I was thinking recently about some books I've saved through many purgings of my bookshelf, a small collection that I'll probably save forever because I enjoyed them so much as a kid, and that I occasionally pick up and read again. These are beginning chapter books, usually in the hundred to two-hundred page range, and for a younger reading level than, say, Harry Potter.

When you were a child and were just learning to read chapter books, what were some books you enjoyed, read over and over again, and still think of today?

Top of my list is Tuck Everlasting. Even when I first read it and had no real sense of literary quality, the book struck me as very beautiful. It's definitely one I think of fondly. (Incidentally, I finally saw the movie that was made of it, and I'm pleased to say that it was wonderful, and didn't ruin the story like I was afraid it might.)

Let's see…I really enjoyed the animal stories by Dick King-Smith. My library had a few of them, including Babe (which is probably what he's best known for), and I checked them out quite a lot.

Then there were the Wayside School books, which (still) can't be beat for sheer silliness and cleverness.

How about you guys?

For me - none. Old duffer that I am, I will always be grateful to them for giving me the desire to read more and better books, but I don't want to go back to them.

(I will make an exception for "Where's My Cow?" if you think that it counts as a children's book)

I read too much to be able to remember anything specific (well, that's my excuse, anyway).

I do vividly remember that the first book I ever read was Alice in Wonderland though.

A while ago I was thinking about a set of animal books by one author that I used to read whose name I couldn't remember. Thanks for jogging my memory, MS!

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Beware of the flying giraffes.

Felix and Alexander- The book that kept me sane as a child. Alice in wonderland (and the others) and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Def not the hobbit though, couldn't abide that, lol.

Ooo. As a serial babysitter (he's five so it doesn't hurt him so much now) I read The wonderful wizard of oz. Honestly, it's as much like the movie as "Wicked" the book is similar to the play. For those who haven't seen or read either, they are nothing alike. (ugh) And it's a series. It's funny how some of my favorite kids books I didn't read as a kid. Since I still consider myself a kid as a teen, when I was 16 and reading "The princess diaries" I fell for meg cabot. Once again, why is the movie nothing like the book? Seriously. The book was hilarious. Her gran was a b, rhymes with witch.

Has anyone read the His Dark Materials Trilogy? The trailer looked terrible. I wonder if there is a series out there that didn't stem from the bible. (Narnia, Lord of The Rings, etc...) Seriously. : )

I still read Susan Cooper's 'Dark Is Rising Sequence'. The movie version looks like it is going to really kill the spirit of the books, though. Probably won't go see that.

Orange--out of curiousity, which did you like better, the books of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Wicked, or the movie and play?

I don't know about chapter books but one of my all time favorite children's book is a little golden book called "There's a monster at the end of this book"

where Grover off of Sesame street, attempts to convince the reader not to continue to turn the pages, because he is afraid of the monster at the end of the book. which ends up being him.

I still have a copy. I have to admit I believe it may have been why I like Mr. Fforde's stuff so much.

I like this books so much that I utterly despise the remake/sequel (there are two monsters at the end of this book) where they have Elmo in it with Grover, Elmo actually wants to get to the end of the book, which I think ruins it.

It's a book for kids too young for chapter but too old for baby books.

Hey! I had that book! lol.

I honestly can not remember what I was reading then. I do remember Biggles fondly though. :) and the Hardy Boys, but I remember nothing of them. Kipling was also good. I also remember a book about a black cat and a boy who could turn into i or something like that. Was a whole series. Need to re-read those. They were cool.

re: the trailer for HDM: I think they have the look of the world right, but am leery about the story, which I suspect will be ridiculously altered.

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'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

Oh, Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, definitely. And a Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys book on occasion. And Murder on the Orient Express, which was my first Christie, I think I first read it when I was 8 or so.

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Oh, I forgot one- Bridge to Terebithia. I still read that one occasionally. Has anyone seen the movie? What did you all think? (I haven't decided whether to lash out on the dvd or not as I haven't seen it)

JoeLibris Wrote:
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> I still read Susan Cooper's 'Dark Is Rising
> Sequence'. The movie version looks like it is
> going to really kill the spirit of the books,
> though. Probably won't go see that.


I remember seeing the trailer for that before HP5. Didn't strike my fancy, or my daughter's, either. I didn't find out until later that Christopher Eccleston (Doctor #9) is in it, and was supposedly part of the trailer, but I didn't recognize his voice or see him in it or it might have gotten a better response from the two of us as we watched the trailer.

I loved the monster at the end of this book. Grover was my favorite. "No! No! Don't turn the paaaage!"

The Wind in the Willows - my dad read that to me when I was very small. I re-read it every couple years. Also Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn. Little Women. (My mom and I still cry when Beth dies. Every single time. And I can't tell you how many times we've read it.)

I tried to read a Nancy Drew book the other day but it didn't hold up as well as I expected it to. Trixie Belden though, she is still cool...

There was this series of books about twins that my library had that I used to love to read. They were written in the 1900s; I'm still amazed that the library hadn't gotten rid of them. I must have been the only kid to check them out in decades. They were cool, though.
I also liked the Pippi books, the Noisy Village books, Nancy Drew, and a series of "biographies" written for kids. Those, I found when I grew up, played really loose with facts.
Oh, and The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

My husband does a great job of reading There's a Monster at the End of this Book.
We also found a copy of the remake, and we agree: adding Elmo ruined it.

Has anybody read Don't Let Pigeon Drive the Bus!? (It's a picture book, not a chapter book.)

OisnottheNP, interesting that you describe LOTR as biblical. I would agree with you about Narnia: as would just about everyone including C.S. himself.
Certainly JRR being a devout Catholic will have coloured his writing, but do you see a connection, other than a fight between Good and Evil, which would ring (sorry) in most fantasy, a huge chunk of science fiction, quite a few thrillers and virtually all westerns...............once again a genuine query, not a wind-up. I'm interested.

And if you count The Bromeliad, Alice and the Tiffany Aching books as children's then I suppose I had better retract my earlier statement and say those.

Hang on, I just realised... The re-made it with ELMO???
Urgh.

Yeah. Pretty much. Grover's still there, but they added Elmo.

Two of my early favourites were Flat Stanley and The Tiger Who Came To Tea (which I still find charming). As I got older, I became fond of boarding school stories and the Saddler's Wells series, and also the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. Also Five Children & It, Narnia, etc. I moved on to classics and adult books pretty early though... but most of my childhood books are ones that I still have quite a fondness for, in the right situation. Who hasn't reached for one of their old books when feeling down or stuck in bed with the flu? :-)

I had no idea A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was a book! I was just in Brooklyn Botanical Gardens a week ago and they had t-shirts all over with that on...

I read the babysitters club, (until I walked into a books store and saw there where over 100 of those books, kinda quit reading them after that) I still remember that Stacey is a diabetic and that Mallory had 11 siblings...and that is why I don't re-read much.

I read Animorphs until the ending, (that horrible, horrible ending)I felt so sad for Tobias. his life sucked. son of an alien that never got to have a family and then gets stuck as a red-tailed hawk. oh and then your girlfriend dies right before the writer leaves you in the middle of a showdown.

before that the box cart children, and the create your own adventure series (which I would usually end up reading all the different endings.)