around 10 – and it was usually Shakespeare! When I got to high school and found that my classmates didn’t like Shakespeare’s plays, I couldn’t understand why!
The Borrowers series and Pippi Longstocking series
I loved Pippi Longstocking!
@Mary I love Pippi!!! I remember ordering the first book in her series from the Scholastic Book Club flyer. That was the only thing I looked forward to in school, getting that flyer!
@Sheri oh yeah!
@Sheri I loved book fairs so much I took over running the elementary school where my boys attended. We went from $300 to $30000 profit and 8% teacher participation to 100% in the first year. I loved connecting not just the kids but the teachers & parents. Noe my grandkids are in school & tomorrow afternoon I’m going over to their school’s Scholastic book fair.
@Mary I’m so glad the book fairs still exist. They meant a lot to me. Have fun tomorrow!
Watership Down, Little House on the Prarie, Chronicles of Narnia, and anything by Enid Blyton.
The Happy Hollisters series by Jerry West and Helen S. Hamilton.
During middle school childhood it was The Outsiders
Little Princess and Secret Garden
Harriet the Spy ?️♀️
Pinocchio ?, loved it, read it multiple times over the years. I just bought it again last week!!
Alice in Wonderland.
Anything by Beverly Cleary. Does anyone remember her?
I also read all the Nancy Drew books!
A Wrinkle in Time!