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gurdymonkeyPicking up from the last thread, because I spent part of the afternoon roaming around a bookstore trying to find something decent to read. Granted, my father lobbed a lot of Great Classics Of Litrachure at me whenever I seemed bored and I was attacking Dickens 900-pagers when I was nine. Dickens, the Brontes, Mr. Clemens and so forth are worthies, of course, but this is the stuff I was running to the library for as a kid and a teen.
Mary Stewart's Merlin series. I read and reread and reread The Crystal Cave and The Hollow Hills over and over and over.
T. H. White's The Once And Future King too.
Mary Renault's Greek novels.
The juvenile works of Robert Heinlein and some of the not so juvenile works of Heinlein - before he turned into a completely insufferable and pompous ass. If Harry and his classmates had read The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress they'd've rebelled against the tyrranical Umbridge a good 80 pages sooner.
Ursula K. Leguin's Earthsea Trilogy, The Left Hand Of Darkness, The Lathe of Heaven.
C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia.
E. L. Konigsburg. From the Mixed Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Won the 1968 Newberry award. It's like The Da Vinci Code for kids. I've been trying to think of ways to dodge security for an overnight stay in one of my favorite museums for decades now because of this one.
Elizabeth Enright. The Saturdays. Four very bored children come up with a plan not to be bored: pool their allowances so that each Saturday a different sibling gets to spend the money doing something special.
Howard Fast. April Morning. Lexington and Concord, 1775. Also Freedom Road on the Reconstruction after the Civil War.
Can't remember the author. I think the title was To Spit In The Wind, and it was about Thomas Paine.
(Oh, good another oldie that you can find thanks to the internet!)
William Mayne. Earthfasts.
James Thurber. The Thirteen Clocks. For when you're in the mood for something silly.
Josephine Tey. The Daughter of Time.
Michael Crichton. The Andromeda Strain. Borrowed this one form Mom. I was twelve. I had a technical science question she couldn't answer. I wrote to the author. He wrote a very nice letter back, answering my question. (This was before The Terminal Man had even come out.) To this day I am kicking myself that we lost the letter during a move.
The following were discovered much later in life, but I think they would've qualified just as much:
Phillip Pullman's Dark Materials trilogy.
Lois McMaster Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan series. Condemned by a prenatal chemical attack to being frail and physically odd looking, Miles decides not to let his shortcomings get in the way of doing what needs to be done. Not your average hero, this one. Start with The Warrior's Apprentice. If you like that one, then you can decide whether you want to read the rest of them chronologically.
Salman Rushdie's Haroun And The Sea Of Stories. I saw it lying on a table at Dad's, thought the title was absolutely wonderful. He lent it to me when he was done. The story is even better than the title. Read this one aloud to your kids if they're not old enough to read it themselves. Absolutely magical in all the best senses of the word.
What, no Tolkein, you say? I read it as a kid. I liked it well enough then. I tried reading it again right around the time the first of the Peter Jackson films came out, got most of the way through Fellowship and got bored with Tolkein's writing style. It just doesn't work for me any more, so I'm not going to pretend that it does.
Mary Stewart's Merlin series. I read and reread and reread The Crystal Cave and The Hollow Hills over and over and over.
T. H. White's The Once And Future King too.
Mary Renault's Greek novels.
The juvenile works of Robert Heinlein and some of the not so juvenile works of Heinlein - before he turned into a completely insufferable and pompous ass. If Harry and his classmates had read The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress they'd've rebelled against the tyrranical Umbridge a good 80 pages sooner.
Ursula K. Leguin's Earthsea Trilogy, The Left Hand Of Darkness, The Lathe of Heaven.
C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia.
E. L. Konigsburg. From the Mixed Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Won the 1968 Newberry award. It's like The Da Vinci Code for kids. I've been trying to think of ways to dodge security for an overnight stay in one of my favorite museums for decades now because of this one.
Elizabeth Enright. The Saturdays. Four very bored children come up with a plan not to be bored: pool their allowances so that each Saturday a different sibling gets to spend the money doing something special.
Howard Fast. April Morning. Lexington and Concord, 1775. Also Freedom Road on the Reconstruction after the Civil War.
Can't remember the author. I think the title was To Spit In The Wind, and it was about Thomas Paine.
(Oh, good another oldie that you can find thanks to the internet!)
William Mayne. Earthfasts.
James Thurber. The Thirteen Clocks. For when you're in the mood for something silly.
Josephine Tey. The Daughter of Time.
Michael Crichton. The Andromeda Strain. Borrowed this one form Mom. I was twelve. I had a technical science question she couldn't answer. I wrote to the author. He wrote a very nice letter back, answering my question. (This was before The Terminal Man had even come out.) To this day I am kicking myself that we lost the letter during a move.
The following were discovered much later in life, but I think they would've qualified just as much:
Phillip Pullman's Dark Materials trilogy.
Lois McMaster Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan series. Condemned by a prenatal chemical attack to being frail and physically odd looking, Miles decides not to let his shortcomings get in the way of doing what needs to be done. Not your average hero, this one. Start with The Warrior's Apprentice. If you like that one, then you can decide whether you want to read the rest of them chronologically.
Salman Rushdie's Haroun And The Sea Of Stories. I saw it lying on a table at Dad's, thought the title was absolutely wonderful. He lent it to me when he was done. The story is even better than the title. Read this one aloud to your kids if they're not old enough to read it themselves. Absolutely magical in all the best senses of the word.
What, no Tolkein, you say? I read it as a kid. I liked it well enough then. I tried reading it again right around the time the first of the Peter Jackson films came out, got most of the way through Fellowship and got bored with Tolkein's writing style. It just doesn't work for me any more, so I'm not going to pretend that it does.
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Date: 2007-07-16 10:17 am (UTC)I enjoyed the Narnia books as a kid, but now, most especially in The Last Battle, I feel like I'm being beated over the head by the allegories. Just can't stomach it anymore.
E. L. Konigsburg. From the Mixed Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler--I STILL love this book!
Pickwick Papers is my favorite Dickens book. I think Sam Weller is my favorite literary character ever.
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster is a gem.
I read all of Louisa May Alcott's work that I could get my hands on. I read Little Women when I was six.
The Little House books.
The Never Ending Story by Michael Ende. I was devastated when I reached the end of this book. I didn't want the experience to end because I knew I would never again have the opportunity to read this book for the FIRST time. And I was an adult when I read it! I actually forced myself to read it slowly to make it last longer.
Silverlock by John Myers Myers. The story of a Chicago man stranded on The Continent, and his encounters with just about every famous character in literature. It's exquisite. My favorite book ever.
My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George.
And of course, Grimm's Fairy Tales and 1,001 Arabian Nights.