Friday OT - Where The Red Fern Grows

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Angie

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Thanks to @NWICY for this idea!

What are some of your favorite childhood books? Why?

Since this is a forum mostly of dudes, I'm not going to have as much crossover. But I read voraciously as a child. Just a few:

- Anne of Green Gables series
- Several Louisa May Alcott pieces (Eight Cousins, Rose In Bloom, Little Women)
- The Babysitters Club series
- Pollyanna
- Nancy Drew Case Files
- Sweet Valley Twins/High
- Bunnicula series

There were so, so many more. I started reading more adult classical lit and such around fifth and sixth grade, but those were some good starters.
 

Cyclones_R_GR8

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Growing up I read most, if not all, of the Happy Hollisters series.
Like so many others I loved A Wrinkle in Time
Read a lot of The Hardy Boys
Any compendium of horror short stories was a must read. When we would have book fairs at school that was always what I looked for.
 
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cmjh10

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Not sure how many times I read the book Holes.

Read where the Red Fern Grows in 5th or 6th grade and wanted a Coonhound since. Then realized how annoying they were when I went to my gfs place for the first time.

Read every Harry Potter book except for the last one.
 
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Clonefan32

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As a child of the 90s my most obvious answer is Harry Potter.

I also loved Hatchet and the other Gary Paulsen books. Bridge to Terabithia was another good one. Goosebumps and the Animorphs books were my book order go-tos.

In high school my hands down favorite was Catcher in the Rye.
 

cycloner29

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I remember ordering a lot of books through the old book orders we used to get in school. I would always get all the books on sports like 1976 NFL All-Pro or 1977 NBA All-Stars. Anyone ever remember the magazine called "Dynamite"? That seemed to be the most expensive book but it also seemed like everyone wanted to order it.

P.S. I was in grade school in the 70's.
 
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CascadeClone

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I never see these series mentioned anywhere, not sure if I ever met anyone else who has heard of them. I remember them fondly anyway:
The Great Brain books - about a smart pioneer kid in Utah, always scheming something
The Three Investigators - like Hardy boys basically, but with somehow Alfred Hitchcock making cameos in the books as himself at times.

Also read Treasure Island and The Hobbit in 3rd grade, probably the first real books I recall. Will still read the Hobbit from time to time.

Had some old scifi too, old books mom got at a garage sale. Old copy of War of the Worlds, Asimovs collected short stories, etc.
 

Entropy

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Some of my favorites that aren't mentioned here.

The Little House books (Big Woods was one of my favorites since I grew up close to there).
The Chronicles of Narnia

I just remembered another one that my 2nd or 3rd grade teacher read to the class.
Rascal: A Memoir of a Better Era
 

BuffettClone

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Unlike a lot of my classmates, I actually enjoyed reading the assigned books in school that we were "forced" to read. Some have already been mentioned but here's a few:

A Wrinkle in Time
Animal Farm
Lord of the Flies
A Separate Peace
To Kill a Mockingbird
Fahrenheit 451

Edit: I should add I also enjoyed Where the Red Fern Grows to my list. It slipped my mind somehow after reading the thread title
 
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SCyclone

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I read a great deal, too. I was a regular at the public library year round. I read all the Hardy Boys books, I loved the baseball novels of John R. Tunis (The Kid from Tomkinsville was my favorite), war history books, Lawrence Sanders detective novels, and horror fiction.

One other thing - my parents bought a set of World Book Encyclopedias when I was very young, and I spent many hours perusing them.
 

jdcyclone19

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Where the red fern grows is definitely #1
Hatchet
Louis Lamour books
Clive Cussler books
I'll admit I enjoyed the harry potter series when I was younger.
 

harimad

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Anyone who's read these books would know immediately from my username, so:
The Blue Sword/The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley

But beyond that, just a huge nerd. So here goes:
every Robert A. Heinlein novel
every Anne McCaffrey Dragonriders of Pern book and also her Crystal Singer series
all of Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game series
Frederik Pohl's Heechee series
Isaac Asimov's Foundation series

Edit: also, did anyone else read those "Choose your own ending" books? The ones where you are given a decision to make, and based on your choice, it tells you the page to go to next. lol, so cheesy, but I loved those.
 
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cyclone101

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As a child of the 90s my most obvious answer is Harry Potter.

I also loved Hatchet and the other Gary Paulsen books. Bridge to Terabithia was another good one. Goosebumps and the Animorphs books were my book order go-tos.

In high school my hands down favorite was Catcher in the Rye.
Gary Paulsen was the best! He had several really good ones. I should order a copy of Hatchet.. such a good book.
 

drlove

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I read a great deal, too. I was a regular at the public library year round. I read all the Hardy Boys books, I loved the baseball novels of John R. Tunis (The Kid from Tomkinsville was my favorite), war history books, Lawrence Sanders detective novels, and horror fiction.

One other thing - my parents bought a set of World Book Encyclopedias when I was very young, and I spent many hours perusing them.

A whole set?