What were your formative reads? Which books did you love as a child/teen? How did your reading habits and choices change (if at all) once you moved to the US?
My father considered himself to be in charge of my education, which meant that I was handed books like 2001 Space Odyssey, Collected Works of Shakespeare, and Greek Plays by Sophocles, Aeschylus, and Euripides and expected to have a go at it. Sometimes I bounced because I was too young. Three Musketeers was not a go at 10, but I tore through the entire Dumas backlist at 12.
In addition, I was given free rein in the family library, which consisted of floor to ceiling shelves in my parents’ bedroom. This is the reason why I’ve read Carlo Gozzi, Prosper Mérimée, Jules Verne, Maurice Druon, etc. A lot of my understanding of American history was shaped by Thomas Mayne Reid, whose work didn’t age very well. A lot of stuff that we had available was “classic,” and colonialism was strong. It took several years in US before I realized the context.
I violently hated Hemingway’s entire body of work and still do. I think it’s an exercise in overwrought navel gazing by a man deeply insecure in his masculinity. I refused to read Miguel de Cervantes, because the idea of an older confused gentleman, clearly mentally unbalanced, being the laughingstock of society is too much for me. Read Dickens. Read Victor Hugo. Didn’t like either. Life was bleak enough.
But parallel to all of this, I was still a kid and I was in charge of my own fun books, which I obtained from the library, so here is a brief list of fun kid books I read in between all the serious reads. I would go to the library and then drag a giant stack of books home.
Warning: some of these did not age well. At all. So exercise caution and take these less as a recommended list and more as an interesting glimpse of my weird childhood.
For the sake of speed I am linking everything to Amazon, or I will be here all morning.
Moomintrolls by Tove Jasson
Adorable trolls and various friendly critters live in Moominvalley and have adventures. It is so charming and yet it sometimes had these gently scary moments. It has a kind of magic. I still remember the illustration of a dark hobgoblin riding his panther looking for rubies and the flood. It is very popular in Russia.
Ronia the Robber’s Daughter by Astrid Lindgren
Astrid Lindgren is probably best known in US for Pippi Longstoking and Russia for Carlson on the Roof, but this was my favorite. This is where the forest in the Edge came from.
The Battle for Castle Cockatrice by Gerald Durrell
Gerald Durrell is best known for his nature books about his adventures of going to foreign lands and kidnapping wild animals for British zoos. This particular book is a fantasy. It was available under the title of Talking Parcel and it used to be one of my favorite reads. I can’t read it in English. I was so excited when I found it. I was going to read it to the girls and … I can’t find a sample from this book, but here is an excerpt from Bafut Beagles.
The Cross River picks its way down from the mountains of the Cameroons, until it runs sprawling and glittering into the great bowl of forest land around Mamfe. After being all froth, waterfalls, and eager chattering in the mountains, it settles down when it reaches this forest, and runs sedately in its rocky bed, the gently moving waters creating ribs of pure white sand across its width, and washing the mud away from the tree roots, so that they look as though they stand at the edge of the water on a tangled, writhing mass of octopus-like legs. It moves along majestically, its brown waters full of hippo and crocodile, and the warm air above it filled with hawking swallows, blue and orange and white.
Just above Mamfe the river increases its pace slightly, squeezing itself between two high rocky cliffs, cliffs that are worn smooth by the passing waters and wear a tattered antimacassar of undergrowth that hangs down from the forest above; emerging from the gorge it swirls out into a vast egg-shaped basin. A little further along, through an identical gorge, another river empties itself into this same basin, and the waters meet and mix in a skein of tiny currents, whirlpools, and ripples, and then continue onwards as one waterway, leaving, as a result of their marriage, a huge glittering hummock of white sand in the centre of the river, sand that is pockmarked with the footprints of hippo and patterned with chains of bird-tracks. Near this island of sand the forest on the bank gives way to the small grassfield that surrounds the village of Mamfe, and it was here, on the edge of the forest, above the smooth brown river, that we chose to have our base camp.
Durrell, Gerald (2017-02-20T22:58:59). The Bafut Beagles . Open Road Media. Kindle Edition.
My eye is twitching. This is actually not too bad for him, because he has no problem saying things like “Jim!” I ejaculated joyously. “We found it!”
There has been some criticism of Durrell for his representation of African natives as well and if you are interested, you can read more about it here. Regardless, this book was a big shiny part of my childhood, so here it is on the list.
‘The Wizard of the Emerald City’ by Alexander Volkov
In late 1930’s Alexander Volkov decided to translate the Wonderful Wizard of Oz into Russian. What he ended up with was fanfiction of Baum’s original novel. It was cracktastic. It had Harry Potter like popularity in Russia and then he wrote sequels. I wish the whole series would be available in English in a bit better translation because the Seven Underground Kings was a thing of beauty. You can read more about his biography and body of work here. I would love to translate this. With illustrations. Someone make this happen, haha.
And there you have it.
Hmm, when I was a kid I read the Anne of Green Gables series by L.M. Montgomery, the the author’s less known Emily trilogy which I loved very much, most of the Enid Blyton books, all the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books, Tricia Belden books, the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. I was also given a lot of classics to read with varying levels of success. Jane Austen is very boring for a kid and Dickens was equally hard to get through ( the ones I remember were thicker than Harry Potter books and considerably harder to read). I also remember reading To Kill A Mockingbird as a kid, it was okay to read but made a lot more sense when I reread it when I was older and also studying it as a literature text. While it was interesting to read classic texts as a kid, I think I didn’t understand a lot of the subtext then even if my vocabulary was able to technically understand the books. Also, it’s still very relaxing to reread children’s books sometimes as an adult 🙂
Oh I loved the Moomins as a kid!
As you seem to be in the mood to anwer questions: Texas was one of the first states in the US to end the official pandemic, or at least abandon the restrictions. I’m from Austria and it made our news! So I want to ask someone who is actually living across the pond, because we are still in an never ending lockdown and our government is on a one track train.
Ordinary Princess by MM Kaye
Winter of Magic’s Return (and sequel) by Pamela F Service
The Ghost Belonged to Me by Richard Peck
There was one about a dragon and a bat that I can’t remember the name of anymore.
I’m sure there’s more but I can’t remember them now. I still have all my childhood books somewhere
Teenage me loved the Frost series by Robin Bailey. I read it so many times. Silverglass series by J F Rivkin and Shadow series by Anne Logston. So many authors I loved, and they all quit writing years ago. IDK if they passed or just couldn’t get published anymore 🙁 So thankful for the internet. Traditional publishers are great and all, but there’s so many amazing series I read now that traditional publishing would never have given a chance.
Oh my goodness – Ronja is my favorite children’s story. It’s my “happy place book” – I’m nearly 40 and yes, I re-read it last year and still love it. It’s got everything – there’s an adventure, a bit of suspense, family drama, friendship, comedy. I’m so glad to see it on this list. 🙂
Wow had to think, to remember what I read back in the day! Grimes & Andersons Fairy tales, Happy Hollister & Encyclopedia Brown & Mad Scientists Club as pre-teen. Then moved on to Edgar Rice Burroughs–terribly racist, looking back! But I always considered those imaginary worlds, so never bought into those attitudes as acceptable for the real world– and Robert Heinlein. Heinlein also terribly paternalistic, while at the same time embracing elements of the 70s! Interesting dynamic–but man could he tell a story! And H. Beam Piper also had a definite influence. All books i could get at my library, yay! Gotta love the library.
I came across “Ronia” while wandering the local BIG library (as opposed to our tiny local one-room library) when I was about 10. The cover art drew me in, as has everything by that artist. Here was a girl who wore practical clothes and did things on her own in the wilderness! She also made friends and realized her parents were people. It was one of those defining moments which lead me to become a Park Ranger and a scientist. I’m glad you enjoyed it too.
In addition to a lot of the ones named I loved Gene Stratton Porter. At one time she was a well known international author. However as she died in 1924 you can imagine how different the writing. She was very big on nature and I remember reading “Freckles “ numerous times along with “Girl of the Limberlost”. I also remember a school book from 3rd or 4th grade called “Wagon Wheels”. Another author I enjoyed was Sherwood Smith. I made the mistake of reading “The Taming of the Shrew” when I was about 11 and hated it with a passion. So much I have never brought myself to read any of his other works.
Finland mentioned – see you at the Tori (marketplace in Helsinki)! 🙂
Sort of – as Moomins & Tove are Finns. There is even a Moomin Land where we went each summer by the sea in Naantali. I loved it as it DID not have even one ride. It was all about the Moomin experience. The House, Witches place, Nuuskamuikkunen (Snufkin)… My daughter loved Moomin, we went each summer to meet with the characters. The kids loved hugging Moomin folk. I just wish I was like Moomin Mom – great cook and still loving going on adventures – and always always supporting her kids when they go on crazy crazy adventures. (I worry too much to totally pull that off.. Try a lot).
Oh! I read Ronia the Robber’s Daughter by Astrid Lindgren! I had forgotten about it until I saw this blog. Weird! I read it when I was 11-12 in Tahiti (old copy in the school library), it was a French translation, but definitely remember the story even if it was so long ago. Must have liked it a lot if I remembered it. I have not read any Ernest Hemingway other than The old man and the sea, my great-grandfather gave me a copy when I was a kid, and I liked it! Another classic I really liked was The Old man that read love stories by Luis Sepulveda. I don’t know why but it touched my soul.
We are also big readers in my family. Tarzan books were read and re-read until they fell apart and were taped up. I came across them when my parents finally moved after 40 years in the same house (never threw anything away) and gave them to my son to read.
So many books and authors are the same for my early reading experiences – The Famous Five (I also wanted to go to boarding school based on these books), the Narnia Series, The Belgarid, The Black Stallion series, Heidi, Anne of Green Gables, and the Silver Brumby series (I think that might be an Aussie author as only one other person has mentioned it). Got all of them through the Scholastic Book Club.
Also loved Stephen King – I would steal them from my sister who had a job and could afford to buy her own. Many a sibling argument would start with book stealing.
My parents had a reader’s digest book club subscription. Condensed books, usually 4 stories, in hard cover. Some of the stories were very confronting (child abuse, war stories etc. Very violent and disturbing for an eight year old) but being the youngest child I think my parents were too busy/tired to monitor my reading habits.
A couple of authors that haven’t been mentioned are LE Modesitt and Sherri S Tepper. Loved there books and along with Austen, Pratchet, Tolkien, Ian Banks, McCaffrey, and Donaldson have special place on my book shelves. True, Tepper can get a bit preachy in her later works but Grass and Rasing the Stones are 2 of my favourite books – always on the re-read list.
We also had World Encylopedias which had a kids nursey rhyme, which I inherited. It also is still on the shelves.
I never read Dumas but I think I might have to rectify that.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
I too learned to read when I was about three, and haven’t stopped since. I read many of the things that others have mentioned, with a particular shout out to the other reader who mentioned Joy Chant’s Red Moon and Black Mountain, it is wonderful as is the prequel, The Grey Mane of Morning. One person mentioned Swallows and Amazons, I read the whole lot when I was about seven, and they serialised the first one on the BBC. My parents never cared what I read, so long as I did read. Dickens, Walter Scott – Ivanhoe and Redgauntlet were particular favourites, as was RL Stevenson’s Kidnapped and Catriona, as well as Treasure Island. I read everything I could get my hands on that Kipling wrote, and my favourite is and was always, Stalky and Co. My favourite author as a child and she has to be up there in the top ten still, was Rosemary Sutcliff. She wrote several novels for adults too, and her retelling of the Arthurian legend, Sword at Sunset is a wonderful book, not much magic but a wonderful tale of a Roman British Warrior, trying to hold back the tide of the barbarian saxons. Flowers for Adonis, the one about Alciabiades is also magnificent.
Fantasy came early too, my teacher when I was seven used to read to the class for the last 20 minutes every day, we started with the Hobbit, and moved on to the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The paperback was just out, and the term finished before the book. It was the first thing my mother was nagged into buying for me, but she thought I had the title wrong. After that books were my favourite thing, and since my mother was a book work too, persuading her to let me go to the library on my own, after school and come home on the bus was an easy win.
I moved on through the things everyone else has mentioned, and after the first dreadful novel, read the whole Deryni series by Katherine Kurtz. The second one could have been written by a different author! Ursula Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness and her Earthsea series were also favourites. Another fantasy author no one has mentioned are the strange and wonderful novels of Storm Constantine, Hermtech, Aleph, etc. If you are looking for good contemporary fantasy, I think Garth Nix’s Abhorsen series is phenomenal, as is Ragwitch, and I have a couple more on my TBR pile. Alison Croggon is also wonderful, her Pelenor series starts with The Gift. And the one that is driving me to lunacy and drink at the moment as there has been a gap between the first three and book four, is Helen Lowe’s The Wall of Night series. Happy Reading Compadres!
So many of the books mentioned here are still on my bookshelf, special mention to Robin McKinley – as well as many of her other books, I have two copies each of The Hero & The Crown, and The Blue Sword. I had The Blue Sword checked out of the school library for about six months straight, and read it several times a week. The librarians were bemused.
A series particular to Australia that many may not know, but anyone who ever loved horses will adore, are the Silver Brumby books by Elyne Mitchell. There’s no humans, the books are told from the perspective of wild horses, and they are brutal and beautiful and unforgettable.
Classics like Black Beauty, White Fang, Call of the Wild. The Dragons of Pern. Narnia. There’s a Reader’s Digest story called Callanish by William Horwood which is about a golden eagle who escapes from a zoo, based on a true story. I must have read that dozens of times.
But really, I read anything I could get my hands on. Books, encyclopedias, dictionaries. A lot of waiting rooms and reception spaces would stock Reader’s Digest and I read any of those I could find. Sometimes the reception folks would tell me to take them with me. lol
Oh boy did this post take me on a journey to the past!
When I was a kid I read every fairy tale book I could get: there was one series that were named after jewels (the Ruby Fairy Tale book, the Emerald Fairy Tale book, and so on). And there was one old book of my mother’s that I still cherish because it had some really lesser known tales in it (such as Ricket of the Tuft and Boots). And then every picture book based on a fairy tale I could find.
Other children’s authors and books:
Berenstain Bears by Stan and Jan Berenstain
Steven Kellogg
Little Monsters series by Mercer Mayer
Richard Scarry
Mythology books (again whatever I could get my hands on)
Piggins by Jane Yolen (really anything by Jane Yolen)
Helga’s Dowry by Tomie De Paola
Amelia Bedelia series (I think these have multiple authors?)
The Boxcar Children series by Gertrude Chandler Warner
Mouse Soup and On Market Street by Arnold Lobel
Fairy tale series by Marianna Mayer
Babar series by Jean de Brunhoff
Madeline series by Ludwig Bemelmans
Little Bear series by Else Holmelund Minarik and Maurice Sendak (Illustrator)
Saint George and the Dragon by Margaret Hodges
The Story about Ping by Marjorie Flack
The Mitten by Jan Brett
Serendipity series by by Stephen Cosgrove and illustrated by Robin James
Closer to Young Adultish?
The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes and Louis Slobodkin (Illustrations)
Secret of the Unicorn Queen book series (definitely younger adult) – I was obsessed with this series
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg
Old Yeller by Fred Gipson
Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls
Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman
Young Adultish and Adultish? (really who can tell anymore?)
The Ordinary Princess by M.M. Kaye
Anne of Green Gables series by L.M. Montgomery
Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingles Wilder
Robin McKinley’s Blue Sword series and all of her fairy tale books; Beauty was probably first “grown-up” fairy tale retelling
Howl’s Moving Castle and other books by Diana Wynne Jones
Alanna series by Tamora Pierce (I remember dragging my mother to the bookstore and pestering the booksellers for release dates — this was before easy access to the internet)
Briar Rose by Jane Yolen
True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi
Harry Potter series (say what you will, but I read them when I was young)
Narnia series by C.S. Lewis
Seven Daughters and Seven Sons by Barbara Cohen
Technically Adultish?
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Merlin series by Mary Stewart
Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss
Star Wars books (specifically Kevin J. Anderson and Timothy Zahn)
Deryni series by Katherine Kurtz
Caroline Courtney, Janis Laden, Mary Balogh, and other Regency Romance authors
Jude Deveraux
Johanna Lindsey
Elizabeth Lowell
Who let me have access to the internet and a keyboard today? 😀
James and Giant Peach, The Witches, almost all of Roald Dahl’s works I could get my hands on. Started my love of fantasy early.
Roald Dahl has some great short stories too. I loved his books as a kid as well!
I’ve gotten a decent collection of out of print kids books that were my favorite when I was a kid. Picture books: Bill Peet books, Dorrie the Witch, Weeny Witch. Slightly older: Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain, Chronicles of Narnia (like others have mentioned).
We read bedtime stories to them in dramatic fashions with accents: Harry Potter, The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.
I spent my allowance on the Walter Farley Black Stallion series and also loved King of the Wind, Black Beauty (my parents said when I made money I could take horseback riding lessons, so I did and learned some dressage as an adult). Unfortunately neither of my kids is horse crazy, so I’m not sure where this now 40 year old paperback collection should go.
As a kid @ 7 I was dropped off at the Library as my “camp” and hung around the library all day reading. You can’t do that anymore without Child care services getting involved.
Dear Ilona
Same as you, I did not like Dickens. But that was when reading it in russian.
Do try reading his books in English. They are full of very subtle humour, making the darkest and heaviest scenes full of light and hope.
Russian translation of Dickens just terrible. As is english translation of Three Musketeers.
If it was a comic book, it was considered okay for kids to read. My parents also had a lot of Doonesbury books.