Today I want to talk about books I read when I was growing up. This I part of the Bib li o phile Friday series where each week the hosts,Whoo Gives A Hoot and Foxes and Fairy Tales, pick a theme for our discussion. I must confess, I have a pretty awful memory, so these are book series that stood out for me, even after all these years.
Earliest Book Memory
My earliest memory reading was The Encyclopedia Brown Series. I read these when I was in elementary school. Devouring them, I remember them making me hungry to read more. I dabbled in Nancy Drew, but did not stick with them. We listened to the Harry Potter books on a cassette tape player, which I still have, and these made me love the first few books. Stephen Fry has a fantastic reading voice and really makes the characters come alive. However, after the third book my heart was broken and the series was never the same for me.
Middle School
After that the next memorable series or author I remembered picking up was all of the Tamora Pierce books. This trend continued until I think…maybe after the second sequels to the Circle of Magic books? When those came out, I was already moving on to higher level reading, in terms of vocabulary and level. After those I remember reading the books by Garth Nix, both the Sabriel series but also Shade’s Children.
High School
Then I moved on to the supernatural and read all of the Karen Chance novels. I still have a couple of those at home. When I am home I will have to take a few snapshots of my childhood book cases and bring all the nostalgia back. Yet after this point I began reading books at such a pace and frequency that I forget what I was reading. I also began reading books for school and delved into the classics and plays in advanced English.
When I was scouring my memory only these ones really stood out unfortunately for I read so many others. How about this, when I go home, I will write a follow up to this post and take a look at my bookshelves. With this update I will also include a few photos!
What books did you read while you were growing up? Do we have any overlap?
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Tamora Pierce was absolutely my favourite MG author too. I think I read up to roughly the sae point as you – the first 3 Tortall quartets and the frst 2 Emelan ones. I really want to reread them, but I’m scared it’ll ruin my memories of them somehow.
I feel the same! But I’m going to visit home and seeing them all around me…things might happen
Oh oh I loved Encyclopedia Brown too!! I think that was like my budding interesting in mysteries and eventually obsession with Sherlock Holmes. My friends tried to get me into Nancy Drew but I wasn’t so keen on that, hhaha. But I did lots of Narnia, Boxcar Children, and Lemony Snicket!!
Yeah I for some reason became a huge Encyclopedia Brown fan in elementary schoool. I never read the Chronicles of Narnia! Is that bad of me??
I don’t think I have read any of these! When I was young (elementary-middle school age) I read a LOT of Baby-Sitters Club, and the American Girl books, and a few other series, but mostly contemporary stuff. I was convinced that I didn’t like fantasy! In high school, I secretly still read The Baby-Sitters Club because I could not give it up 😉 I also read a lot of tearjerker stuff from Lurlene McDaniel. I did read classics and plays and such in English class, but more by force 😉 This is a fun post!
I totally forgot about the Baby Sitters Club!! Oh wow….brings me back