Since I talked about TV last week, I thought it would be appropriate to do books this week.
I loved books from a very early age, and I've always been a big reader. That's one of the reasons I majored in English, and I know that my love of books and reading is why I want to be a writer.
Early Childhood
--Goodnight Moon. This was my first favorite book, and I have very fond memories of both my parents reading it to me. To me, it's a childhood staple. I bought it for Austin before he was even born (as a baby shower gift) and the first time I met him, when he was just two days old, I insisted on reading it to him. I didn't care that he was pretty much asleep through it, I just wanted that moment. It was his first book and the first story he heard and since I'm his literary aunt, I wanted those to be from me.
--The Velveteen Rabbit. This book was also a favorite of mine, and even though it's probably done some minor psychological damage (basically what Toy Story would do to kids today, I would think) I still love it. To this day, if there's a stuffed animal alone on a shelf, I have to either buy it or at least put it with other stuffed animals so it's not lonely.
--Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes. My great grandma gave me this book when I was little--the old school volume with the black and white checkered cover--and I loved it.
--The Berenstein Bears. This one was later than the other three, and I remember checking them out from my school library.
Childhood
--Ghost stories. Any kind of ghost stories. I couldn't get enough of that kind of thing . . . which is weird because I'm actually kind of a sissy. I had a ton of those old short story collections that they used to put out all the time. The one I remember the most was called something like Railroad Ghosts and Highway Horrors, and it was all about . . . well, exactly what the title says. Ghosts haunting roadsides and railroads and stuff. It scared the crap out of me.
--Grimm's/Anderson' Fairy Tales. I actually credit these book with being the reason I love literature. My grandmother had both--the Grimm's was red, the Anderson's was green--and we used to read them together. I loved hearing the original stories of the Disney movies I watched, and having read those early on, I can see their influences in modern literature, and that interests me. After my grandma died I made sure I got those two books before anyone could accidentally donate them or something, and I still have them, all yellowed and stained and falling apart. To me, they sort of symbolize everything I love about literature.
--Goosebumps. Of course I loved Goosebumps. I read these all the time, and I read them fast. I could finish one in a day, even back then. I think my favorite was something like the Phantom of the Auditorium--it was kind of inspired by Phantom of the Opera. Not many of them actually scared me, but I remember that that one did, and the three of them with the ventriloquist dummies did too. The mask ones (Night of the Living Mask?) scared me a little too.
--The Baby-sitters Club. This was the other series I was really into. I read them in order and when the hundredth book came out and the club disbanded I was heartbroken. At least until they got back together at the end, but still. I also read and loved the BSC mysteries and super editions, and the little spin off series: the California diaries and the bios. I had a lot of BSC merchandise, too. I stopped reading them when I got older than the characters (because they never age . . . which was incredibly irritating to me).
--Stone Words. I don't remember much about this one but I do remember loving it. It was a ghost story, natch.
--The Dollhouse Murders. This was probably the stand alone book that scared me the most as a kid. It's about a girl who goes to live with her aunt in the house her dad grew up in, and there's this dollhouse in the attic that's a replica of the house, and dolls that look like her grandparents and aunt and dad as kids. It turns out that the grandparents were murdered and the dolls move around to re-enact it . . . it's so frickin' creepy! But also really good. Fact: this book still scares me as an adult. When I worked at the Kingman Hastings, I ordered it for myself one day when I was working in books. After I got it I went home and read it in about an hour, and let me tell ya, it scared me!
--As a teenager I was really into Sweet Valley High and Sweet Valley University. I probably read SVU more than SVH. Last year I had the opportunity to re-read a couple of SVU books and I was amazed at how awful they were! I couldn't stop laughing at them this time around but when I was 16 . . . damn, I loved those books!
Those are all the ones I can think of. What did you read as a kid?
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