Any Children's Lit fans?

[Lady Julian]

(03-07-2012 10:09 PM)Paisley Wrote:  I loved the Betsy-Tacy series by Maud Hard Lovelace. Anything by Beverly Cleary is wonderful, especially her Young Love Series.

Yes! I loved the Betsy-Tacy books, but I can never find anyone else who has read them. I also loved the one where she is grown up, and travels to Europe; when I lived in Europe, I made a point to visit some of the places that she visited.

These days, I take my kids' fiction in the form of sci-fi and fantasy: Harry Potter of course, and also Percy Jackson. Percy Jackson is "marshmallow" fiction, but it's fun. I got my younger cousins addicted. Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne is also excellent.

Anyone remember Thunder Cake? A friend recently told me that the author of this book, and so many others, is dyslexic and didn't learn to read until 5th grade.

And then there's Sheep in a Jeep, which is for the very young but still delightful.

[Paisley]

Quote:Yes! I loved the Betsy-Tacy books, but I can never find anyone else who has read them. I also loved the one where she is grown up, and travels to Europe; when I lived in Europe, I made a point to visit some of the places that she visited.

That sounds awesome! I liked the high school books the best. I would love to visit Mankato to see where Maud grew up. Have you read The Betsy-Tacy Companion by Sharla Whalen? Since the books were semi-autobiographical, Ms. Whalen wrote a whole book piecing together the actual timelines and tells who Maud's real friends were compared to their fictional counterparts. It's a marvelous read, for those of us who can't get enough Betsy.

And, I forgot about the Oz books -- Ozma of Oz was my favorite, but they were all wonderful (well, actually, the first one is probably my least favorite; I have no idea why, but I always felt lukewarm to it).

[Paisley]

Oh, and are there any other fundy girls here who read the Mandie books? They were good, and I enjoyed them; I could read a whole one in half a day. Not exactly classic children's literature, but fundy-good, nonetheless.

[Paisley]

I thought of a couple more. I liked the Patricia M. St. John books. Treasures of the Snow, Rainbow Garden, The Tanglewood Secret...I really enjoyed them. And the Moody Bible Institute made a few of them into radio serials. If we weren't listening to The Sugar Creek Gang each weekday at 4 PM, it was usually Treasures of the Snow, or the Love Comes Softly series, which someone decided would be marvelous to record as a radio serial, as well.

And while Anne of Green Gables was okay, I enjoyed The Story Girl and Magic for Marigold by L.M. Montgomery.

[boymom]

Trixie Belden series, Black Beauty, anything with horses when I was younger. Currently I'm reading all the classics, like Robinson Crusoe, Journey to the center of the earth, etc. I just read Little Women and Little Men, which made me cry. My kids like the Redwall series, Warriors, and most of what the school assigns. My 2nd son is reading Sun Tsu's The Art of War, but then his life ambition is to take over the world.

[Tonx]

(03-08-2012 06:11 AM)boymom Wrote:  Trixie Belden series, Black Beauty, anything with horses when I was younger. Currently I'm reading all the classics, like Robinson Crusoe, Journey to the center of the earth, etc. I just read Little Women and Little Men, which made me cry. My kids like the Redwall series, Warriors, and most of what the school assigns. My 2nd son is reading Sun Tsu's The Art of War, but then his life ambition is to take over the world.

I remember reading Trixie Belden! My mama gave me the books and I read them while everybody else was reading Nancy Drew. I felt like such a rebel.

[C_Fresh]

Wow, this is reminding me of a lot of books that I'd forgotten. I've read pretty much all the original Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew.

I've also read some of Tom Swift, Brains Benton, The Three Investigators, Boxcar Children, Trixie Belden, Bobsey Twins, Happy Hollisters, Mandie, Sugar Creek Gang, The Thorne Twins.

[pastor's wife]

I read all the Trixie Belden books too. I had hard-cover copies of a couple of the first books in the series that had a few pictures throughout instead of the cheaper paperback type with only a picture on the cover.

I hadn't come across Betsy-Tacy until I was an adult, but I loved the All-of-a-Kind family, as well as the Little House on the Prairie books, and Anne of Green Gables (I've now collected well over 20 of her books, including some short story collections). I also had TONS of horse stories, none of which are probably very well known except for Black Beauty. I loved Louisa May Alcott. I had a whole bunch of books by Albert Payson Terhune about collies; my favorite was Gray Dawn which had belonged to my dad when he was a boy. (Rereading them now, they are SOOO politically incorrect; very classist.)

I LOVED the Patricia M. St. John books when I was a child. Treasures of the Snow was a favorite of mine; I loved how the self-righteous little girl had to realize that SHE too was a sinner in need of forgiveness, not just Lucien. Star of Light was another favorite.

Lady Julian mentioned Thunder Cake. Patricia Polacco wrote it; I have lots of her books. Just Plain Fancy is really cute as little Amish girls worry that a peacock that hatched out of an egg is too fancy for their plain community! And Thank You, Mr. Falker is the one that tells her struggles in school with not being able to read and being bullied.

[Discovering Life]

This thread brings back a lot of memories, there was no TV in our house and we lived in a very rural area, reading was my window to the rest of the world. My parents both believed reading is important and pinched pennies to buy books for us whenever possible and no trip to town was complete without a visit to the library. Read every kids mystery series I could get my hands on, the Bobsey Twins, Happy Hollisters, the Boxcar Children, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, Brains Benton, Encyclopedia Brown, and bits and pieces of other series. I was also horse (and animals in general) crazy, my go to horse authors were Walter Farley, Marguerite Henry, Glenn Blach, Kate Seredy, and Sam Savitt (amazing ink illustrations), for dogs it was Walter Morey, Albert Terhune, and Jim Kjelgaard. Loved fantasy re-read my favorites at least 5-8 times each-Narnia by C.S. Lewis, the Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander and the Dark is Rising by Susan Copper. Around age 14 decided to read all the Newbery and Newbery runner-ups I could get through the library and ILL, that's how I found one of my all time favorite authors, Robin McKinley, still remember the thrill of finding my very own used copy of Beauty and later The Blue Sword.
I didn't care for most of the Christian kids fiction I encountered, saved those for when I was bored or stuck at church waiting for some long meeting to end, read the Sugarcreek Gang, Maddie, the St. John books and others. Did enjoy the BJU Press kids books especially the Peabody series by Jeri Massi.

Oh and my all time favorite kids author, Keith Robertson, I own and still re-read every couple of years the Henry Reed series and the Carson Street Detective Agency series, as well as his standalones Year of the Jeep and In Search of the Sandhill Crane. I've never met anyone outside of my family who has read anything other than his Henry Reed books.

And I could go on and on and on, oh, forgot to mention Lucy Boston, Doris Gates and who knows how many other children's authors who brought thousands of hours of happiness into my childhood *happy sigh*.

[Lady Julian]

Quote:Have you read The Betsy-Tacy Companion by Sharla Whalen? Since the books were semi-autobiographical, Ms. Whalen wrote a whole book piecing together the actual timelines and tells who Maud's real friends were compared to their fictional counterparts. It's a marvelous read, for those of us who can't get enough Betsy.

Sorry, I've never heard of it. I did know that Betsy-Tacy was semi-autobiographical, though, which is part of the reason I loved it.

Quote:Did enjoy the BJU Press kids books especially the Peabody series by Jeri Massi.

I enjoyed these too, especially Derwood Incorporated. It wasn't heavy-handed or "preachy" like other Christian kids fiction, which meant it was a lot more fun to read. I still remember the kidnapping scene being very exciting, and I remember how funny it was that the family used peanut butter to stick the dog's tongue to the roof of his mouth.

Anyone read Rosemary Sutcliff? Her most famous book is The Eagle of the Ninth (I'm know there is a movie, but I enjoyed the book so much I refuse to see the movie on principle). She wrote two more in that series, and then did one called The Shining Company about the defense of England against the Saxons; it's sad but very very good.