What were some of your favorite books before the age of 16 or so?
Asked by
efritz (
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November 2nd, 2010
What were your favorites throughout childhood, adolescence, early teens? I’m trying to think of a book to illustrate a cover for a class exercise and I don’t have access to my bookshelf at home . . . also I’m curious.
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33 Answers
Well honestly I didn’t really read back then, I was too busy playing video games.
But now I read and I love books like Percy Jackson, The Kane Chronicles, Harry Potter. I guess these are books for adolescence / teens.. I’m 28 so maybe I am making up on lost time.
I remember one book very well but I don’t remember the author. The title was Autobiography of a Grizzly. Obviously, it was a wilderness story about a grizzly bear.
Michael Moorcock’s Elric saga. Okay, might as well just say Eternal Champion saga because I’m pretty sure I read them all. Jerry Cornelius included.
This has been my answer to just about every book question on here, but I’ll go ahead and say it again: Perks of Being a Wallflower
The Oz books, Heidi, Cherry Ames, Nurse series, a book I am having trouble remembering, but it was about a pianist (Jon Christoff or something like that) , and there was the childhood of great American series that had silllouettes as illustrations. Gone with the Wind. Also, Hemingway, Anderson. I’ll keep thinking of more.
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All the Oz books, all the Heinlein books, everything by Edgar Rice Burroughs, all the Dr.Doolittle books, stuff like that. Reality never had a strong hold on me in childhood, I guess. Oh, and Trixie Belden and Nancy Drew.
A Fairy to Stay by Margaret Beatrice Lodge
Alice in Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There both by Lewis Carroll
Watership Down by Richard Adams
Cat’s Cradle‘s_Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
Robinson Crusoe…...only read it on a Friday though ;¬)
Treasure Island
James & the Giant Peach
Lord of the Flies
Kipling’s Just So stories
My favorite book from childhood (and one I still love) is called Mandy and it’s credited to Julie Edwards, who is actually Julie Andrews from the Sound of Music. She’s written a number of books for young people. You can check out Mandy here
This particular book was about a young girl of about age 10, living in an orphanage. She discovers an abandoned, but very sweet cottage, on the other side of the wall from the orphanage. Of course she’s not supposed to be over there, but she ends up tending to the little cottage, cleaning it and planting flowers and shrubs, making it her own. One day, she goes to the cottage and it starts to rain and she becomes ill and disoriented. The orphanage Matron reports her missing, and only the “tattling” of her roomate gives a suggestion as to where she might be found. Of course the cottage is owned by a young married couple with a son about Mandy’s age. The Father goes out looking for her and you can probably figure out how it ends up, but I read and re-read that book many times when I was a kid.
Another great book that I read in Elementary School was called The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright. It’s about a group of independent siblings who decide to pool their allowances so that each one of them, on subsequent Saturdays can enjoy a really grand adventure, rather than just sitting at home trying to figure out how to acquire a bigger allowance. This book was great fun to read. You can see a better synopsis here(novel)
Oh, and Lord Valentine’s Castle by Robert Silverberg.
Another Fine Myth by Robert Asprin
Xanth series by Piers Anthony, which I quickly grew out of
Spellsinger series by Alan Dean Foster
And, of course, The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings
I loved The Chronicles of Narnia
Also partial to historical novels for kids, such as “Johnny Tremaine,” “The Witch of Blackbird Pond,” and “Island of the Blue Dolphins.”
@perg I totally forgot about the Island of the Blue Dolphins. That is one of the best books of all time for children or adults. As I recall, there was also a pretty good made for TV movie based on the book. Oh look I found it on Amazon here
Aesop’s fables when I was a little girl,The Wind in the Willows,Huckeberry Finn,The Scarlet Ibis,Of Mice and Men,The Catcher in the Rye were a few I liked growing up. I still love those books :)
I read a lot of Stephen Kind back in those days. I almost always had a Stephen King novel with me from when I was about 12 until I was 17.
My absolute favorite book as a kid was The Giving Tree. I also liked theHardyBoys/Nancy Drew. Also Little House, all other books by Shel
Silverstein. All Ann McCaffery,
all Peirs Anthony, Tolkein… I
also loved the Narnia series,
basically almost all that was
written on paper and kept in a library! ;0)
Everything by Joan Aiken:
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase
Arabel’s Raven
The Giver Lois Lowry
A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver E.L. Konigsburg
Everything by Sharon Creech:
Walk Two Moons
Chasing Redbird
And of course, Judy Blume never goes out of fashion.
@GracieT How could I forget about the Little House books? I think the 2 best ones were Little House in the Big Woods and Farmer Boy (about Laura Ingalls Wilder’s husband’s childhood).
Judy Blume, Manchild in the promised Land and stories by the Brothers’ Grimm (Grimm’s Fairy Tales)
I remember reading Emil and the Detectives. I also liked Enid Blyton
Narnia series
Dune series
I found both Tolkien and King when I was in sixth grade. I never could go back to Dick and Jane after that.
I also read a series of books about a family of detective kids called The Happy Hollisters before that.
@Blondesjon : The Happy Hollisters? Really? I loved them! I refused to date a guy in college because his name was Joey Brill. Too many negatives for me in that name…
@JilltheTooth . . . I know. What a crewcutted little dick.
I was in love with Pam forever but I think in real life Holly and I would have been more compatible.
Where the Wild Things Are
Thirteen Ways to Sink a Sub
Fudge
Superfudge
Oh, did anyone mention Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?
@Blondesjon – Ah!! My dad pressed his copies of “The Happy Hollisters” on me . . . shoulda known I was going to be a hipster when I grew up, I thought I was so much cooler than the kids with “Goosebumps” or “Babysitters Club”.
@Kardamom – any and all Roald Dahl.
Since I’m under 16, I’ll just name my current favorites.
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
Every Harry Potter book.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Looking For Alaska by John Green
It’s Kind Of A Funny Story by Ned Vizinni
@lawlipop, serious proprs for Perks, House of Leaves, and Looking for Alaska… those are three of my favorite books.
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