Harry the Dirty Dog and Russell & Lillian Hoban's Frances books were some of my early picture book favorites. Caroline Haywood's Betsy books, with her sister Star and friend Eddie, and of course Beverly Cleary's Ramona books I loved once I was reading on my own.

Growing up, we had a set of books called the Bookshelf for Boys and Girls. My set is pictured on the link. I read those over and over, from the nursery rhyme/simple story first volume through classics excerpts and bios. My sister ended up with our childhood set, so I bought a set, in better condition than ours, as much for myself as for my children. While my children have enjoyed them, they aren't as "into" them as I was--too many competing interests.

Here is a link that might be useful: Booshelf

I loved all the McCloskey books, "One Morning in Maine", Blueberries for Sal", "Make Way for Ducklings". My favorite as a young girl was "Wren"about Karen Killea and then "With Love From Karen" (same story, older audience). I also devoured Nancy Drew books and later Agatha Christie. Also included most animal stories, "Black Beauty", "Trumpet of the Swan"...come to think of it, I really loved any book that featured an animal as its main character.
Jo

I like veer's Happy Hooker story better than the real one! I read HH, The Godfather and a very explicit book about pregnancy and childbirth when I was 9 or 10 years old. Yes, my mother knew. She was a bit worried but strongly believed in allowing us to read anything and trusted in our ability to separate the wheat from the chaff, metaphorically at least.

On a much lighter note, I loved many of the books mentioned here, especially the Little House series. The experiences of our pioneer ancestors never fails to astound me. I still enjoy reading them at my advanced age.

Woodnymph - I too was sad that I didn't have a copy of Little Black Sambo to read to my kids...I loved that story, the very mystery of the tigers becoming butter! Then, in a children's book collection, I think the one mentioned elsewhere in this thread, I found it! I was so excited, and some of them liked it, and some didn't. But at least it survived in another generation.

Vee -- Your message reminded me about reading all the Ladybird book series when I was very young. Our school, Polam, had a prize for every child who read the whole series and I did that but was too shy to say so, so spent a lot of time re-reading the last few books so I wouldn't have to go to the headmaster and tell him that I had read all the books. I was a funny little girl. I didn't want to make a fuss (English thing).

My Dad read me the Uncle Wiggly books and a prose translation of The Odyssey as bedtime stories. I have fond memories of both, and raised my kids on Greek myths.

Oh, I forgot to mention "Little Tim and the Big Sea Captain" which was one of my all-time favorite books. Sounds like something a pedophile would like, but really it's about a little boy who has an adventure at sea with this captain guy.

It was my sister and my favorite book for most of our childhood so a couple of years ago, I went searching on amazon for a copy for my sis's birthday just as a surprise. I think she liked it even though it wasn't QUITE the same as the one we had in England.

One of my very favorite books in the whole wide world was/is Andrew Henry's Meadow written and illustrated by Doris Burn. My copy is dated 1971 back when the weekly reader book orders were all hardcovers. I still read it to my kids - very carefully - as the stitching is now loose. It is about Andrew Henry who liked to build things, but his two brothers and two sisters, father and mother did not appreciate his creations. So one day, he packed up his tools and headed out on his own. Soon he came to a meadow and there, he built his own house. Over the course of the next few days, 8 other village children came to the same meadow, also bringing with them the things they loved but there parents did not - dress up clothes, racing toads, pet mice, bathtub toys, a drum set, etc. And Andrew Henry built them all houses especially suited to that favorite hobby. It is great.

And as a sidenote: I also love "Stand Back," said the elephant, "I am going to sneeze!" by Patricia Thomas and I still have my copy (also originally purchased through weekly reader and also dated 1971). About 18 years ago, a local library had the author visiting and the public was invited to the book signing and the reading. Along with fifteen kids holding their brand new books, I stood in line, the only "grown-up". When it was my turn, I handed her my well-read aged book and she looked at it, and her eyebrows went up, and her eyes filled with tears. She said, "I've not seen one with black and white drawings in years. THANK YOU for enjoying it enough to keep it." We were both rather emotional. I still have it. And I always will.

PAM

Thanks for that summary of Andrew Henry's Meadow. In one of our boxes of old books, I found a copy such as you describe. Must have been my husband's when he was a boy. I wondered what it was about, and whether it was fiction or non-fiction. Now I know.

I loved reading myths and legends when I was girl, but most of the books I checked out from the library. I've been slowly collecting some of the books I remember reading as a girl. It's fun, and I hope to share these with my girls, but I am trying not to be pushy about it.

I don't know why, but two books just popped into my head as favs: Blueberries for Sal, and Mike Mulligan's Steam Shovel. I remember them being read to me, and then in the library, Ms M helping me read them myself. Its been a while since I've thought of them, but I remember being very proud of myself when I could read them without help!

Bookmom, Rouan and I grew up with a similar set of books, also a bonus to a set of encyclopedia sold in the 1960's. They were called The Children's Hour and we devoured them. We each have our own set now, as does another sister who is not on the forum. Alas, my own children showed little interest in reading them.

BTW, mine are library discards with sticky white labels firmly affixed to the spine. Does anyone know how to remove them safely? I think they disfigure the books. Perhaps this is necessary in a public library, but not so in a private one.

Rosefolly

Here is a link that might be useful: The Children's Hour

Paula, I have heard that the 'spray-on' type of furniture polish will remove most sticky labels, but if you are going to use it on paper perhaps just try it sparingly.
I've had the same trouble with over-glued price labels that have been slapped on the front cover of books.

I can't remember my parents reading to me, but I remember at my grandmother's house a set of books which I still have, about Little Pudding and Winga Wanga. Little Pudding was a small African child and Winga Wanga was a dog who looked after him - no parents, or even adults.
I had a set of books about Shirley Temple too, which had photos of her and stories about her films and her schooling and home life (still have those too).
I then went on to Noddy, Famous Five and Blyton's 'Mystery of.....' series, and took off from there.
I love Heidi too, and can remember drinking milk from a bowl and taking a candle to bed when I was pretending to be her.

If you are talking about removing stickers from the Mylar cover, you can try a very small amount of Goo Gone or a similar brand. Dont use much; put a small amount on a cloth and rub it on. Let it set in; you should be able to peel it off easily. Do NOT use on the actual pages. BTW this works as well for the stickly labels on other products as well. Check out the site below for more info.

I keep a bottle of goo gone at school for removing crayon and glue from non porous surfaces; just don't use it around kids and use in a well ventilated area (the site says its non toxic but I always prefer being safe). I've also used it at home to clean the grime off stove vent covers. The site for the product does say its good on all surfacers, but I'd use it first on an inconspicuous spot before I'd believe that.

Check out this site for ideas from others for cleaning off labels. http://lifehacker.com/software/household/stuff-we-like-goo-gone-249592.php

Here is a link that might be useful: goo gone

Did any of you read the Anne of Green Gables books when you were young?
I read in a Canadian magazine that it is 100 years since L M Montgomery wrote the first one.
I'm sure I watched a BBC TV series of it many years ago and have found a radio interview (below) with Canadian author Budge Wilson who has written a prequel Before Green Gables.
Click onto the 'Listen to this item' link

Here is a link that might be useful: Anne of Green Gables

Vee, I loved the Anne of Green Gables books and still have my set of hardcovers. I read them over and over again as a child, and admit to being a bit disappointed when my DD read them once and gave them only a luke-warm review.

I adored Anne, and clearly remember the chapter about her longing for a puffy-sleeved dress -- it's fused in my mind with my own pre-teen yearning for some silly, trendy fashion item that my parents wouldn't allow me to have. I can't even recall what it was, but the memory of that terrible desire remains forever linked in my mind with Anne's puffed sleeves.

I loved the Anne of Green Gables books. I even went to PEI and got to see LM Montgomery's house (it's a museum). The later books get a bit boring and predictable but the first 4 are definitely great. The Disney company made a really TV series about it. I'm sure it's available somewhere.

Enid Blyton and E. Nesbit books for me!

I still remember reading "The Island of Adventure" under the covers with a flashlight ......

I understand that the 'Anne' books have a cult following among many Japanese people of both sexes and lots of them travel to PEI to worship at the shrine of L M Montgomery.
I wonder what it is about orphan stories and why they are so popular with children?
Though never a big Enid Blyton fan, I used to enjoy books about large happy families of children. Perhaps this is because I came from a smallish family of individuals that just happened to live in the same house and never really 'bonded' to use a jargon term.
Does it work the other way? Did any of you with many siblings prefer stories about a solitary hero or where one family member gets all the lime-light?

I think the appeal of orphan stories lies in the freedom the child has in the story. There are no parents to tell her to go to bed or wash her face or wear her bicycle helmet or act in a reasonable and safe manner. The orphans get to have fabulous adventures without grown-up interference.

As a kid I would never have done any of the daring things children in books did (and this includes all those wonderful teen sleuth stories I gulped down - heck, I wanted to be Trixie Belden or Jean Dana), but I was thrilled that my alter egos in these books got to have these adventures and that I could come along for the ride.

I did not discover E. Nesbit's "The Railway Children" until I was an adult, e.g. this year. I was absolutely charmed by the story and the setting!

I've never read Enid Blyton and no one I know ever did, FWIW.

I recall reading some of the Little Colonel stories, set in the Old South, in Kentucky. Today they would probably be considered very politically incorrect and probably not be re-issued....

One thing I've noticed during the past couple of decades is that kids don't seem to physically "act out" the books they read as much as my brothers and I did during the 1950s (my mother says that she and her sisters acted out a lot during the 1920s and 30s). Maybe video games and movies have taken the place of such extended entertainments.

My brothers and I "played" Swiss Family Robinson, Captains Courageous, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Toby Tyler at the Circus, The Fighting Prince of Donegal, Robin Hood, Stalky & Co., The Leatherstocking Tales, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, "The Highwayman," and numerous westerns among others. A lot of these were "boy books" and since my oldest brother was usually the instigator he was also usually the hero ("Shane," for instance) and my other brother and I were second bananas. Big brother deigned to play act with us pesky sibs until he was fifteen or sixteen years old (we were five and seven years younger than him), as well as read out loud to us.

A few of my girlfriends and girl cousins acted out the girlier stories, such as Little Women, Calico Captive, Jane Eyre, and Marjorie Morningstar; or we would solve mysteries like Nancy Drew, Judy Bolton, and Trixie Belden; or we would "dress up" like Scarlett and Melanie or pioneer girls (I loved to be Jemima Boone or Narcissa Whitman).

Now that I think about it, many of the books we read -- and what I consider childhood favorites -- weren't strictly kids' books.

Frieda, that's an interesting observation. Although an only child, I can vividly recall acting out with neighborhood kids: "Treasure Island", "King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table", "Robin Hood", "Tom Sawyer", Nancy Drew mysteries, and various and sundry HORSE stories. (I always wanted a horse, living in the city, but so did everyone else I knew as a kid!)

Frieda, I grew up in the 60's/70's and we did act out--but not books. We acted out lame TV shows like Batman and The Partridge Family. Younger sibs also got the worst roles; once, we actually assigned my younger sister the role of "Joker's Wife." I, on the other hand, was Catwoman. And, we did not reenact the shows as much as use the characters for inspiration for our own play.

My own children would act on something briefly, but again it tended to be based on a TV show or movie rather than a book.
As I said earlier in this thread, I think children today have so (too) many competing interests. When the TV got 4 channels and did not play games, cartoons were Saturday morning only, a movie was a once a year treat and organized activities for the under 12 set for practically unheard of, children still played, didn't they?

Sheri, the 'independent orphan' idea is spot-on. No parents to boss you, do as you please between righting wrongs, walk off into the sunset with your worldly goods tied to a stick over your shoulder. I suppose Huckleberry Finn must be one of the first eg's of this childhood dream.
Most of E Nesbit's children had a shortage of parents to control them and just a few maids, cooks etc who were easy to outwit.
I used to enjoy historical adventures esp The Fearless Treasure by Noel Straetfield in which a mixed group of children go back in time to find 'where' they fitted into the pattern of English history. I can remember sitting in a field over-looking the parish church and River Avon at Stratford wondering if I concentrated hard enough would I be transported back to Shakespeare's day!
I had two younger brothers and as the bossy older sister wrote our own plays and forced them to act, sometimes watched by unwilling adults. We did an extemporised version of 'Red Riding Hood', with youngest brother in an outsize red T shirt and a shopping basket entitled 'Little Red Riding Ed'.
Granny: "What have you got in your basket my dear?"
L R R E: "Fish and chips."
Most of these efforts ended in fights and tears.

Bookmon, I'm sure you are right. Modern mothers here in the UK spend hours each day driving their kids from school to 'out of school' activities (few of them put feet to pavement) to birthday parties that start in the morning and go on for hours, to 'fun days' at the weekend . . . when do these kids have time to just play or do nothing special . . perhaps it is when they are teenagers and refuse to eat with the family or leave their pig-sty bedrooms. :-)

I grew up in the wrong neighborhood. On my Brooklyn street in the 60's and 70's, the preferred pastimes were stickball, slap ball, stoop ball,, you get the idea. I liked to read and act out stories with my dolls. By my teens, I had a reputation for being "strange and boring." As an adult, I met a friend my age who did spend her childhood acting out stories with friends. I would have loved her neighborhood. My son, now 17, is a reader and when he and friends were small, mostly re-enacted TV and movie characters that they all had in common. It was good to see them enjoy their imagination whatever the source!

My siblings and I acted out movies and books alike, as well as stories we made up ourselves.

My daughters acted out stories too, mostly fairy tales and adventure tales I told them or read to them. An occasional television show might trigger a play as well. I gave them a dress up box full of costumes, a few I sewed for them but mostly cast off gowns and costume jewelry from one of my sisters. In his preschool years my son liked his Superman pajamas, hero cape, and toy plastic sword. He didn't do the formal plays so much but he did act out stories with great enthusiasm. My daughters continued longer, until they were about ten years old.

If you want to encourage this kind of play it is easy to do. Read your kids lots of stories, limit the video screen time (games and TV both) to a sensible level, and give them lots of leisurely afternoons that are not scheduled full of dance lessons, soccer games, music and language classes and the like. A box of props is useful, too. Yes, you will get some fights and tears as Vee most accurately suggested, but the children in question will develop not only their imaginations, but also the ability to entertain themselves. If you want to suppress it, that is also pretty easy -- lots and lots of TV, movies, video games, along with enrichment activities scheduled for every free moment of their days.

Rosefolly

My cousin and I used to pretend to be the girlfriends of Gene Autry and Roy Rogers, of all people. Roy belonged to her because she was two years older, and I was too little to know that Gene wasn't really very handsome. We spent a couple of years chasing bad guys, riding pretend horses, and being rescued from numerous dire happenings.

My twin sis and I used to love hand puppets and we set up a "theatre" using a clothes horse and blanket and had hours of fun putting on plays for no one apart from ourselves. We also had home-made puppets and for some reason, got a lot of puppets from jumble sales.

I do remember having a brilliant time with these toys though and filling many a rainy afternoon with this.

My son, especially, enjoyed dress-up play and wore his Peter Pan Halloween costume regularly for two years. He'd go in my daughter's closet and get out her Tinkerbell dress and take it to her but she hated it because it was itchy. She, on the other hand, loved to reenact the time Mommy was pulled over by the police (speeding); she, of course, played the police officer. Oh yes, let's put that show on for the company.

I agree, both a box of dress-up clothes and some unstructured time go a long way toward encouraging imaginative play. When my children were very small, I instituted "quiet time," motivated by sheer exhaustion. An hour in your bedroom, playing quietly. I was often enchanted by the play going on when the hour was up and I'd open the bedroom door.

I don't remember 'acting out' books with friends (or my sister, but then she is 7 years older than me *g*), and there was only one child in our street my age, a boy who liked to play with cars.
But I can remember vividly that I lived my life for days at a time as a character from a book. I can't imagine now how I didn't seem strange to my parents, but perhaps I only did it in private.

Sheri's description of the independent orphan reminds me of Pippi Longstocking. I think there's another kind of orphan that you see quite frequently in children's and adult literature: the one who must overcome adversity and a long series of tests or setbacks (often part of the coming-of-age tale). I suppose The Little Princess, Jane Eyre, Oliver Twist, and Harry Potter would be examples of that.

My children enjoy pretend play, whether it be of people they know or from books and popular culture. Their favorite is probably playing school where one is the teacher and the other is the student. This works well until my youngest gets fed up with being bossed around by the oldest. They also love to play dress up.

I was the youngest of five in a neighborhood full of older kids, and often played by myself because I grew tired of the abuse of the older kids. As a result, I think I gravitated toward the independents and the loners in fiction, even in children's fiction.

A little boy, about 4 years old, spent several months one summer flying up and down the street wearing his Superman costume on his bike. He was having such fun and it always gave me a chuckle.

He's probably a teenager by now. Sigh.

A friend and I used to create entire "houses" out of doors, under trees, in the moss. We used the tree roots as room dividers, acorns as cups, flower petals as clothes, berries as food, and heaven only knows what else. These were elaborate stories that went on for months, serially. Later, I recall my mother showing me the grounds of the NC farmhouse where she grew up and telling me that under the cedars, on the moss, were her play "doll houses."

Oh, yes, we played house and school. My mother was a teacher, and she said she often heard herself being replayed from the front yard or the living room.

Oh sarah_canary! I read those nurse books, too! I think it was Cherry Ames and Sue Barton. My mom brought down a box of books from when she was little and Cherry Ames was among them. I fell in love! When I went to the library to get more in the series, they didn't have them so I read the Sue Barton series instead.

I remember my grandma reading "The Little House" by Virginia Lee Burton (who also wrote "Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel) to my sister and I.

I remember the Cherry Ames books. Anyone else here recall The Bobbsey Twins? I also used to read the series written for males: The Hardy Boys.

I also read Cherry Ames, Sue Barton, the Bobbsey Twins, and the Hardy Boys. Do any of you remember Vicki Barr, airplane stewardess, and the Judy Bolton mystery series? The Judy Bolton stories were interesting and realistic in the sense that she, unlike Nancy Drew, grew up as the series progressed -- she even got married.

phardosia, Mary and Frieda, as I wrote on the 'April' thread after listening to an interesting talk on BBC radio given by US journalist Leslie Gains, The Bobbsey Twins, The Hardy Boys and many other eg's of children's popular fiction were written by her Grandfather and father for a syndicate as part of half a dozen or so writers bound to secrecy and paid no royalties. There is no 'real' author called Laura Lee Hope, although I suppose it doesn't lessen the enjoyment of the stories.

Thanks for refreshing my memory: I do remember the Judy Bolton mysteries. I think Nancy Drew was rather saccharine by comparison....

Judy Bolton was absolutely my favorite childhood series, and the series was written by a real author, not a syndicate employee. But I read a number of the others as well, pretty much all those mentioned here except the 'boy' ones such as the Hardy Boys. I thought I wasn't supposed to read them and they really didn't interest me much. I've no idea why I was such a persuadable child in that area. I bought into the whole girl/boy thing, though I used to get mad about being denied boy privileges. I grew out of it (being persuadable, not being mad) by the time I was in my late teens.

Rosefolly

I read Sue Barton in high school, so those books must really be old. My daugher loved Sue and the Cherry Ames books. She played nurse from the time she had her tonsils out when she was four, and is a nurse, and still loves it. She's a big deal now--Education Chief at our Veterans' Hospital. Can you tell I'm just a little proud?

There were so many books from my childhood, that I can't remember all the titles. Rosefolly mentioned the Children's Hour series, which I devoured. I was so pleased the day I came across a whole set (in excellent condition) in a yard sale; I bought it immediately.

I remember reading the Honey Bunch series. Our local library was very small, but they had most of the HB books as well as the Maida books. I think I went through their children's section very quickly. Fortunately, our parents loved to read too, so we had a houseful of books to read once we'd exhausted the library selection.

I read the Nancy Drew and Dana sisters books too. Like Rosefolly and friedag I preferred the Judy Bolton books, primarily because she seemed more real (as they mentioned, she grew up).

Rosefolly, do you remember Dad reading The Swiss Family Robinson to us before he took us to see the movie. We lived in Foxburg then. All I really remember from that is the part where the poor donkey goes into the swamp where the enormous serpent is lurking...with terrible consequences. I must have been about 5 at the time and as you can tell, it made enough of an impact on me that I remember it still!

I remember when I first realized I could read, I tried to read some of my older siblings' books. I think the first one I tried was At the Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs. It really was too difficult for me, but I was excited and wanted to show everyone that I really did know how to read.

Rouan, I do. Dad was the one who read us our bedtime story. I think he was giving our mother a break, but everyone enjoyed it.

Now I'm going to tell everyone on RP that you read the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy at age 12. I have no idea how you did it. I'm sure some of it had to be beyond you at so young an age, but you got as much out of it as I did, three years your senior.

Rosefolly

After watching the Kentucky Derby yesterday and seeing the tragic end of 2nd place Eight Belles, the only filly in a lineup of 20 horses, I remembered a wonderful book I read as a child called The Magnificent Barb by Dana Faralla. Woodnymph, was this, by any chance, one of the horse books you read? It is the best of that genre that I have ever found. Sad, though, as was yesterday's race.

froniga, YES! In fact, I still have my beat up old copy. How I adored that book! I still recall the way the author brought in the Gypsy culture and the Irish together in Georgia. I also loved "Silverheels", "Misty of Chincoteague", and "My Friend Flicka." I assure you, I was quite horse-crazy, instead of boy-crazy. ;-)

froniga and woodnymph, did you read Old Bones, the Wonder Horse by Mildred Mastin Pace? When I was a girl I loved this story of the homely but magnificent gelding, Exterminator, who not only won the Derby but raced until he was nine years old, a venerable age. When he was retired he was given a companion, a pony named Peanuts -- I still haven't forgotten that after all these years.

Gosh, I was crazy about horse stories, too, but after a while they all made me so sad that I quit reading them. Same with dog stories, especially Beautiful Joe and Old Yeller. The happiest animal story I read was, I think, The Incredible Journey.

At last, I have found someone else who has read that beloved book, The Magnificent Barb. Most of the girls I knew as a child weren't into horses (or reading) as I was.
Remember "One white foot, buy a horse,
Two white feet, try a horse,..." And that's a memory over fifty years old! Kevin and the gypsies, his grandfather and Mare's Nest. (My son's name is Kevin as a result of my reading that book.)
I can't find my old copy but am thinking I must have given it to my young granddaughters who are also "horse people."

friedag, I don't recall reading Old Bones but it sounds like a good one. Why do animal stories almost always have to be so sad? Well, I guess life for the most part just is sad.

Does anyone remember Smoky the Cow Horse? That was the horse book that opened the gate to all other horse books for me. I can remember spending one whole summer reading nothing but horse books, but I can barely remember any of them. I still remember Smoky, though. Maybe because it was the first.

rosefolly,

I do indeed remember reading LoTR at that age. My fifth grade homeroom teacher read us The Hobbit which prompted my interest. I told Dad about it and he bought The Hobbit, LoTR and everthing else he could find by JRR Tolkein. I was so enthralled by Middle Earth that I devoured it. As to how much of it I got, I don't really remember now, I've reread it so many times that one reading blends into another.

I went through a horse phase too. I read all of the Black Stallion books I could find as well as Misty of Chincoteague. Georgia Peach, I think I read Smokey the Cow Horse, but it's been so long that I don't really remember it. Just the title stays with me now.