Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Top Ten Tuesday: Children's Books


Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish. This week we're being asked to list the Top Ten Books We Wish We'd Read as a Kid.

This was a bit of a toughie....I was quite the reader when I was young. Nothing's changed. But here's what I've been able to come up with:


1. The Tin Tin series by Herge. I didn't discover these adventures of the young Belgian reporter and his dog Snowy until I had my son. I would have LOVED these stories when I was growing up.

2. More of the Melendy Series by Elizabeth Enright. I absolutely adored The Four-Story Mistake. I wish I would have known that there were more books about this family.

3. Black Beauty by Anna Sewell. Like most girls I went through my "I love horses" phase. But I never got into the "I gotta read every book about horses that exists" like most of my girl friends. Can't explain why. Just didn't.

4. Likewise other animal books like Lad, a Dog. My best friend must have read every horse and dog book carried by our school and public libraries. Again, I just didn't. No real answer for why.

5. Anne of Green Gables (and the rest). One of those growing up books/series that I missed. I've tried to go back to them--but I just don't do well going back to children's/YA series like that.

6. Corduroy by Don Freeman. Another book discovered when looking for books for my son when he was little. Delightful story about a bear.

7. Beatrix Potter books (Peter Rabbit, etc). Ditto above.

8. More of the "Color" fairy tale books by Andrew Lang. I grew up with The Blue Fairy Book. Who knew that there were eleven more colors? I would have devoured them.

9. Edgar Eager books. Another author discovered with my son.

10. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. I've read it...but didn't discover it until I was a teenager. I would have enjoyed it more as a kid.


7 comments:

Birdie said...

the Tin Tin series and the color fairy book series were in my longer list too.
I never read the Black Beauty book, but I did read most of The Black Stallion series by Farley when I was testing in third grade. I always got bored during standardized tests, and we had those books in the case near my desk :)

Enbrethiliel said...

+JMJ+

Tin Tin would have been on my list, had I made it when I was still seriously studying French! ;-)

Black Beauty, on the other hand, is a book I wish I knew. I must have read it from cover to cover twice and can't really remember much about it. But I'm sure that if I pick it up again today, I'll have the same experience I did during the reread: a disgruntled sense of having read all of it already. =P

And now I'm starting to think that The Phantom Tollbooth will prove to be the most popular book of this week's meme. It's on virtually every list--including mine and Birdie's!

Enbrethiliel said...

+JMJ+

PS--I had known there was more than one "coloured" fairy book, but not that there were eleven!!! =O

Red said...

I skipped over Black Beauty as a kid too. I'm not sure how it got missed but I've seen it pop up on some other lists.

Anonymous said...

I read a hundred and one horse books as a young girl but I never read Black Beauty. I'm not sure why!

Anne@HeadFullofBooks said...

THanks for dropping by my blog.

You said: "I would have enjoyed it more as a kid." in reference to reading a book for kids as an adult/teen. I think that so many books I read as a kid seem to hold that magical special place in my memory. I don't want to reread some of them for fear my memory of their magical qualities will burst. I did that with I Capture the Castle. Bummer. I used to love it.

-Anne

Childrens book said...

I am also never read this so I m not sure why, but i am thanks for u giving this post.