Top Ten Tuesday: Childhood Favorites

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. It’s an super fun to way to connect with other bloggers through one of my favorite things ever… LISTS! :D

I absolutely love the topic for today! And I’ve always been a huge reader, so it was actually pretty hard to pick just ten (I cheated a bit at the end :P).

In no particular order:

1. Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine

Okay, I know I said no particular order, but this is definitely one of my favorite books OF ALL TIME. I pretty much have it memorized, I own several copies because they keep falling apart after being read so much, and Char was my first ever book crush. ADORE ADORE ADORE. I cannot tell you how much I love this book.

2. True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi

I think this book inspired my fascination with ships, and I still really want to spend an extended period of time on one, climbing the rigging, hoisting the sails… It’ll happen one day, I’m determined!

3. The Saddle Club series by Bonnie Bryant (and later the Pine Hollow series)

I love horses, and I was OBSESSED with these books when I was a kid. I had the little plastic horse and riders sets and everything. I felt like Stevie, Lisa, and Carol were my best friends ever. Even thinking about them now is giving me a happy feeling. #dork

4. The Magic Tree House series by Mary Pope Osborne

Time travel! Adventure! Tree house! Alliteration in the titles! Where can you go wrong?

5. The Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder

When I was kid I wished I had been born in pioneering times, I just loved everything about it. I wanted to hang meat and herbs from the rafters, I wanted to go to school in a one-room schoolhouse, and I definitely wanted to have horses. My aunt even made me a dress and bonnet, and I used to wear them and walk around with my wooden candle holder and pretend like I was Laura. I still have a secret desire for this to be my life. Again, #dork.

6. Roald Dahl

I can’t pick a favorite Roald Dahl book, because they’re all amazing. I’ve recently read some of his short stories for adults, and they’re pretty amazing too.

7. Dick King-Smith

Talk about obsessed. I LOVED animals as a kid (still do, and now I actually get to work with them!) so Dick King-Smith’s books were PERFECT. Again, hard to pick a favorite, but I chose to put the cover of Martin’s Mice because when I was a freshman in college, my roommate and I had a mouse that lived in our room and WOULD NOT DIE, and I ended up naming it Martin in honor of this book (even though Martin is the cat’s name in the book, whatever). Dick King-Smith is actually the author of the book that inspired the movie Babe, so even if you haven’t heard of him, you know his stuff. :)

8. Shel Silverstein

His poems are basically the greatest ever. I still love them. I used to have Twistable Turnable Man memorized, and it was so cool to be able to whip it out at random times. The poem is here, if you’re interested.

9. Sideways Stories from Wayside School (and sequels) by Louis Sachar

Oh my gosh, these books are awesome. Wacky and fun and just so so good. And the cover of the third one glows in the dark!

10. My Father’s Dragon (and sequels) by Ruth Stiles Gannett

Love these books! Thanks to My Father’s Dragon, I’m now confident that if I’m ever in a jungle and need to outsmart all sorts of dangerous animals, I can totally do it with lollipops, gum, and hair ribbons. Also, I still say “Bum cack! Bum cack! We dreed our nagon!” ALL THE TIME.

Other books I didn’t have space to mention: Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys, Sebastian Supersleuth, Boxcar Children, Hank the Cowdog, Cam Jansen, Catwings, the Narnia series, Encyclopedia Brown, Nate the Great, Judy Blume, The Phantom Tollbooth and so many others.

What are your favorite books from childhood?