We couldn't bear to part with Meg and Mog, so they're all still snugly sitting in DD's room. Our favourite was 'Owl at School' - DS' favourite was Titch and DD's was Barney. I, myself, always preferred Owl: he had such a dry sense of humour. ;->
Some of my childhood favourites were 'King Solomon's Mines', 'Alan Qatermain', 'Swiss Family Robinson', 'Robinson Crusoe', 'Bring 'Em Back Alive', 'Tales of the Greek Heroes' and (last but best) 'Lorna Doone'. I
*love* that story! I wish they'd put the version on Oz TV where Sean Bean plays evil Carver Doone. He gives great seethe, does Sean!
I totally understand this. My mom also gave same said cousins my 45 collection - though I do believe I managed to intercede and demand them back. I don't know why she did these things, although I suspect she felt very close to her 1st cousin (their mom was only about 12 years older than my mom & I'm sure they all grew up together, with my mom's cousin likely about 10 yrs younger than my mom). Infamously, she also gave the first daughter a tiny baby bangle bracelet that had been given to me at my first birthday by my grandmother. I never managed to get that back either.
Exactly - probably for me why I horde books! If she had asked me, then I could've decided what to go versus not. But giving away gifts I had received wasn't such a good thing. I sometimes wonder if part of this was because my DM and I were quite different in many ways, and my teen years, especially with leaving home so young, were stressful to her. Who knows. Net result, both DH & I are hoarders.
I had the whole Nancy Drew & Hardy Boys series from well before I was born. Then the "Cherry Ames" - nurse series which was written in the 40s, IIRC, butmy copies were hardbacks from the 60s, same with the Bobbsey twins. My
2nd cousin who was in nursing school when I was about 7 or 8 was driven crazy by my Cherry Ames fixation - asking her stupid questions about customs that were in those books - but of course no longer in practice. I think my DA, the then Chief Surgical Resident at local hospital was also driven crazy by this.
I would read and re-read all those books. Intersprersed with the Walter Farley "Black Stallion" series and all related books. And a lot of archaelogy books (my other fixation).
Some messages ago I saw Pride and Prejudice mentioned. For real fans, like myself, may I recommend two books. Lions and Liquorice - P&P set in the 1990's with pretty well all of the sexes reversed. e.g. two rich and powerful women fall in love with two comparatively poor gentlemen. Also, D'Arcy's Story - P&P told from D'Arcy's point of view.
I also have not seen mentioned Edith Nesbitt. Harding's Luck was one of the first books I remember reading avidly as a child, and who could forget The Railway Children - twice made into a film.
I'll second Cheryl's suggestion. It's a trilogy, iirc. A young adult author I like is Melissa Marr, author of "Wicked lovely" and "Ink exchange", where a human girl gets involved with today's fairy world. "Ink exchange" is darker than WL.
If you want more adult-oriented and don't mind a long series (iirc there are 13 books), Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series is really good, although not a modern setting. The first one is "Wizard's first rule". Evidently it was made into a tv series and I have Netflix watching for it, but it evidently hasn't yet come out on dvd.
And then, of course, there's the Twilight series (vampire/human love story) by Stephenie Meyer. Not into vampires? She's also written an adult novel, "The host", about aliens, of sorts, that's very good.
Oooh - I loved the Railway Children and have the copy on the bookcase beside me. I especially loved the film with Jenny Agutter. Also have The Book of Dragons by E. Nesbitt.
Other childhood favorites - The Secret Garden, all the Little House on the Prairie books, the Bobbsey Twin books and the Five Little Peppers. I loved Thomasina (the cat) - made into a Disney film with with Patrick McGoohan and The Snow Goose, both by Paul Gallico. I also recall really liking the White Colt by David Rook - it was made into a film called "Run Wild Run Free" with Mark Lester of "Oliver" fame. I still have all my Winnie the Pooh books and even still have my stuffed animals from the early 1960's (not the Disney-fied ones out there now). As a teenager I read many Zilpha Keatley Snyder books such as The Velvet Room and The Egypt Game.
Has anyone tried the James Patterson series about Maximum Ride, the genetically modified winged child? Fabbo stories and DS is reading them and loving them right now.
Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Cherry Ames, Trixie Belden...I remember one summer, a neighbor who had the whole original set of 30s or 40s-era Bobbsey Twins from her own youth let me borrow them, one at a time. Each day I'd go collect one, read it, and return it the next morning. This woman had a daughter my age who had ZERO interest in reading - she was a real "tomboy."
In fourth or fifth grade I discover Albert Payson Terhune and his dog books - read them all. "Lad a Dog," etc. On the next street over, some years back a neighbor got a collie and they named it "Treve." She was astounded when I said, "Yes, it has to Treve before it can Re-Treve, Albert Payson Terhune said." Her husband was a big APT fan, and she'd never heard of this author and thought her husband was a little looney, perhaps. Her jaw dropped when she met a SECOND person who "got" it!
Thanks for the reminder, Trish! We have the first one and I forgot to put it on my "books to read" document. I didn't realize it's a series...must ask the bibliographer who orders children's books to check into that!
One of my favourite re-reads is always the Lord of the Rings - you always seem to find something you never really noticed before - or just forgot - I read it about every threee years.
The Mary Stewart books about Merlin from bastard son of a Roman general and Welsh slave, through to old age draw me in every few years, too - lovely read. (The Crystal Cave, The Hollow Hills, and The Last Enchantment). Here`s the write-up from Amazon which sums it up:-
"I've read the Merlin Trilogy by Mary Stewart many times over the years and have always found it magical and truly enchanting. Mary Stewart has woven a "realistic" tapestry of dark age Britain using Merlin as the central character to tell most of the Arthurian saga from a different point of view. Was Merlin a magician? Perhaps, but he was more than that; a doctor, engineer, philosopher and creator of a future. All this could seem like magic to early Britons and Mary Stewart does indeed give Merlin some real magic. Above all else, this is a romantic story, the story of a boy searching initially for his father and in doing so becoming entangled in a story bigger than himself, bigger than his desires and as big as the landscape Stewart weaves. Get it, read it, love it... I guarantee you will return to it again and again."
The Wicked Day is another excellent follow-on to the trilogy. In fact now I`ve remembered them I think I`ll spend all my Amazon vouchers (earned from doing surveys!) on replacing my now rather battered copies!
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