Jump to content

Books You Loved As A Child-Say 10 And Under


Gar1eth
This topic is 1207 days old and is no longer open for new replies.  Replies are automatically disabled after two years of inactivity.  Please create a new topic instead of posting here.  

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 98
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, Peter Rabbit, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Hobbit, The Chronicles of Narnia, Half-Magic and Magic or Not? by Edgar Eager, The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder, Jennifer, Hecate, William Mc Kinley and Me, Elizabeth by E.L. Konigsberg, Nancy Drew and Sherlock Holmes.

 

(Based on books I know I read before junior high.)

The Egypt Game! I haven’t thought of that in years...I loved that book. Also The Headless Cupid (also by her) and those John Bellairs gothic horror novels with the Edward Gorey illustrations! (The Curse of the Blue Figurine; The Mummy, the Will and the Crypt; etc).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I also remember a year later when they got their first copy of International Nudist Review. High def color pics and a star on the plastic over the penis. I always tried to nudge the plastic and when I finally did I got one of the biggest shocks of my life: a "penis" that looked like a brown carrot. I had never seen an uncircumcised penis and it may have been my obvious shock that caused the newstand to move that magazine behind the counter. Or maybe they ran out of stars.

ought I was a slow-learnwe

 

I think the first time I saw an uncircumcised tallywacker was in junior high around 7th or 8th grade. Most of the people in my neck of the woods were circed. But while I can't remember it now as it was 44 years ago, I can remember remembering, if you know what I mean. I'm sure there was one guy in my PE class who wasn't.

 

But what your story for some reason put me in mind of -when I was 5 or 6 someone invited us to swim at a membership only pool. Some adult guy that knew the family we were with came over and started talking to the adults. Well the guy had a shaved head. I don't remember ever having seen someone totally bald at this point in my life. I remember circling around him as if I were the moon, and he were the sun searching for some hair on his head. :p

 

Gman

Edited by Gar1eth
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Anyone ever read "Follow My Leader" by James B. Garfield? I think one of my older brothers got it from the Scholastic Book Club. It was in our bookcase since before I could read. It's written in a very typical mid-century, middle America, middle class perspective that was typical of pretty much every book, movie, and TV show of that era. Like most of the books in our little bookcase I must have read it a few dozen times. It was a very plainly-told, oversimplified story of a boy who is blinded in an accident and gets a guide dog.

 

51GnwDOJMoL._SX349_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes! I'd thought it was called "Leader, A Dog". Now that I have my own dog, I often remember the part where the blinded boy and his new dog went with some friends to the park. He let the dog out of the leader harness and (paraphrasing from memory) "Leader could just be a regular dog, not a leader dog, for a moment. Then they took his collar off and he could be just a dog."

 

Do they still do the Scholastic Book sales in schools? I was beginning to become a voracious reader, and the first time I got the brochure, I marked down every book. My mom saw where this would go and put a 3-book limit (did they come monthly? Time was a vague concept for me at that age). I agonized over which books I had to get, and when I turned in the form, my teacher got a chuckle out of seeing all the erased check marks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes! I'd thought it was called "Leader, A Dog". Now that I have my own dog, I often remember the part where the blinded boy and his new dog went with some friends to the park. He let the dog out of the leader harness and (paraphrasing from memory) "Leader could just be a regular dog, not a leader dog, for a moment. Then they took his collar off and he could be just a dog."

 

Do they still do the Scholastic Book sales in schools? I was beginning to become a voracious reader, and the first time I got the brochure, I marked down every book. My mom saw where this would go and put a 3-book limit (did they come monthly? Time was a vague concept for me at that age). I agonized over which books I had to get, and when I turned in the form, my teacher got a chuckle out of seeing all the erased check marks.

 

I loved the Scholastic Book Club. I think it started for us in the 4 th grade. What an exciting day when the books arrived, and the teacher passed them out. I think I remember being upset when my 7th grade reading teacher didn't participate when other reading teachers did.

 

Gman

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What about Mrs Piggle-Wiggle? The old woman who always had a trick for the kids in the neighborhood who had bad habits? One story sticks out in my mind, a boy with horrible table manners, and Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle loaned the family her pet pig who had impeccable table manners. Then the mother served bacon for breakfast...

What about Mrs Piggle-Wiggle? The old woman who always had a trick for the kids in the neighborhood who had bad habits? One story sticks out in my mind, a boy with horrible table manners, and Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle loaned the family her pet pig who had impeccable table manners. Then the mother served bacon for breakfast...

 

I remember vaguely that the pig was looking forward to the meal, realized the meal was pork, and possibly left the table, but indicated to the child that he shouldn't say anything to the mother.

I randomly remembered another book I quite liked at the time:

 

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

 

I enjoyed that book. But I think I first knew it before reading it myself thru story time at school. We either heard an audio tape, or the teacher read it to us.

 

For years I thought E. L. Konigsburg was male. Another one of her books that I as loved as a child was About the B'nai Bagels. The protagonist's baseball team loses a coach. And his mother becomes the new coach. Hilarity ensues.

 

E.L. Only died three years ago at the age of 83.

 

 

 

 

Gman

Edited by Gar1eth
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 years later...

James and the Giant Peach and all the other Roald Dahl books!

Many classic and lauded shows (and most of our most classic operas as well) were based on something from a previous medium. I recently did a production of (the newest revision of) their James and The Giant Peach, which is really a very fun and beautiful score, and a wonderfully capricious adaptation of the classic Roald Dahl book.

Roald Dahl (1916-1990), shown here at age 17 (1934), 27 years before James and the Giant Peach (1961), 30 years before Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964):

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/01/28/17/30AC768800000578-3420922-image-m-154_1454001302107.jpg

Dahl was also married to Patricia Neal.

 

Roald Dahl’s family quietly issues apology for late author’s anti-Semitism

 

The family of Roald Dahl, who penned the children’s classics “Matilda” and “James and the Giant Peach,” has quietly apologized for the late writer’s “prejudiced” anti-Semitic comments.

 

Dahl, who died at age 74 in 1990, had made offensive declarations in several interviews, including a 1983 interview with The New Statesman, reports The Sunday Times of London.

 

“There is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity, maybe it’s a kind of lack of generosity towards non-Jews. I mean, there’s always a reason why anti-anything crops up anywhere,” Dahl said. “Even a stinker like Hitler didn’t just pick on them for no reason.”

 

In 1990, Dahl told The Independent: “I’m certainly anti-Israeli and I’ve become anti-Semitic in as much as that you get a Jewish person in another country like England strongly supporting Zionism.”

 

Even some of Dahl’s characters are considered anti-Semitic portrayals, including the large-nosed child snatcher he added in his screenplay of Ian Fleming’s classic “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.”

 

Dahl’s relatives posted their apology on the author’s website. The statement isn’t dated and wasn’t sent to any Jewish groups or promoted publicly.

 

“The Dahl family and the Roald Dahl Story Company deeply apologise [sic] for the lasting and understandable hurt caused by some of Roald Dahl’s statements. Those prejudiced remarks are incomprehensible to us and stand in marked contrast to the man we knew…,” the apology reads. “We hope that, just as he did at his best, at his absolute worst, Roald Dahl can help remind us of the lasting impact of words.”

 

In a statement to the Sunday Times, the family members acknowledged both their love for Dahl and the pain he caused.

 

“Apologising [sic] for the words of a much-loved grandparent is a challenging thing to do, but made more difficult when the words are so hurtful to an entire community. We loved Roald, but we passionately disagree with his anti-Semitic comments….These comments do not reflect what we see in his work – a desire for the acceptance of everyone equally – and were entirely unacceptable. We are truly sorry.”

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Could only count with 1 hand the (picture) books I loved as a child...in the order of what I first read...

The Rescuers

101 Dalmatians

Bambi

 

the next book that was given to me to read was The World Almanac, so needless to say my love for reading left my system since. ?‍♂️

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

×
×
  • Create New...