They're certainly decaying, but I do have my most favorite - A Wrinkle in Time - along with By the Shores of Silver Lake and Alice and Wonderland. I still regret not hanging on to my collection of Nancy Drew... When I was quite young, I remember always reading a couple chapters of Charlotte's Web before bed, and starting it over once I finished it. I do think I enjoyed books about people learning how to do the right thing.
We loved all the same books! Wrinkle in Time blew my mind as a child. Read Charlotte’s Web over and over. Also eventually Little Women, Jo’s Boys… and anything with orphans. Loved an orphan book.
Oh, so many to delve into here, but I'll start with the standouts: the Anne of Green Gables series, the Little House series, the Trixie Belden series, The Secret Garden...most featured a spunky girl character who went on adventures. Many of them are now on my teenage daughter's bedroom bookshelf. I know she hasn't read most of them and maybe never will, but it's somehow comforting to me to know they are still in close proximity to a young girl. (I have many of them downloaded to my Kindle, and re-read them all yearly.) (Actually just started Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery because I never got around to it as a child, but I figured it's never too late for more L.M. Montgomery!)
I loved those Little House books, but wow, reading a couple of them with my daughter, I realized parts of them didn't age well. IYKYK. But On The Banks of Spring Creek was an especially magical book for me as a kid.
I loved all the Little House books--even though the first one, In the Big Woods, seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time focusing on bacon and spankings! But I'm not in the camp of canceling books because of parts that have not aged well. I find it an opportunity to discuss (with children and current readers) history and what happened when and even perhaps why. And why those books were accessible to us and others were not (like those by Native Americans --oral or written or published---again history). It's important, especially as history repeats itself, to try and understand why, for example, Laura thought the thoughts she did when watching the "Indians" march out of their territory and past her house. We can talk about how power struggles and land grabs are continuously being enacted and the mythologies that make them palatable. At the same time that Ingalls Wilder wrote about a minstrel show that "Pa" was so delighted with, she also wrote about the doctor who saved her life having a black face and how he came to their cabin to find the whole family dying on his way to treat the Native Americans (the ONLY doctor who would).
Oh yeah, for sure. And sometimes the stuff that "didn't age well" is just sorta slipped in there, right in the middle of an otherwise-innocuous scene, and you're like "WAIT WHAT?"
Definitely not limited to Wilder's books, though; I see that kind of thing with most books from earlier eras.
It is NEVER too late for more LM Montgomery! I discovered the Emily books when I'd read out loud to my sons at bedtime. I wonder why I didn't know of them when a child myself. I've read and reread all the Anne books so many times and still do, periodically, in middle-age. They are so comforting.
They really are. I never read past Anne of The Island as a kid (just lost interest once Anne started having kids, I guess) but the later books are really very good, too. I re-read Rilla of Ingleside a few months ago - that's a hard read, but I think probably the best of the series. Since you love Montgomery & Anne, you may like this post I wrote a while ago : https://open.substack.com/pub/meaganfrancis/p/what-does-the-world-need-from-us?r=evv7i&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Ahh I am with you on Rilla of Ingleside being one of the best! I haven’t found many people who have gotten that far! The growth of Rilla and the hard struggles that that confront the classic LMM fiesty, creative spirit…i remember returning to that one a lot, even as a kid. (Walter! 😭)
I also found a book of Anne-adjacent stories published posthumously and read them. But I do like the Anne-centered books the best. The first 3 are magnificent. Also, this is sad but thought-provoking, I read that Montgomery wrote Rilla of Ingleside when she believed that WW1 was going to be the Great War that ended all wars, that the sacrifice of husbands and fathers and sons would be worth it for it would vanquish "evil" for good. But then came WW2 and so soon afterward and she died of a laudamun overdose that some speculate was purposeful as she couldn't reconcile her beliefs and convictions with the continuing violence in the world. I realize now that it was/is a gift to be able to enter her Anne-world that is so compelling and beautiful.
I just read that recently about her overdose. It really does put everything into a different perspective. And I remember reading a biography, years ago, that unpacked how emotionally challenging her life was.
As you beautifully said, what a gift to enter her Anne- world, even knowing all that.
Oh my gosh, I didn't know that - how sad. I was aware she had died of an overdose, but not th reasoning behind it. I do love Rilla, but many parts of it strike me, 100+ years later, as overly idealistic/optimistic about that war, and war in general (it's not kind to the pacifist characters, that's for sure). So having that context makes so much sense and gives me a very different outlook on that book and all the rest.
My most important early books all had main female characters that helped me feel seen more clearly as the sort of girl I actually was-- very smart, often angry and sad and flummoxed by family and friendship, and harboring secret shames about very dark things that were happening in my life. Those early books included A Wrinkle in Time (and all the subsequent sequels), The Secret Garden, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, and The Bluest Eye (which isn't a children's book at all, but came to me when I was 11 and saved my life). I read widely and voraciously, so there were many other books that I enjoyed, but these stayed with me forever.
Amazing that you could absorb The Bluest Eye at 11! I read it the first time in graduate school and it almost destroyed me. Toni Morrison, truly the GOAT.
I'm sorry to say I didn't save many books, but I just pulled out my worn copy of Heidi Grows Up, the sequel to Heidi. My grandmother gave it to me and I have her inscription in it, so it was spared the recycling bin. Before Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden and all things Louisa May Alcott, I remember going to the library in the next town over (we didn't have one) to get books in the series of "Cherry Ames - my first one was "Cherry Ames" Army Nurse. I am realizing now that I don't have them because most of my early books were library books. I also kept my Alice in Wonderland.
Excited to see all the Madeleine L’Engle fans here. I remember reading A Wrinkle in Time and thinking “wow, I didn’t realize books could be like this.” I recently found some copies of the 70s cover series and I can’t wait until my kids are old enough to read them.
Thinking back on my childhood faves (Chronicles of Narnia, Coraline, Wrinkle in Time, Harry Potter, Golden Compass, The Ear The Eye and The Arm, The Tripod Trilogy, The Giver), I notice a young inclination towards fantasy and sci-fi, which has only grown since.
I devoured EVERYTHING Judy Blume, Baby Sitters Club books, Little House, and Sweet Valley High. But my favorite was Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary. I wish I had my original copy.
Here's a little book love from the memoir I'm writing: Readers know the delicious smell of older books, where ink and age are minced on the page. The best books contain the paw prints of earlier visitors. A splash of coffee. A folded corner. A binding that has cracked and falls open to favorite pages.
Books welcomed me into the lives of other girls who didn’t fit in, who were confused and dismayed, rushing to raise our hands until we realized that we would need to find the answers on our own.
I can’t imagine my childhood without the authors and characters who made me feel less alone in the world-- Madeleine L’Engle, Judy Blume, E.B. White, Carolyn Keene. They gave me a band of misfits to run with. Beezus and Nancy and Scout and Fern and Meg and Ramona and Margaret were my posse. We all had questions and wild longings.
None of us were bad kids. We just needed to touch the wet paint.
I loved so many of the books readers have listed here. I also loved the two boarding school series by Enid Blyton--Malory Towers and St. Clare's. My father found them at the only English language bookstore in Quito, Ecuador (in the late seventies when we lived there for my father's job and I attended middle school) and brought them back for my sister and me. I still have some of the bedraggled originals. I read them out loud to my two sons when they were in elementary school--who says boys can't enjoy stories about girls?? My husband would take over and read the dialogue with the French teachers' accents (the Mam'zelles) and we would all laugh uproariously. Ahhh, good times.
Did you notice that at the beginning of each book there's a note from the author saying "please don't write me asking how to apply to these schools because they don't exist"? So many girls would have LOVED to go to those schools and go to the midnight feasts and swim in the rock pool filled with ocean water. And of course be best friends with Bobbie or Darrell, lol.
I loved – and still love – Charlotte’s Webb. The other other books I read and reread as a child included Hitty, Her First Hundred Years; Tom Sawyer; Little Women; Black Beauty; and all of Marguerite Henry’s books. I was fortunate that my aunt, who was very close in age to me, was part of a book-of-the-month club in the 1960s, and she was very generous about letting me borrow anything I wanted. (I am sending this comment from a table at Kitties Cakes after picking up a copy of My Thoughts Have Wings from Gramercy Books!)
Nancy Drew and anything from the Dear America series. I still love history whether that is nonfiction or fiction. I also always remembered a few scenes from a novel I read as a kid and decided to do some Googling and discovered it was called Webster's Leap. I found it and reread it a few months ago and it brought back all sorts of memories, so I own that one now.
I was obsessed with Nancy Drew's watch. The one that she always glanced at and that she wore on her "slim wrist." Or was it a "slim watch"? I wanted her style so badly when I had frizzy hair and buck teeth.
I echo others - Nancy Drew: The Clue in the Crumbling Wall, specifically, may have sparked my love for Ireland and castles. I also LOVE Corduroy and as an adult, I made sure my children both had their own copy of this book. Something about that little bear in green overalls missing a button, being seen as less than perfect through the eyes of the mother, but perfect and in need of love in the eyes of the child that just warms me every time!
Congratulations on publishing your newest book! Two books I loved as a child were Virginia Burton's Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel and Syd Hoff's Danny and the Dinosaur. Two other books which I loved and which scared me to death (and I still have them and they still scare me) were the Tall Book of Mother Goose and the Tall Book of Nursery Tales, both illustrated with the beautiful and creepy illustrations of Feodor Rojankovsky.
I had a cassette recording of The Velveteen Rabbit (narrated by Meryl Streep) that went with my book. The illustrations were gorgeous, and I got lost in that story so many times. I still have the book! My first grade teacher read The Boxcar Children to us, and I couldn’t get enough. In fourth grade it was Superfudge, and then I felt so grown up reading everything Judy Blume. I couldn’t wait to read Superfudge out loud to my kids. We read a lot of books out loud as a family. Seems like the common thread is hearing beautiful and funny stories as a kid.
Blueberries for Sal, One Morning in Maine, and Make Way for Ducklings (all by Robert McCloskey) were immensely important to me as a little kid. I adored them.
The Reading Rainbow book Just Us Women by Jeannette Caines was a favorite with my daughters and me. The “no boys and no men” journey was empowering and freeing.
They're certainly decaying, but I do have my most favorite - A Wrinkle in Time - along with By the Shores of Silver Lake and Alice and Wonderland. I still regret not hanging on to my collection of Nancy Drew... When I was quite young, I remember always reading a couple chapters of Charlotte's Web before bed, and starting it over once I finished it. I do think I enjoyed books about people learning how to do the right thing.
Yes to all of these. I read both Nancy Drew and the Trixie Belden mysteries when I was young.
Oh, I had forgotten about Trixie Belden!
We loved all the same books! Wrinkle in Time blew my mind as a child. Read Charlotte’s Web over and over. Also eventually Little Women, Jo’s Boys… and anything with orphans. Loved an orphan book.
And Rose in Bloom - right? After Jo's Boys
Oh, so many to delve into here, but I'll start with the standouts: the Anne of Green Gables series, the Little House series, the Trixie Belden series, The Secret Garden...most featured a spunky girl character who went on adventures. Many of them are now on my teenage daughter's bedroom bookshelf. I know she hasn't read most of them and maybe never will, but it's somehow comforting to me to know they are still in close proximity to a young girl. (I have many of them downloaded to my Kindle, and re-read them all yearly.) (Actually just started Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery because I never got around to it as a child, but I figured it's never too late for more L.M. Montgomery!)
I loved those Little House books, but wow, reading a couple of them with my daughter, I realized parts of them didn't age well. IYKYK. But On The Banks of Spring Creek was an especially magical book for me as a kid.
I loved all the Little House books--even though the first one, In the Big Woods, seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time focusing on bacon and spankings! But I'm not in the camp of canceling books because of parts that have not aged well. I find it an opportunity to discuss (with children and current readers) history and what happened when and even perhaps why. And why those books were accessible to us and others were not (like those by Native Americans --oral or written or published---again history). It's important, especially as history repeats itself, to try and understand why, for example, Laura thought the thoughts she did when watching the "Indians" march out of their territory and past her house. We can talk about how power struggles and land grabs are continuously being enacted and the mythologies that make them palatable. At the same time that Ingalls Wilder wrote about a minstrel show that "Pa" was so delighted with, she also wrote about the doctor who saved her life having a black face and how he came to their cabin to find the whole family dying on his way to treat the Native Americans (the ONLY doctor who would).
Oh yeah, for sure. And sometimes the stuff that "didn't age well" is just sorta slipped in there, right in the middle of an otherwise-innocuous scene, and you're like "WAIT WHAT?"
Definitely not limited to Wilder's books, though; I see that kind of thing with most books from earlier eras.
It is NEVER too late for more LM Montgomery! I discovered the Emily books when I'd read out loud to my sons at bedtime. I wonder why I didn't know of them when a child myself. I've read and reread all the Anne books so many times and still do, periodically, in middle-age. They are so comforting.
They really are. I never read past Anne of The Island as a kid (just lost interest once Anne started having kids, I guess) but the later books are really very good, too. I re-read Rilla of Ingleside a few months ago - that's a hard read, but I think probably the best of the series. Since you love Montgomery & Anne, you may like this post I wrote a while ago : https://open.substack.com/pub/meaganfrancis/p/what-does-the-world-need-from-us?r=evv7i&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Ahh I am with you on Rilla of Ingleside being one of the best! I haven’t found many people who have gotten that far! The growth of Rilla and the hard struggles that that confront the classic LMM fiesty, creative spirit…i remember returning to that one a lot, even as a kid. (Walter! 😭)
poor, tragic Walter
I also found a book of Anne-adjacent stories published posthumously and read them. But I do like the Anne-centered books the best. The first 3 are magnificent. Also, this is sad but thought-provoking, I read that Montgomery wrote Rilla of Ingleside when she believed that WW1 was going to be the Great War that ended all wars, that the sacrifice of husbands and fathers and sons would be worth it for it would vanquish "evil" for good. But then came WW2 and so soon afterward and she died of a laudamun overdose that some speculate was purposeful as she couldn't reconcile her beliefs and convictions with the continuing violence in the world. I realize now that it was/is a gift to be able to enter her Anne-world that is so compelling and beautiful.
I just read that recently about her overdose. It really does put everything into a different perspective. And I remember reading a biography, years ago, that unpacked how emotionally challenging her life was.
As you beautifully said, what a gift to enter her Anne- world, even knowing all that.
Oh my gosh, I didn't know that - how sad. I was aware she had died of an overdose, but not th reasoning behind it. I do love Rilla, but many parts of it strike me, 100+ years later, as overly idealistic/optimistic about that war, and war in general (it's not kind to the pacifist characters, that's for sure). So having that context makes so much sense and gives me a very different outlook on that book and all the rest.
Regarding your substack title--I LOVE tea! Right now I'm sitting on my couch reading and writing with my cup of black tea with milk. This is the life.
My most important early books all had main female characters that helped me feel seen more clearly as the sort of girl I actually was-- very smart, often angry and sad and flummoxed by family and friendship, and harboring secret shames about very dark things that were happening in my life. Those early books included A Wrinkle in Time (and all the subsequent sequels), The Secret Garden, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, and The Bluest Eye (which isn't a children's book at all, but came to me when I was 11 and saved my life). I read widely and voraciously, so there were many other books that I enjoyed, but these stayed with me forever.
Great picks!
*Loved* The Secret Garden!! AND The Bluest Eye❤️
I still reread The Secret Garden. Still looking for a secret garden in my backyard!
Amazing that you could absorb The Bluest Eye at 11! I read it the first time in graduate school and it almost destroyed me. Toni Morrison, truly the GOAT.
I'm sorry to say I didn't save many books, but I just pulled out my worn copy of Heidi Grows Up, the sequel to Heidi. My grandmother gave it to me and I have her inscription in it, so it was spared the recycling bin. Before Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden and all things Louisa May Alcott, I remember going to the library in the next town over (we didn't have one) to get books in the series of "Cherry Ames - my first one was "Cherry Ames" Army Nurse. I am realizing now that I don't have them because most of my early books were library books. I also kept my Alice in Wonderland.
So many of my early books were from the public library, too. It was one of our favorites places.
Excited to see all the Madeleine L’Engle fans here. I remember reading A Wrinkle in Time and thinking “wow, I didn’t realize books could be like this.” I recently found some copies of the 70s cover series and I can’t wait until my kids are old enough to read them.
Thinking back on my childhood faves (Chronicles of Narnia, Coraline, Wrinkle in Time, Harry Potter, Golden Compass, The Ear The Eye and The Arm, The Tripod Trilogy, The Giver), I notice a young inclination towards fantasy and sci-fi, which has only grown since.
I devoured EVERYTHING Judy Blume, Baby Sitters Club books, Little House, and Sweet Valley High. But my favorite was Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary. I wish I had my original copy.
I read these, too!
Here's a little book love from the memoir I'm writing: Readers know the delicious smell of older books, where ink and age are minced on the page. The best books contain the paw prints of earlier visitors. A splash of coffee. A folded corner. A binding that has cracked and falls open to favorite pages.
Books welcomed me into the lives of other girls who didn’t fit in, who were confused and dismayed, rushing to raise our hands until we realized that we would need to find the answers on our own.
I can’t imagine my childhood without the authors and characters who made me feel less alone in the world-- Madeleine L’Engle, Judy Blume, E.B. White, Carolyn Keene. They gave me a band of misfits to run with. Beezus and Nancy and Scout and Fern and Meg and Ramona and Margaret were my posse. We all had questions and wild longings.
None of us were bad kids. We just needed to touch the wet paint.
Love!
I loved so many of the books readers have listed here. I also loved the two boarding school series by Enid Blyton--Malory Towers and St. Clare's. My father found them at the only English language bookstore in Quito, Ecuador (in the late seventies when we lived there for my father's job and I attended middle school) and brought them back for my sister and me. I still have some of the bedraggled originals. I read them out loud to my two sons when they were in elementary school--who says boys can't enjoy stories about girls?? My husband would take over and read the dialogue with the French teachers' accents (the Mam'zelles) and we would all laugh uproariously. Ahhh, good times.
What wonderful memories!
Loved Mallory Towers and St. Claire's. Made me want to go boarding school... which ended up happening. It wasn't the same tho! Lol!
Did you notice that at the beginning of each book there's a note from the author saying "please don't write me asking how to apply to these schools because they don't exist"? So many girls would have LOVED to go to those schools and go to the midnight feasts and swim in the rock pool filled with ocean water. And of course be best friends with Bobbie or Darrell, lol.
I loved – and still love – Charlotte’s Webb. The other other books I read and reread as a child included Hitty, Her First Hundred Years; Tom Sawyer; Little Women; Black Beauty; and all of Marguerite Henry’s books. I was fortunate that my aunt, who was very close in age to me, was part of a book-of-the-month club in the 1960s, and she was very generous about letting me borrow anything I wanted. (I am sending this comment from a table at Kitties Cakes after picking up a copy of My Thoughts Have Wings from Gramercy Books!)
Oh my goodness! Thank you. (And great books!)
Nancy Drew and anything from the Dear America series. I still love history whether that is nonfiction or fiction. I also always remembered a few scenes from a novel I read as a kid and decided to do some Googling and discovered it was called Webster's Leap. I found it and reread it a few months ago and it brought back all sorts of memories, so I own that one now.
I was obsessed with Nancy Drew's watch. The one that she always glanced at and that she wore on her "slim wrist." Or was it a "slim watch"? I wanted her style so badly when I had frizzy hair and buck teeth.
I wanted everyone's style but my own as a kid haha. Fellow kiddo right here who had buck teeth too. ❤️
I echo others - Nancy Drew: The Clue in the Crumbling Wall, specifically, may have sparked my love for Ireland and castles. I also LOVE Corduroy and as an adult, I made sure my children both had their own copy of this book. Something about that little bear in green overalls missing a button, being seen as less than perfect through the eyes of the mother, but perfect and in need of love in the eyes of the child that just warms me every time!
Haha I temporarily changed my name to Lilac after reading The Mystery of Lilac Lane🤣
Corduroy was a favorite of mine, too.
Congratulations on publishing your newest book! Two books I loved as a child were Virginia Burton's Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel and Syd Hoff's Danny and the Dinosaur. Two other books which I loved and which scared me to death (and I still have them and they still scare me) were the Tall Book of Mother Goose and the Tall Book of Nursery Tales, both illustrated with the beautiful and creepy illustrations of Feodor Rojankovsky.
Ooh, I'll have to look those up!
I had a cassette recording of The Velveteen Rabbit (narrated by Meryl Streep) that went with my book. The illustrations were gorgeous, and I got lost in that story so many times. I still have the book! My first grade teacher read The Boxcar Children to us, and I couldn’t get enough. In fourth grade it was Superfudge, and then I felt so grown up reading everything Judy Blume. I couldn’t wait to read Superfudge out loud to my kids. We read a lot of books out loud as a family. Seems like the common thread is hearing beautiful and funny stories as a kid.
Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Book of Verses was a favorite. My mother had such a good voice for poetry.
Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel
The Best Loves Doll
Blueberries for Sal
Nancy Drew
I could go on forever.
I have most of these saved and now they belong to my grandchildren.
I read that RLS book in high school, when the kids I was babysitting asked me to read from it. Who knew I'd end up a poet! :)
Remember The Land of Counterpane and The Lamplighter?
My mother could recite Counterpane by heart. ❤️
sweet! I'm glad someone else remembers it!
Blueberries for Sal, One Morning in Maine, and Make Way for Ducklings (all by Robert McCloskey) were immensely important to me as a little kid. I adored them.
Yes. All of these!
The Reading Rainbow book Just Us Women by Jeannette Caines was a favorite with my daughters and me. The “no boys and no men” journey was empowering and freeing.
Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great. My mom took my copy to a Penwomen conference for Judy Blume to sign. It’s in a bag in my treasure tub.
Oh yes--I remember that one!