Remember all those cool books you read as a kid? I do! John Bellairs, anyone? "The House with a Clock in its Walls"..."The Spell of the Sorcerer's Skull"..."The Figure in the Shadows"...those were awfully scary for children's literature. I just got some out from the library a few days ago, and they're still pretty frightening. Old Lewis Barnavelt and his wizard uncle. "The Red King:" The author's last name begins with a K. This was one of the more disturbing books I read as a kid, though rereading it now I can't see what bothered me. It's about an acrobat who becomes 'enslaved' to this trickster, Petey, in this land where a red plague is rampant. The acrobat, named Timkin, has had the plague and so is immune. Timkin and Petey try to infiltrate the Red King's lair to find the cure. At the end, Timkin is still a slave. Maybe this is what bothered me: she was so mistreated, but didn't seem to mind. All Lloyd Alexander books. Particularly the "High King" (old Taran and the Black Cauldron and Arawn Death-Lord) saga and the Kestrel trilogy. Totally awesome. "The Perilous Gard," by Elizabeth Marie Pope. My favorite book of all time. Pope is a Bryn Mawr alumna and the sole reason I applied to and attend this school. I've read it at least 100 times. At least. Probably more. Certain phrases from it pop up in my speech and writing all the time -- favorite line: "...but that was in the morning of the world, when miracles rose out of the wayside grass as easily as larks". It has a very complicated story line, but it's basically about a girl, Kate, who has to save a guy, Christopher, who's going to be burned alive as a part of a "heathen sacrifice." It takes place in 1558, and Kate is despised by her family because she's smart and plain and clumsy and not good wife-material. It's so non-romantic and romantic all at the same time, which is why it's so great. Kate is so logical ("what a good, clear mind you have" Christopher tells her) and sensible and unromantic, and so is Christopher, and yet they fall in love in a perfect, satisfying, non-melodramatic way. "The Celery Stalks at Midnight" This was really popular in my class in 5th grade. I did a book report on it. I remember laughing so hard while reading it that I fell out of bed. "A Wrinkle in Time," "A Wind in the Door," "A Swiftly Tilting Planet," by Madeleine L'Engle. The last book has St. Patrick's Breastplate used as a spell, and I tried to curse some girl with it in 6th grade. I remember riding my bike into the neighborhood across the street, standing in the middle of a cul-de-sac and shouting it at the top of my lungs. Ah, youth. All the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. Loved loved loved them. I _was_ Laura. I loved her because she tried so hard to be good, and yet her temper always tripped her up. Remember Nellie Olsen? Oooohhh, evil. All the Andrew Lang colored fairy books. I think the brown one was my favorite. Best fairy tale of all time: "Kate Crackernuts" Feminism at its earliest. A girl (the older, uglier sister, if you can imagine that) has to rescue her beautiful younger step-sister AND the handsome prince who is under a spell. And she does it using her wits. Beat that, Sleeping Beauty! (I really liked those girl-saves-guy plot lines, I see.) Jane Yolen's books, even her 'grown-up' ones, especially "White Jenna." I met her at a book signing: i was so nervous, but she was so approachable. All the Sweet Valley High books, of course. I so wanted Bruce and Elizabeth to get together. Someone told me that they did in the 100s, but I never read up that far into the series. My favorite was one of their many Spring Break specials (Jeez, and how many Christmases can you have and still stay 16?) where they went to France. "The Never-ending Story." My second-favorite book of all time. Utterly perfect. Ray Bradbury stories and novels. Not really for kids, but my aunt loved him, so he was all over the house. "Dandelion Wine" and "Something Wicked This Way Comes" have made me cry from the sheer beauty of their descriptions of childhood. Best story: Bless Me Father for I Have Sinned, about a priest who literally forgives himself. Howard Pyle's King Arthur tales. My mother read them to us when we were sick in Portugal. The Child's Illustrated Bible. It always fascinated me that, of all conceivable shapes and forms known to God, he chose to appear as a burning bush. And the picture accompanying the tale of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was truly frightening: angels shaped like tongues of fire filling the sky. It gave me nightmares. Speaking of which: "Velasquez for Children." He was a Spanish painter, who painted that famous portrait of the princess of Spain, with the little girl in the right hand corner, his face reflecting in a mirror, and the king and queen standing in a doorway, looking in. When I was little, I thought it was a painting of a party, and I had a nightmare that I was at that party and was chased by a giant concrete ball that was calling my name. My favorite book when I was really little was "There's a Monster at the End of This Book" with Grover, from Sesame Street. He tells you there's a monster, well, you know, and it looks like he's trying to staple and tape and glue and brick up the book so you can't get to the end, but you do, of course, and surprise! HE'S the monster! God, I loved that book. I'd better stop here. Damn, but I'm long-winded.

The house with a clock in its walls and The Blue figurine introduced me to real reading when I was very young. Wow! The memories! They were so fascinating... Thank you for reminding me. ah, the memories. I'll have to look those up again.

Island of the Blue Dolphin my mom's, My Book House series...read every one. i particularly remember the illustrations like frogs and running pancakes. i had a huge Anthology of Children's Literature with a really scary picture of Alice in Wonderland. i think i read all of that too. even the historical outlines. The Little Prince the real Alice in Wonderland with cooler and much less scary illustrations. Beverly Cleary Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm (lots of fairy tales on my list i guess) some book about moons. The Two Moons of ..... or something like that. anything i can remember of it seems pretty stupid but for some reason i loved it and read it a few times. The Chronicles of Narnia Madeleine L'Engle never heard of most of rhiannon's. looks like i hardly read any 'new' books then. this makes me want to go home and look them up. my memories of childhood tend to be prretty vague. book i was introduced to just a few years ago...Goodnight Moon.

i used to be into those kit williams books where there were clues in the illustrations and text that would lead you to the location of buried treasure. great illustrations. i remember having "masquerade" and the one with the beekeeper... and i think there was a third, but i dunno. spent a lot of time in seventh grade trying to figure out that puzzle. just found the answer a second ago.

Island of the Blue Dolphins ROCKED. And I loved all the Taran of Caer Dallben books too. My favorites aside from these and the Lang/Grimm fairy tales (Brown was my favorite, too, and my grandparents had it, may parents didn't -- grandpa talked me into only reading one story from it each visit and then mixing it up with other stuff so I would have a real treat on each visit): Joan Aiken, "The Wolves of Willoughby Chase" and "Nightbirds on Nantucket" (these are out of print, I tried ordering them a couple of months ago), "The Phantom Tollbooth," anything by Roald Dahl, but my fave was "Danny the Champion of the World." I read a lot of Judy Blume, and I still own all 3 "Runaway Ralph" books. The Jungle Book, hmmm, and the illustrated Greek Myths. And, my favorite one for Holidays: The Mouse and his Child, by Russell Hoban. But it's a weeper, so have hankies handy. Narnia was ok -- I think I had some sort of Turkish Taffy block that wouldn't let me appreciate them fully. But I loved Madeleine L'Engle.

C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, Alexander all were favorites. For a while, I was heavy into those Alfed Hitchcock ones with the kids, was it the Three Investigators? Roald Dahl was awesome. I loved the Nits. My brain is fuzzy, I can't think of any more.

Ok, I had some coffee: Douglas Adams Hitchhikers trilogy was a major influence. I started reading ElfQuest graphic novels when I was 8 and haven't stopped. When I was really young, I remember liking 'Why mosquitos buzz in peoples ears' and "where the wild things are' and every Dr. Suess book. ALso, anything about dinosaurs. I think that's when I really started reading well was when I got a hold of a dinosaur book aimed at educated readers and I forced myself to understand it all.

i am reading cleo "the phantom tollbooth" right now. it's one of my all time favorite children's books. i liked rumor godden a lot too. she wrote books about dolls that were alive. madeleine l'engle- any and all. i loved "the cricket in times square", all judy blume and laura ingalls wilder books, roald dahl, remember that story "the magic finger"? let's not forget "harriet the spy." a huge influence in my life. harriet was completely subversive. when i was little little, any and all margaret wise brown books, "sylvester and the magic pebble," the "frances" books.

I loved Runaway Ralph... and of course the HitchHiker's trilogy... I own all five books. In fact, I've read every book by Douglass Adams. I even own the computer game conceptualized by him: Starship Titanic. I loved the game. However, I've been instructed to avoid reading the book (not written by Douglas Adams) at any cost. I tried to find it for a while, but it seems that the book has been removed from all bookstores that I have access to. Mysterious. Woah. Kinda got off track there. Some of the first books I read were Frog and Toad are Friends. I went from there to Tolkien fairly swiftly. I learned to read very quickly.

I could never get into Tolkein because there were no female characters. What did I care about hairy hobbits, anyway? Beverly Cleary? Oh, yes. Ellen Tebbits and Otis Spofford were my favorites, along with "Ramona Quimby, Age 8." I never really liked Judy Blume. I don't know about you all, but I never wanted to menstruate, so old Margaret was kind of freaky to me. Harriet the Spy? How could I forget that? I LOVED that book! And "The Cricket in Times Square," which we read in 2nd grade. And "Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears" -- I had forgotten about that one! Encyclopedia Brown -- I loved Sally, who could beat up all the bad kids. And the McGurk mysteries, about this band of kids who solves all these "crimes" in their neighborhood. And ghost stories of all kinds. Especially those amazingly-illustrated "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" one. The pictures alone would scare the hell out of you. Roald Dahl -- My favorites were "The BFG," "George's Marvelous Medicine" (so cute and funny!) and "The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar," about a man who learned to see without his eyes. And Peter Pan, of course! The Disney version was the first book I ever read, and when I was older, my aunt bought the real J.M. Barrie version for me, which still makes me cry at the end. And Little Women! I was totally obsessed with that when I read it. I completely missed the fact that Beth died because I was so traumatized by the fact that Jo married that old creepy professor and not wonderful Laurie. I was one of those kids who lived more in their heads than in reality, and I spent my time playing in the woods, pretending to be different characters (or new characters) in my favorite books. I remember making up this elaborate saga of how Laurie left that brat Amy and came back to Jo, only she wouldn't take him back because she was still married, only then the professor left her for some silly girl, and then yay! Jo and Laurie got married. The Last Unicorn -- I saw the film when I was a kid, and loved it, but finally read the book when I was in high school. There are no words to describe how beautifully it is written. It makes your heart ache when you read it, because you so desperately want to live in that world. Agatha, I don't know how old your daughter is, but this would be a really neat book to read to her (if you haven't already).

New and amazingly good- "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone". Reminicent of R. Dahl and "The Phantom Tollbooth" and all of the Oz books. It's in hardback at your local mall chain- I read the first five pages and took it home (when I was actually looking for something on javascript). Do yourself a favor and go get it. I haven't read a piece of children's literature in ages that made me laugh with wonderment; this did. Cute, but not cutsey. I filed it on the "things to read to my future children" shelf with much satisfaction after finishing it.

I am just so glad to see someone else mentioned Runaway Ralph. I was addicted to the entire Ralph series! It was the first place I ever saw a raspberry spelled out 'ppppppbbbbbbttttttttttt' - hah!

beverly cleary's from portland. any fans who come to portland should see the henry and beezus sculpture garden in grant park. I could never finish any of those madeleine l'engle books. the only fantasy stuff I liked was the narnia series, despite the heavy-handed god trip. I still like the little house books and wish I knew how to make maple candy. I have a bottle of syrup.

don't ya just put it on snow?

that's disgusting.

Ramona Quimby's still my favorite girl.

i have always wanted to make funnelcakes. when i move to portland, cyst, we will research the recipes for all of the grub from the little house books, and we will have a tea party with cleo. if beverly cleary is from portland, that's one more good reason to move there.

owls in the family by farley fuckin' mowat

I think there's a little house cookbook, and there are a couple of trader joe's in portland, so the wholesome ingredients should be no problem. maybe cleo can drink cambric tea, like ma let laura drink. I think it was just tea with lots of milk and sugar.

she would like it more if i just gave her a cup of sugar. the child has some addictive tendencies.