Childhood Book Meme/Musings
Jan. 12th, 2004 03:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatThe thing about being in the middle of a mid-life crisis, which I've more or less been wading through since 2001, is you start re-evaluating everything and discover somewhere along the line your tastes changed. And here you thought they'd more or less adhered to you or you'd stabilized taste wise at 30. Hah! Nope. Certain things don't change however, like my continued interest in journeying to other worlds through works of fictions. So, this childhood book meme thingy that has infected live journal, seemed like yet another opportunity to revisit those items that may or may not have influenced my current tasts and personality.
The difficulty with this particular meme is that the youngsters online have a distinct advantage, ie. it's a lot easier to remember the books that influenced your childhood if your childhood was uhm only ten years ago. Try remembering the books you read 15-20 years ago. Not so easy, let me tell you.
Especially, when there are days I have troubles remembering what I read last year. I've read over 1000 books in my 36 years...hard to keep track of them all. But will try.
The Childhood Book Meme
1.Richard Scarey - you know those huge picture books with little animals dressing and working like humans, and the book would tell you everything they did with little lables? I think this book was instrumental in teaching me how to read. Along with Dick and Jane, The Doctor Seuss Books, and lots of those Golden Book classics you used to be able to buy in Grocery Stores in the 1970s.
2. My favorite book as a small child - I actually slept with it and traced the pictures and drew them - was the Disney picture book version of Robin Hood. I was in love with the Fox. (My first crushes were Kimba the White Lion on TV and Robin Hood the fox from the Disney film. I had a thing for outcasts, both were by the way, but who didn't whine about it and worked hard to change their situation and became leaders against the people who put them down.)
3. This love for outcasts was partly encouraged by the books my parents and teachers read to me as a child. These books gave me friends I could relate to, people or characters, usually small animals, who like myself were different and ostracized for being different, for not fitting in. They were my heroes. I remember finding strength in these characters stories and at my lowest points, summoning them in my head or characters like them, expanding on their stories or coming up with new ones, to keep myself going. I was a child who often escaped the pain of rejection, by occuping myself with a story.
- EB White's novels: Stuart Little, Charlott's Web (unfortunately did not cure me of my fear of spiders), Trumpter Swan.
-Ronald Dahl: James and The Giant Peach, Charlie and The Chocolat Factory, Charlie and The Great Glass Elevator
- The works of Laura Ingells Wilder - Little House on The Prarie -etc.
- The Bible, of course - I went to Catechism Classes
or CCD.
As I've mentioned before because of my learning disability, it took me longer to figure out how to read than most kids. The school used "phonics" but since I couldn't distinguish certain sounds, the teachers had to use the sight and say version to teach me. Lucky for me, they had enough time to do this.
1. Lisa Bright and Dark - a tale about a girl locked inside her own mind and how she deals with it. I vaguely remember it.
2. The Perilous Guard (now out of print, I got the book again in college - the last copy.)This is a tale of a woman who saves a young man from a druidic circle. It takes place during the 1500s in Wales. The damsel is the guy, the hero the girl.
3. The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen - another tale about a little girl's adventures as she searches for a little boy who is her friend.
4. The Wolves of Willohby Chase
5. Escape from Witch Mountain (was a novel before the Disney movie)
6. Nancy Drew Mysteries
7. Judy Blumes novels - Are You There God? It's Me Margaret, etc. I think I read most of them.
8. Harriet The Spy
9. The Secret Garden
10. The Velvet Room and The Witches of Worm by Sylvia(?) Keatly Snyder - these were psychological thrillers featuring female heroines.
11. Dark is Rising Series by Susan Cooper (vaguely remember it)
12. The Wizard of Earthsea series by Ursula Le Guinn
13. Watership Down
14. All Creatures Great and Small series by James Herbert (about an English Country veternan)
15. My Side of The Mountain - about a little boy who hollowed out the inside of a tree and lived in it on a mountain for a year.
16. Where the Red Fern Grows - about two dogs who died for each other.
17.Anne McCaffrey's DragonRiders of Pern Series and Andre Norton's works
18. Bednobs and Broomsticks...by?
19. The Borrowers..
20. The Once and Future King by T.H. White
As I got better at reading - I began to devour books, becoming more and more interested in books that dealt with an element of adventure or a quest.
Survival books also fascinated me.
1. The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings - I fell in love with Gandalf. In fact my parents bought me a little wooden figurine of Frodo, who I identified with in an odd way. I read these books between 6th and 7th grade.
2. Dune by Frank Herbert. (Wasn't able to get into the sequel.)
3. The White Gold Weilder Series...by Stephen R. Donaldson. (Loved these books - nice dark hero to sink my teeth into.)
4. SE Hinton's The Outsiders, fell in love with Ponyboy. Also read her other books but don't remember them as well.
5. Sherlock Holmes - The Hounds of the Baskervilles,
Mary Stewart's The Hollow Hills, and other works on Merlin, (I loved Merlin found him far more interesting than Arthur for some reason.), Touch Not the Cat by Stewart.
6. Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Persuasion, and Sandition (which was partly written by someone else).
7. Short stories by Steinbeck, Dickens, Bradbury (The Veldt left a lasting impression when I was in 6th grade).
8. George Orwell's 1984/Animal Farm
9. Farenheit 451
When I reached high school - I was reading Ayn Rand, Steinbeck, Hemingway, Faulkner, etc. Books included:
Anthem by Rand, Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck,
The Reivers by Faulkner, Chaucer's Tales, Loads of Shakespeare - actually acted in one, Over 100 plays including the works of Woody Allen, Neil Simon, Arthur Miller (played Tituba in The Crucible), Samuel Beckett, Christopher Durang, etc...can't remember all of them. Advise and Consent, Catcher in the Rye, A Separate Peace, Ethan Fromm by Edith Wharton, Machievielli's The Prince, a little of the Communist Manifesto by Marx, Diary of Ann Frank, a book on Japanese internment camps during WWII. After a while these books merge a bit in my memory. Yet, I remember the impressions, slight dents or epiphanies that changed my outlook on things.
For me, reading and writing are part of my being, an extension of who I am. The books I've read do influence how I write and view other things in slight ways, I can't quite explain. I think the fact that I read so much fantasy as a child may be the reason I still find myself escaping into it today whenever I get frustrated. Or my love of adventure and a darker/conflicted hero/outcast - may be why I love Spike and Lymond and Angel so much. It's weird to contemplate how much these things have influenced me and how.
Interesting meme.
The difficulty with this particular meme is that the youngsters online have a distinct advantage, ie. it's a lot easier to remember the books that influenced your childhood if your childhood was uhm only ten years ago. Try remembering the books you read 15-20 years ago. Not so easy, let me tell you.
Especially, when there are days I have troubles remembering what I read last year. I've read over 1000 books in my 36 years...hard to keep track of them all. But will try.
The Childhood Book Meme
1.Richard Scarey - you know those huge picture books with little animals dressing and working like humans, and the book would tell you everything they did with little lables? I think this book was instrumental in teaching me how to read. Along with Dick and Jane, The Doctor Seuss Books, and lots of those Golden Book classics you used to be able to buy in Grocery Stores in the 1970s.
2. My favorite book as a small child - I actually slept with it and traced the pictures and drew them - was the Disney picture book version of Robin Hood. I was in love with the Fox. (My first crushes were Kimba the White Lion on TV and Robin Hood the fox from the Disney film. I had a thing for outcasts, both were by the way, but who didn't whine about it and worked hard to change their situation and became leaders against the people who put them down.)
3. This love for outcasts was partly encouraged by the books my parents and teachers read to me as a child. These books gave me friends I could relate to, people or characters, usually small animals, who like myself were different and ostracized for being different, for not fitting in. They were my heroes. I remember finding strength in these characters stories and at my lowest points, summoning them in my head or characters like them, expanding on their stories or coming up with new ones, to keep myself going. I was a child who often escaped the pain of rejection, by occuping myself with a story.
- EB White's novels: Stuart Little, Charlott's Web (unfortunately did not cure me of my fear of spiders), Trumpter Swan.
-Ronald Dahl: James and The Giant Peach, Charlie and The Chocolat Factory, Charlie and The Great Glass Elevator
- The works of Laura Ingells Wilder - Little House on The Prarie -etc.
- The Bible, of course - I went to Catechism Classes
or CCD.
As I've mentioned before because of my learning disability, it took me longer to figure out how to read than most kids. The school used "phonics" but since I couldn't distinguish certain sounds, the teachers had to use the sight and say version to teach me. Lucky for me, they had enough time to do this.
1. Lisa Bright and Dark - a tale about a girl locked inside her own mind and how she deals with it. I vaguely remember it.
2. The Perilous Guard (now out of print, I got the book again in college - the last copy.)This is a tale of a woman who saves a young man from a druidic circle. It takes place during the 1500s in Wales. The damsel is the guy, the hero the girl.
3. The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen - another tale about a little girl's adventures as she searches for a little boy who is her friend.
4. The Wolves of Willohby Chase
5. Escape from Witch Mountain (was a novel before the Disney movie)
6. Nancy Drew Mysteries
7. Judy Blumes novels - Are You There God? It's Me Margaret, etc. I think I read most of them.
8. Harriet The Spy
9. The Secret Garden
10. The Velvet Room and The Witches of Worm by Sylvia(?) Keatly Snyder - these were psychological thrillers featuring female heroines.
11. Dark is Rising Series by Susan Cooper (vaguely remember it)
12. The Wizard of Earthsea series by Ursula Le Guinn
13. Watership Down
14. All Creatures Great and Small series by James Herbert (about an English Country veternan)
15. My Side of The Mountain - about a little boy who hollowed out the inside of a tree and lived in it on a mountain for a year.
16. Where the Red Fern Grows - about two dogs who died for each other.
17.Anne McCaffrey's DragonRiders of Pern Series and Andre Norton's works
18. Bednobs and Broomsticks...by?
19. The Borrowers..
20. The Once and Future King by T.H. White
As I got better at reading - I began to devour books, becoming more and more interested in books that dealt with an element of adventure or a quest.
Survival books also fascinated me.
1. The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings - I fell in love with Gandalf. In fact my parents bought me a little wooden figurine of Frodo, who I identified with in an odd way. I read these books between 6th and 7th grade.
2. Dune by Frank Herbert. (Wasn't able to get into the sequel.)
3. The White Gold Weilder Series...by Stephen R. Donaldson. (Loved these books - nice dark hero to sink my teeth into.)
4. SE Hinton's The Outsiders, fell in love with Ponyboy. Also read her other books but don't remember them as well.
5. Sherlock Holmes - The Hounds of the Baskervilles,
Mary Stewart's The Hollow Hills, and other works on Merlin, (I loved Merlin found him far more interesting than Arthur for some reason.), Touch Not the Cat by Stewart.
6. Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Persuasion, and Sandition (which was partly written by someone else).
7. Short stories by Steinbeck, Dickens, Bradbury (The Veldt left a lasting impression when I was in 6th grade).
8. George Orwell's 1984/Animal Farm
9. Farenheit 451
When I reached high school - I was reading Ayn Rand, Steinbeck, Hemingway, Faulkner, etc. Books included:
Anthem by Rand, Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck,
The Reivers by Faulkner, Chaucer's Tales, Loads of Shakespeare - actually acted in one, Over 100 plays including the works of Woody Allen, Neil Simon, Arthur Miller (played Tituba in The Crucible), Samuel Beckett, Christopher Durang, etc...can't remember all of them. Advise and Consent, Catcher in the Rye, A Separate Peace, Ethan Fromm by Edith Wharton, Machievielli's The Prince, a little of the Communist Manifesto by Marx, Diary of Ann Frank, a book on Japanese internment camps during WWII. After a while these books merge a bit in my memory. Yet, I remember the impressions, slight dents or epiphanies that changed my outlook on things.
For me, reading and writing are part of my being, an extension of who I am. The books I've read do influence how I write and view other things in slight ways, I can't quite explain. I think the fact that I read so much fantasy as a child may be the reason I still find myself escaping into it today whenever I get frustrated. Or my love of adventure and a darker/conflicted hero/outcast - may be why I love Spike and Lymond and Angel so much. It's weird to contemplate how much these things have influenced me and how.
Interesting meme.
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no subject
Date: 2004-01-12 02:25 pm (UTC)Thanks for sharing yours!
no subject
Date: 2004-01-12 09:23 pm (UTC)Um, nothing intelligent here from me, but thanks for the post!