Favorite Children's Book?

This thread has brought back so many memories! Names I haven't thought about in years - Trixie Belden, Cherry Ames, Harriet, Ramona.

My favorite series as a kid was the Betsy & Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace. It was about two little girls and their families in turn-of-the-century Minnesota. What I liked as a kid was that as the girls got older, the reading level of the books advanced as well. Hardly anyone I've mentioned them to has heard of them, so when they were mentioned in "You've Got Mail" (by Meg Ryan as a children's bookstore owner) I almost fell out of my chair.

The other book I loved was "The Westing Game" by Ellen Raskin. It was the first "mystery" book I ever read, a puzzle mystery at that, and I was hooked. I still go back and re-read it every few years and enjoy it just as much.

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Originally Posted by emeraldsong

I love so many of the books mentioned and there are so many great books for kids out there.
One of my favorite authors is Madeline L'Engle (Wrinkle in Time Series, Meet the Austin Series) and I remember reading in one of her non fiction books about what makes children's lit. and she said something along the lines of "children's books are anything a child will read and enjoy.
I absolutely love Rosemary Wells and the Max books (Max and the Chocolate Chicken, Bunny Cakes, Max's Dragonshirt -- which was a favorite of my students). Also Eric Carle and all his wonderful books -- I don't know which one of his many to mention. Tom DePola is also a favorite author. The Strega Nona books are wonderful.

I also recently read an absolutely delightful story called The Children at Pineapple Place. It is about an "invisable street" that is found by a young boy who has just moved to the Washington DC area. It is wonderful.

I also like the Time Warp Trio by Smith and Szekja (or however you spell it). They are wonderful for boys -- irrevent and gross but that is what third grade boys read.

Also, if you like fantasy and dragons, you might want to pick up Eargon. It's a new epic fantasy book that is very appealing

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emeraldsong, thanks for reminding me of the Madeline L'Engle books - I absolutely loved the Wrinkle in Time series... now I have to go look for them online! :winkgrin

I'm 28 and I *still* like Madeline L'Engle's Wrinkle in Time series. :laugh

You're welcome, Aply. Don't be surprised to find a couple of books in the series that you don't remember reading. One of them is a Noah's ark story that involves the Twins, Sandy and Dennys and the other involves Meg's and Calvin's children. One thing I love about Madeline L'Engle is the way that her characters from one series suddenly appear breifly in a book in another series.

She has also written several wonderful books for adults -- not quite like the Wrinkle in Time books but still good.

I'm also slightly embarressed to admit that I forgot to mention one of my favorite books when I was in Kindergarten. It was called I want to be a Homemaker. Here I was a little girl growing up in the era of women's lib and my favorite story was about a little girl playing house! It's just slightly pathetic.

This thread makes me feel all warm inside! :biglove

Travelling back in time, here are a few of my favorite childhood books:

Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass
The Giving Tree
The Velveteen Rabbit
Where the Wild Things Are
James & the Giant Peach
Curious George
Charlotte's Web
Little Women
The Girl with Silver Eyes
Any Richard Scarry book
Any Dr. Seuss book
Berenstein Bears and Paddington Bear
The Ramona books by Beverly Cleary
Any Judy Blume book, but I :heart the Fudge Series when I was little
All of C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia
Grimm's Fairy Tales but it had to be the bloody, violent original versions
Piers Anthony's fantasy series (like One a Pale Horse, can't remember all the titles)
And does anybody remember that old Time/Life: Enchanted World book series, those beautiful, old, illustrated, hardbound books on Ghosts, Night Creatures, Dragons, Fairies & Elves, etc.? I used to adore poring through those books reading about old legends and lore. I think they're still at my grandparent's house...*sigh* Good times.

I'm also one of those people who read Flowers in the Attic and the follow-ups--remember those lurid, purple, faux-bas relief covers, with the cut-outs with the creepy, pale twins looking out the window? Those weren't supposed to be for children were they? I read a lot of books that weren't supposed to be for kids because whenever I visited my grandparents I was allowed to read whatever was on their bookshelves, so at like 7 I read The Bell Jar, Looking for Mr. Goodbar, The Stepford Wives, and every Stephen King book from the 80s.

Oops, I forgot to mention Babar the Elephant! I've loved elephants ever since.

SnowflakeGirl, that's a great list. I remember most of those. :biglove

:hiya Salome! I forgot Babar too, thanks for reminding me. I loved those books too.

Hey, I'm getting a flashback. Wasn't there a series with hippos? A cute hippopotamus couple?

The Girl with the Silver Eyes! -- Thanks for reminding me of that book SnowflakeGirl!

I actually got to help give that book the Mark Twain Award when I was in seventh grade. Kids who live in Missouri get to vote for a favorite book and that was my pick out of the nominated books. I loved that story and I wanted to have silver eyes!

Anything by Dr. Suess and all of the Harry Potter books

I love this thread...many memories...
My favorites that I can think of so far were....

Trixie Beldon
Are you there God it's me Margaret?
The Borrowers
Snoopy Come Home
The ladybird reading Books
The Chronicles of Narnia