Top Ten Books I wish I'd read (or had read to me) as a child
(in no particular order)
This is a reposting of a TTT topic from years ago, Jan. 24, 2011
Before I launch into my list let me say---I'm old. :)---at least compared to lot of bloggers who I enjoy reading their posts.
This list reflects book choices that existed when I was a child. Most are considered classics. (What does that say about me?) There are many, many children's books that I would love to read that were published after my childhood but I didn't include them for the above reason.
Secondly, I think my childhood was literature deprived. We had very few books around the house. Those I did have, I read hundreds of times. I only recall going to the library a few times and it was the rare occasion when either of my parents read to me and my siblings. So rare, in fact, that those precious moments are seared into my brain and are some of my happiest childhood memories.
I have read a few of the books on my list as an adult either for my own pleasure or aloud to my children. Those books are marked with a ***. The rest are awaiting the time when I pick them up and belatedly enjoy them.
1. Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
2. The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawles***
3. Black Beauty by Anna Sewell ***
4. Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers
5. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll ***
6. Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
7. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster***
8. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
9. Misty of Chincoteague by Margarite Henry ***
10. Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne ***
11. Little House on the Prairie series
by Laura Ingalls Wilder **(incomplete)
12. Anne of Green Gables series by Lucy Maud Montgomery*** (incomplete)
13. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
14. From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg***
15. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien***
Do you notice the recurring themes of animals and adventure?
What are the childhood books you wish you'd read, or did read and loved?
14. From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg***
15. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien***
Do you notice the recurring themes of animals and adventure?
What are the childhood books you wish you'd read, or did read and loved?
-Anne
Anne of Green Gables = totally amazing. I loved that series passionately. Little House on the Prairie too.
ReplyDeleteI wish i read Peter Pan too. Reading it as a teenager spoiled it for me.
ReplyDeleteI read Black Beauty (several times), but only through that Great Illustrated Classics series. Verne's "Around the World in 80 Days" is a great adventure story -- I read it a summer or two ago and enjoyed it immensely.
ReplyDeleteYou have a great list!
ReplyDeleteNew follower here
I'd love to have read Peter Pan and The Jungle Book as a child as well
Come visit me anytime
Awww, when I made my list I forgot all about The Yearling, otherwise I would have added that one too. Here's my list.
ReplyDeleteMy favorites from your list are the Phantom Toll Booth and the Little House books. I hope you get to read them some day!
ReplyDeleteI loved Anne of Green Gables so much that for about 10 years I re-read it every year, and I still grab it when I need a comfort read. I enjoyed Mary Poppins and Peter Pan as well. the Little House books I read as a teenager and liked them but nothing more than that and have never wanted to re-read them.
ReplyDeleteI wish I had read Anne of Green Gables too. I still haven't read it. It's on my to read list, though.
ReplyDeleteI was tempted to expand my list as well. Anne of Green Gables and Peter Pan made my top 10, but Alice probably would have made my top 12.
ReplyDeleteThe Jungle Book is a good choice! I didn't think of that one. Also, I read Treasure Island last year and I think I would have enjoyed it much more as a kid.
ReplyDeleteI had forgotten all about The Phantom Tollbooth. I remember really liking that one.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really great classic list! The only one I have really read is The Phantom Tollbooth but I don't really remember much about it.
ReplyDeleteI Loved the Phantom Tollbooth when I was little, which is actually pretty nerdy. I love your list! Lots of titles I wish I'd thought of.
ReplyDeleteI loved the Misty books (Stormy: Misty's Foal, etc.)so much that for one vacation my parents drove us down to Chincoteague and we actually hung out with a herd of the wild ponies at dawn. That was just about the highlight of my childhood! Thanks for reminding me...
ReplyDeleteOn the flip side, The Phantom Tollbooth scared me with its creepiness...
L (way up in B'ham!)
I actually had no idea that Mary Poppins was a book! Don't I feel silly now...
ReplyDeleteBlack Beauty, Anne of Green Gables and The Phantom Tollbooth are all on my list too! Y'all can have the Little House books (with my maiden name Ingols and all the jokes I had to endure...got no desire for those).
ReplyDeleteHere's the rest of my list: http://myreadersblock.blogspot.com/2011/01/top-ten-tuesday-childrens-books.html
I decided that I'd better add Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl to my list. I just figured out that it was published in 1964! So I was still a kid when it came out. My sister, a Reading Specialist, thinks that he is one of the all-time best Children's authors. Who am I to quibble?
ReplyDeleteWe read The Yearling for 6th grade English class, and I cried my eyes out! I just read Phantom Tollbooth and the Alice books last year (and enjoyed both). Mary Poppins was one of my favorites (one of my favorite movies, too). I would love to read Jungle Book and Peter Pan - have one seen the movies!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the encouragement last week and telling me the topic ahead of time - I posted my list this week!
Sue
This is a fantastic list. All of these titles are on the list of 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up. I belong to a Yahoo group that is trying to read all 1001. We just finished Phantom Tollbooth. If you are interested, seek this group out or contact me for more information. (debnance at gmail dot com)
ReplyDeleteAnne, here's the link to the 1001 Children's Books group: http://au.groups.yahoo.com/group/1001childrensbooksyoumustread/
ReplyDeleteI hope to see you there!
+JMJ+
ReplyDeleteThe Phantom Tollbooth is on my list, too. I really, truly, desperately wish I had had access to it when I was younger.
Great List! There's a couple here I haven't heard of and will have to look them up ASAP (:
ReplyDeleteOh, good grief, woman. Read Anne of Green Gables!
ReplyDeleteWonderful list, I really enjoyed The Little House on the Prairie.
ReplyDeleteMy TTT: https://notprimadonna.blogspot.com/2020/04/top-ten-tuesday-books-i-enjoyed-when-i.html
You have a fantastic list that I happen to have a lot of feelings about, so I hope you don't mind me inundating you with stories.
ReplyDelete1. I've never read The Jungle Book either. I got it into my head that it was A Hard Adult Book and never really gave it a second thought. (this is the girl who read and fell in love with Black Beauty at age 8, but Jungle Book? clearly 2 Hard) I know it's not too late, but I wish I'd at least tried back then.
2. On the other hand, I read Peter Pan in college, fishing a very old copy out of the library's basement stacks -- old enough that it had color plate illustrations -- and honestly I can't imagine a more magical way to read it, even if that meant missing it as a kid.
3. Ten thousand hearts to Misty. Also Little House & Anne of Green Gables. And Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, one of the few stories in the world where I actually love the book and not one but TWO movie adaptations equally well.
We are so familiar with the Jungle Book stories and that of Peter Pan it seems unnecessary to actually read them but I know that isn't the actual case.
DeleteI wish I liked Little House on the Prairie.
ReplyDeletewww.rsrue.blogspot.com
That is probably why I never finished reading them to my children. I couldn't stand all the racism.
DeleteThe Yearling is a good choice. I don't know that I've ever read that one!
ReplyDeleteMy TTT.
I read it recently and blown away by the writing.
DeleteBlack Beauty was one of my favourite books as a kid. I also loved Roald Dahl's books.
ReplyDeleteMy TTT: https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2020/04/28/top-ten-tuesday-261/
When I finally read Black Beauty I was blown away by how different the book was compared to my thoughts about what it was like.
DeleteI'm sorry to hear you didn't get to go to the library that much as a kid! I didn't get to do a lot as a kid since my parents didn't have much money, but we did go to the library often. I remember getting my own library card. There were so many classics I missed out on, though. I was a big mystery lover so I went through a lot of Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys.
ReplyDeleteAnne of Green Gables is on my list, too. :) Thanks for visiting my TTT.
#14 and #15 on your list are two of my favorites; books I did read as a child. :D My parents haunted library book sales when I was a kid in order to fill our house with books. I've always been grateful to them for that.
ReplyDeleteThe list this week are making me sad at all the books I didn't get to when I was reading with my kid!! He's 12 now and we don't read together as much as we used to-- and we used to read TONS of books together. But no matter how much we read, we were never going to be able to read alllll the books. But I wish I would've read Mary Poppins and The Phantom Toll Booth with him!!
ReplyDeleteMy teacher read The Secret of NIMH when I was a kid and I LOVED that book!
ReplyDeleteI can still remember my mom reading us Little House on the Prairie as a kid before bed. I can also remember my 4th grade teacher reading us The Phantom Tollbooth. I loved that book so much!
ReplyDeleteI loved Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (our teacher read it to us in school, I'm not sure I ever read it myself). Never read Black Beauty but loved the Black Stallion movie. And yay for Mrs. Frisby and NIMH!!
ReplyDeleteI never read Jungle Book...
There are some brilliant ones in there! The NIHM series was so creative!
ReplyDeleteI'm also older than a lot of the book bloggers that participate in TTT. Back when I was a kid in the 80s and early 90s, there just weren't as many books for kids out there and access to books was much more limited. I visited my library often and occasionally received books for Christmas or birthdays, but I lived in a tiny town that didn't have bookstores. Also, there was no Internet, so it was tough to know about new books. Kids these days have it so much easier, at least when it comes to books :)
ReplyDeleteYour list has given me a lovely trip down memory lane! As a kid, I loved CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, MRS. FRISBY AND THE RATS OF NIMH, the Little House on the Prairie books, ANNE OF GREEN GABLES, etc. There are so many great books on this list and I'm glad that I was able to read most of them as a child.
Happy TTT!
I adore Anne of Green Gables and think my younger self would have really loved it.
ReplyDeleteYou have some books on your list that I haven't read as well.
ReplyDeleteCharlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl was a MAGICAL read for me, when I was younger!
Here's my Top Ten Tuesday List!
My favorites from your list are the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, Phantom Tollbooth, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
ReplyDelete*g* Don't worry, I'm old too :) Black Beauty, OMG, I love that series! Thank you for the reminder!!
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in school we had to read Little House on the Prairie and I can remember very vividly that I hated it at the time... I wonder what I'd think of it now. :D
ReplyDeleteLauren @ Always Me