What were your favorite books as a kid?

[Amail]

There were two classes of books I read in elementary school - Required Reading and Whatever I Picked Up in the Library.

Required Reading:
Where the Red Fern Grows

Library:
Shy Stegasaurus of Cricket Creek (2nd grade or so)
Lion Adventure, African Adventure, Elephant Adventure (Willard Price)

I got way hooked on Dune in junior high - I had my dad bring home a "C" size sheet of grid paper from work so I could track the characters and their relationships to one another as I read along.

[Nostril Cheese]

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

my dad gave me that book when I was 8.

needless to say, I had a ****ed up childhood.

[techweenie]

Rise and Fall of the Third Reich at 10. ( was a bit precocious)

Had OZ books -- 13 of them from my mother's collection and read them all when I was younger.

Big on 'golden age' sci fi.

[sammyg2]

LOL, as soon as I saw the title I thought of where the red fern grows. Then I open it up and see you already posted that.
How about flowers for algernon (remade into the movie "charlie")?

[bigchillcar]

as a kid, i mean young..i used to get these books called 'big little books'..small in areas, but thick and when you flipped the pages, an animated character in the corner would 'come alive' and move. i had over a dozen and read them over and over..still have them in a box in the garage somewhere.

[onewhippedpuppy]

Tom Clancy, Dean Koontz, Stephen King, Michael Crichton, Dale Brown, other usual suspects.

I read "The Hunt for Red October" on my way to Orlando in 4th grade, to ride on the USS Topeka, a Los Angeles class attack sub. After that, anything less than a novel would bore me to tears.

What can I say, I was a bit of a dork.

[bigchillcar]

i love koontz today, but jeez, matt..you read koontz as a kid?? holy cow! lol.

[techweenie]

Originally posted by sammyg2
LOL, as soon as I saw the title I thought of where the red fern grows. Then I open it up and see you already posted that.
How about flowers for algernon (remade into the movie "charlie")?

Flowers for Algernon was a great novel. About the same time (preadolecence) I got into HP Lovecraft, too.

[onewhippedpuppy]

Yeah. Funny, I'm probably the only kid that ever got in trouble for reading. I picked up The Hunt for Red October at the KC airport with my grandpa, and had it read before I got back to KS. When my parents found out I had read an "adult" novel as a 4th grader, they were pissed (overly strict). So, I basically picked up books at the library, then didn't let my parents see them. It's either rebelious or really, really lame. I'm not certain which.

[notfarnow]

Penthouse letters that my buddy pinched from his old man.

That, and VW & Porsche shop manuals. No kidding.

My wife makes fun of me, because she has novels on her nightstand, and I have Bentley manuals. She wouldn't tolerate the Penthouse letters though... neither did my mom when I was in grade 5.

[Rick Lee]

I didn't read Rise and Fall until I was about 17 and didn't get into Clancy until I was about 21, but read them all as soon as I discovered him.

Favorite book as a kid was Pablo, the Penguin Who Hated the Cold.

[Gogar]

Encyclopedia Brown, and then later, Terry Brooks.

Oh and Hot VW's.

[Tyson Schmidt]

The Phantom Tollbooth

Alan Mendelson, the Boy from Mars (and many others by Daniel M. Pinkwater)

Tolkien

Roald Dahl

[Seahawk]

Originally posted by techweenie
Rise and Fall of the Third Reich at 10. ( was a bit precocious)

Had OZ books -- 13 of them from my mother's collection and read them all when I was younger.

Big on 'golden age' sci fi.

My kids both loved the Oz books, Potter and detective books...I honestly have no idea why.

My son finished (he is 12) 'Into the Volcano' by, Forrest DeVoe, Jr. just before I left for Fla. last week. I read it on the plane and enjoyed it.

He is also into sci fi...again, not my deal but I am soooo happy they read, and read a lot.

I loved the Hardy Boys as a kid (I was not precocious, rather stolid) but then moved into Twain, Knowles, Salinger and others...pretty mainstream.

My favorite book in the 70's was, "A Princess Bride". It was a wonder WAY before the movie.

[}{arlequin]

i was into adventures...

jules verne (anything w/ nemo)
alexandre dumas (all the musketeer versions, iron mask, monte cristo etc)
robert louis stevenson (all the pirate stuff)
james fenimore cooper (last of the mohicans + the rest of the series)

german writer named karl may wrote a lot about native americans. basically good cowboy and indians stories. read a lot of those.

once in high school, i switched to clancy. can't beat it for entertainment value

[MRM]

My 12 year old loves Roald Dahl. He also loved The Red Badge of Courage. I introduced him to my favorites: Old Yeller and Savage Sam, a Judy Blume book called Then Again Maybe I won't, the Mountain Pony series of westerns, and Henry Huggins.

I used to live for the next Encyclopedia Brown book to come out. I have to see if I can steal them from him for a while.

[daepp]

Dean Konntz is awesome - he is my favorite author today. His books certainly embrace the idea that life is worth living!

As a kid, loved The Hardy Boys, Where the Red Fern Grows, Johnny Tremain, A Wrinkle In Time, Watership Down.

[dan79brooklyn]

I read a lot as a kid, now I hardly ever get a chance to read fiction..
My favorites authors growing up were:
JRR Tolkien
Roald Dahl
Stephen King
Shel Silverstein
I read a lot of Asterix and Obelix comics and Asterix comics
Also read a lot of Science Fiction growing up.

Now I read car magazines and parenting books

[oldE]

My older brothers had collected a WW II series for youths about 'Dave Dawson and Freddie Farmer' Sort of 'Hardy Boys go to war'

In grades 4 & 5 I would read those over and over.
After that, it was military history and strategic studies right to my degree.
(My final paper for one course was "The Build-Up of the Soviet Navy !943 - 1976" Guess that dates me a bit.)

Les

[ledhedsymbols]

I read everything I could get my hands on, but my perception of reading changed when I discovered classic sci-fi. It all started with Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card when I was about 10. After that it was AHATT (All Heinlein All The Time.) Now, I prefer to read history for my noggin, and sci-fi for the soul. You will rarely see me without a book in my possesion, especially when I am working nights here at the greybar motel.

Micah