Top 10 Tuesday was created by The Broke and The Bookish in June 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.
This week’s topic asks us to list our “Childhood Favorites.”
I loved making this list! If I’d have had more than ten spots, I could have kept listing book after book after book, especially since “childhood” spans such a variety. Here are just a few of my favorites, from when I was young:
The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams Bianco
This was one of my favorite books as a kid and is still one of my favorite books as an adult. I love how beautiful, whole-hearted, and sad this story is. I love the meaning and the lesson behind this story, and most of all I love what it says about beauty and love.
My favorite quote: “It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
When I asked my mom what my favorite books were as a child, this is the one she mentioned first. It’s a classic! I only have a few memories of being read this, but I know it was read to me hundreds of times. The warmth that swells up in me just thinking about this story is a whole and happy feeling. I love thinking about how many children in the world love this book, were read this book, think about this book and feel good. How sweet.
The Monster at the End of This Book by Jon Stone
Haha this book was so fun! I remember being so excited and anxious as my parents would read this book to me, just waiting to see the monster at the end! Even after I already knew what it was. This was such a fun and creative book for kids who get so into the emotionality of it, and I smile every time I think about this book existing. It’s so silly and entertaining. And who doesn’t love Grover??
The Lorax by Dr. Seuss
Hahaha I made my parents read me this book so often that I had it memorized pretty quickly. I always had one complaint though and that was that the barbaloot bears, that cared for the truffula trees, were called…barbaloot bears. Why not something that rhymes with their beloved trees, Dr. Seuss? My young self immediately renamed them “gruffula bears” and insisted that the reader make those changes every night. Still makes me laugh today!
The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling
What kid, alive when these were released, wouldn’t have these on their list? I don’t know, but I loved them. I turned 11 the year that Harry turned 11 (or when the book was released, yes I know he was technically born in 1980), I felt like I was a part of those worlds as they happened and I am so lucky to have witnessed this cultural phenomenon from such a special vantage point. I haven’t reread them in a long time but maybe I’m overdue for another. These characters felt like my family for so long and I will always treasure them.
The Daughters of the Moon Series by Lynn Ewing
Oh, man! This was the first series I remember being obsessed with entirely on my own. I would scrape together enough money and rush over to the local Borders (raise a glass!) to get one of these, rush home and then absolutely devour them before turning right back around to get the next one. I loved these. I’ve read them again in adulthood and there’s something missing there now, but at the time these were so fun and magical and dramatic. I was especially fond of Serena and Jimena (the name I actually used in Spanish class), though Tianna eventually grew on me a little. All in all, this series has its ups and downs, but man they made me happy for a long time. I’ll always think of them fondly.
Mick Harte was Here by Barbara Park
I was a weird kid and this is one of the clues to that weirdness. I loved reading about tragedies that I could not fathom! In fact, I purposefully only added one of these, but there were a handful of books I loved as a young teen that talked about the most horrible things. Mick Harte was Here was about losing a child in a car accident and I was horrified and somewhat obsessed with this book when I first found it at a Scholastic Book Fair (aww, remember these!). I think that, even from a young age, I was seeking out reasons to feel the intensity of emotion that I do, and also trying to understand why horrible things happened. I still don’t know, all these years later, but how interesting to look back on these quirky favorites.
The Ghost of Fossil Glenn by Cynthia C. DeFelice
This was the first book that I can vividly remember keeping me up at night with the closet light on. It was so spooky!! Maybe this was an early clue that I might one day enjoy scary movies, but I loved this book and it sparked a long, long exploration into a completely new genre for me. I’ve read this again as an adult and, while obviously it’s geared toward the young, I still enjoyed the story a lot! Ah, memories.
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
Oh my God, I have the fondest memories of reading these in groups of friends with all of the lights out. We scared the hell out of each other with these stories! And we loved it. Slumber parties, recess, a dark corner at the skating rink, in theatre between scenes, kids had these books everywhere for years it felt like. These were really a phenomenon for that generation, I’d be surprised if a lot of people didn’t have similar memories of scary moments with their friends. What’s crazy is that a few of these stories and drawings have still stuck with me for all these years, I remember them so clearly. Can’t wait to see the movie coming out this year!
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
There was only one shelf in my house of books that I ‘wasn’t supposed to read until I was older’ and this one accidentally ended up on that shelf somehow. It was fate! If it hadn’t been on that shelf, I wouldn’t have oh-so-stealthily taken it off that shelf to read, and then I wouldn’t have found the first fantasy world that I fell into and never returned from. The Hobbit is still one of my favorite books of all time and it started my Tolkien love affair.
Which books did you love as a child?? Tell me about it in the comments!
Story-eyed Reviews 