Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[St_Zartan]

And Dammit, can't I get a little love for HENRY REED.  Come ON people.

All right, dammit, I admit I read Henry Reed, Inc when I was in first or second grade - it's all a bit of a blur for obscenely complicated reasons. That's the only one that I actively remember - I do know that I devoured them all and quite enjoyed them, but that was around the time I discovered / was obsessed with / was terrified by the prospect of nuclear war, so the non-fiction is really what stuck with me.

[pmcd9]

Charlotte's Web.

Finally something I've read.  I've had to do some soul searching because I can't remember anything I read when I was young.  I know I read more than Spiderman comics and Creem Magazine, but i'll be damned if I can remember very much of it.  Your mention of Charlotte's Web sparked my memory though.  I also read Stuart Little.  I've never even heard of any of the rest of the books mentioned in this thread.

~Paul

[jough]

Frikkin' Judy Blume books?

Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing represent, yo.

I even read the sequel, SuperFudge.

And then I took off my dress.  But seriously, those books kicked ass.

[Mite]

I even read the sequel, SuperFudge.

But have you read Fudge-a-mania? Or at least I think that was the title of the third one.

Anybody here read the Lemony Snicket books? I bought the first three at Thanksgiving, and had read all 10 in the series (he has 3 more to write, IIRC) by the following week. Fantastic young adult mystery books, with cultural/literary allusions up the ying yang.

And the Three Investigators totally rocked.

[wombat]

I read a Lemony Snicket while visiting a friend with kids of the Lemony Snicket demographic.  I didn't feel compelled to go out and read the rest, but I agree, it was really good.

You should all go read Daniel Pinkwater's books and wish you'd had them to read when you were a kid.  He has two collections of them now called something bland like Four Novels and Five Novels but containing wonderful titles like The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death.  He has a terrific eye for the pleasures of urban decay (I see his latest book is set in Bayonne, NJ - have to get that one) combined with other dimensions and Mars and interesting things to eat.

[Mite]

Wait - Daniel Pinkwater, like the NPR commentator Daniel Pinkwater? I knew he wrote kids books, but didn't know he did things for older children. That'd be sweet.

Yes, I am a nerd.

[andalucia]

As the one nearest to and therefore, potentially most able to remember your childhood, Andalucia, do kids still read

Henry Huggins books? (Dog named Ribsy, Beatrice and Ramona, etd.)
Frikkin' Judy Blume books?
Robert Cormier? (All I remember is "I am the Cheese") ??

I totally read the Beatrice and Ramona books, but being the child of, um, progressive? hippie parents, I remember thinking that they had poor representations of gender roles and some sketchy cowboys-and-indians stuff.  I was a weird kid.  I also read Judy Blume books.  Over Christmas my sister and I had a conversation about how confusing we found them as kids, since they're still held up as being these useful hitting-puberty books, but all we had been able to think of on reading them was "What.  The.  Fuck.  is a 'menstrual belt'?"  

I also read the Lemony Snicket books a year or two ago, and I totally dug them... they're pretty fun and allusive enough that one can still feel clever reading them.

[AugustWest]

My kids liked the Ramona books, but there is a certain amount of culture shock involved.  I think the series was started in the early 50's, so things have changed a little since then.

Lemony Snicket is hilarious.  Everybody should read at least one or two.  Dark, literate, subversive and funny.  Our first introduction to them was on tape, read by Tim Curry.  He was the perfect reader for the material.

What about S.E. Hinton (The Outsiders, et al) or John Christopher (The White Mountains trilogy)?

[CortJstr]

I missed pretty much all of these. Can we get some love for the Phantom Tollbooth or Wayside School?

[V-Adore]

I missed pretty much all of these. Can we get some love for the Phantom Tollbooth or Wayside School?

REPRESENT. I annually reread Phantom Tollbooth at the end of every school year; I'm not entirely sure why, but it works for me.

As for other stuff mentioned since last I checked this thread:

Cormier -- I read "I Am the Cheese" a few years ago and now remember virtually nothing from it. Shows me.

The Judy Blume books -- great stuff, very great. (Albeit "Wifey" was a gigantic disappointment; in retrospect, it aged very poorly.)

Daniel Pinkwater -- OH HELL YES. "Lizard Music" was a great and beautiful thing.

[slink]

Man, I so don't know any of these books!
But I just have to see if any of the ones I read as a kid got touched by anyone else...
I remember reading some of the Harry Harrison books - Stainless Steel Rat and Spaceship Medic.
I think the book I read when youngest, aside from Winnie the Pooh, would be Rebeccah's World.
Basically I mainly just read non-kids books though.
I was made to read Neuromancer very young by my mother and brother, which suited me.
Oh, and the other one I remember from when I was very young was reading Hitch-Hiker's Guide.

[wombat]

Daniel Pinkwater -- OH HELL YES.

This perfectly expresses how I feel about him.

[AugustWest]

I just re-read the Stainless Steel Rat books about 3 months ago.  Great fun -- that's what reading for entertainment is all about.

[AlohaDawg]

Daniel Pinkwater -- OH HELL YES.

This perfectly expresses how I feel about him.

I heard a Daniel Pinkwater commentary this past week on NPR and he said something about someone's kids liking his books which finally convinced me that he was the same guy, which is bizarre to me. But I LOVED Lizard Music, and also wasn't there a book about a giant chicken in Hackensack?

[V-Adore]

I heard a Daniel Pinkwater commentary this past week on NPR and he said something about someone's kids liking his books which finally convinced me that he was the same guy, which is bizarre to me. But I LOVED Lizard Music, and also wasn't there a book about a giant chicken in Hackensack?

I forget the exact title, but the giant chicken was in Hoboken. (EDIT: "The Hoboken Chicken Emergency.") Which reminds me of another book, "Chicken Trek" -- not by Pinkwater, but similar in theme and style -- about a kid who traveled across America attempting to eat at every restaurant in a fried-chicken chain in order to win a contest.

Now I wonder if I was hallucinating it.