My Top 10 Favorite Books Growing Up

Again, with celebrating my 3rd Blogoversary month, I'm doing another post to let you get to know me a little better.  As a child I was a voracious reader.  And there were certain books or book series that I read over and over.  Ones that I still think about when reading new books today, or that I can't understand why everyone hasn't read them!  So I thought I'd share them with you today, here is my top 10, in no particular order.

1.  Nancy Drew - My first memory of Nancy Drew is of my mom buying me a whole bunch of them when we were shopping at the JCPenney outlet one night.  I think later on in my childhood, my mother may have regretted really getting me so hooked on reading, but there it was.  And I became such a huge fan!  I have all my copies from when I was a kid.  The hard cover yellow ones, and then the paperback ones that came after those.

2.  The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.  Another series that I read over and over.  I remember how neat I thought it was about when Aslan died, and rose from the dead, that it was basically the story of Jesus. I attended a Lutheran school from 1st through 8th grade, and was pretty religious back then.  Now, I still enjoy the stories, and am glad that with the movies a whole new generation continues to pick them up.

3.  A Wrinkle in Time.  I loved this book too, and read all the other books in the series too.  Madeline L'Engle was a favorite author of mine.  So well do I remember the book, that when they were talking about the tesseract in The Avengers movie this past year, that is the first thing I thought of.

4.  From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg.  I think this book is the reason when I was a kid I started thinking about what bridges on the highway would be best to go live under if I had to do that for any reason.  Not sure why exactly, but the thought of running away from home to live in a museum sounded so cool.

5.  Bunnicula by James Howe.  Another series I really liked, especially when Howie the dachshund became a part of the family, as I can't resist a dachshund!  I got to meet James Howe a few years ago, and I brought the Bunnicula puppet I'd made for a book report when I was younger, because I still had it.

6.  The Parent Trap by Vic Crume.  I used to check this out from the library over and over.  This is before the movie with Lindsay Lohan of course, this one had Hayley Mills.  Read it before I ever watched the original movie too.

7.  Remember Me to Harold Square by Paula Danziger.  I still have this book as well.  And I need to go back and re-read it before I go visit my sister in NYC again so I can remember what other things I might want to do and see.

8.  Sweet Valley High series by Francine Pascal.  I loved these books.  Jessica and Elizabeth, the chocolate brown room, using vanilla for perfume, etc.  But I don't have these anymore, because my parents made me get rid of them when I was in 8th grade.

9.  A Summer to Die by Lois Lowry.  A depressing book, I did cry every time I read it, and I did read it more than once.  But it is one of the reasons I got a file cabinet when I was in middle/high school and started keeping papers in it.  I got to see Lois Lowry this summer at BEA, but didn't really get to meet her in an autograph line.

10.  The Haunted Mansion Mystery by Virginia Masterman-Smith.  I read this book over and over as well.  I still have this book as well.  I don't think it's been republished, and Goodreads.com doesn't even have a picture of the cover, so I had to take a picture of my copy.  Sad.  Maybe I should get on the bandwagon to get it back out there.

Do you have a list of books from your childhood that you remember reading over and over?  Have you read any of my books?  I'd love to hear from you!