Books of your youth. What really stood out to you?

Paco

Paco

CAGiversary!
Anyone remember this one?

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Man I used to love that trilogy of books. I read the stories so many times that I can actually recite the stories to my nieces and nephews. Not word for word, but the general gist of them.
 
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Douglas Adam's Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series. I read all the books several times, and has influenced me greatly.
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Maybe I should have slanted this topic towards books that were read when you were under twelve years old. Maybe ten as a cutoff as youth is subjective. Oh well, since I stated youth then everything under the age of 28 is fair game.
 
I enjoyed "Dragon's Blood" and the sequels by Jane Yolen. Then moved on to "Necroscope" by Brian Lumely (This series got me into a bit of trouble at school considering the cover, but nowadays shouldn't merit too much attention).

Dragon's Blood
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Necroscope
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Where the Red Fern Grows - I cried like a bitch when -SPOILER ALERT- the dogs died.

Bridge to Terabithia - This was so much better than the shitty movie they made a couple years ago.

I also loved to read the Boxcar Children series when I was 8 or 9.
 
OP, is that the one where there's a story about meeting dudes with increasing larger, more grotesque teeth? And one about a girl whose head is held on by a scarf? I loved that book.
 
[quote name='Rocko']OP, is that the one where there's a story about meeting dudes with increasing larger, more grotesque teeth? And one about a girl whose head is held on by a scarf? I loved that book.[/QUOTE]

No, that is "In a Dark, Dark Room" and that book is one that stuck with me as well. The scarf story really gave me nightmares when I first read it. Damn, Rocko, this is exactly the book I was thinking of when I clicked on this thread.
 
I also read the Boxcar children when I was younger, as well as the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and Animorphs. Later on I started reading mainly science fiction and fantasy.
 
I used to read the shit out of the Charlie Brown Encyclopedias, Peanuts and drawing / cartooning books.

As far as childhood goes, I loved this book (and my dad would read it in Grover's voice):

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Did anyone else have scholastic book fairs at their school?

We also had a scholastic readers thing where you read so many books and you'd get free pizza at Pizza Hut. Only problem is that we didn't (and still don't) have any Pizza Huts near us. :lol:
 
Yeah. I loved Scholastic book fairs.

I used to look forward to those monthly catalogs, so I could beg my parents for The Far Side compilations, while the other jokers in my class would order Lamborghini and Michael Jordan posters.
 
[quote name='Brak']Yeah. I loved Scholastic book fairs.

I used to look forward to those monthly catalogs, so I could beg my parents for The Far Side compilations, while the other jokers in my class would order Lamborghini and Michael Jordan posters.[/QUOTE]

I remember this one stole a Super Mario Bros. book from me that I ordered from one of those fairs. I was in the second grade and didn't understand. I looked at him and said, "But why did you do that?"
 
Pretty sure I got the "Worlds of Power: Castlevania" novel from one of those book orders.

Johnny Tremain
Red Badge of Courage
Killing Mr Griffin
Gulliver's Travels
Pet Sematary
Things Fall Apart
Chronicles of Narnia
The entire "Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators" series

...kinda feel lame that I can't think of others.
 
[quote name='Maklershed']Anyone else get a bunch of choose your own adventure books too?[/QUOTE]
I loved those - I had like 20 Goosebumps ones.

Also loved Where the Wild Things Are, regular goosebumps, Shel Silverstein, Garfield, and I loved Animorphs
 
- The Fright Time Books
- The Worst Person in the World
- Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters
- Where the Wild Things Are
- The Contender
- The House of Dies Drear
- Various books on Greek Mythology
 
[quote name='Paco']Anyone remember this one?

scary_stories1.jpg


Man I used to love that trilogy of books. I read the stories so many times that I can actually recite the stories to my nieces and nephews. Not word for word, but the general gist of them.[/QUOTE]


awesome choice i used to read that all the time.other books tha stand out in my mind are

Amelia Bedelia books

Where the Wild Things Are

Roll of Thunder Hear my Cry

The Color Purple

Encyclopedia Brown

Choose your own adventure books

Pig Out Inn

Mostly Michael

Stone Soup

How to Draw Books

Time Life Mysteries of the Unknown

Harris and Me ( read this a few years ago its a kids book but damn funny worth reading if you want to laugh your ass off).

theres 2 other books that i cant recall the title. One had 2 kids spending the summer on a relatives farm and the boy gets some glasses and finds out her can do magic in the book her turns a broom into a motorcycle and creates in ice cream out of thin air.

the other has a kid who beieves his babysitter is a witch and there was a pizza and a werewolf involved.

oh yeah in junior high we had these mini horror books about the size of a ds game manual maybe 25 pages in length alot of great stories.

and in elementary our school had these weird cartoon hard cover books on inventors on in particular i always remember was about Louis Pasteur because in the book theres a kid teasing a rabid dog with a stick , the dog breaks out and bites him and he gets sick and is treated with pasteur's cure for rabies. the kid had this wicked gash on his leg but after he and the dog are treated theyre all happy.
 
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[quote name='lokizz']

Time Life Mysteries of the Unknown[/QUOTE]


Oh shit I think I read these. Weren't they presented like encyclopedias but it was nonsense stuff like Atlantis, alien visits, Nazca lines, the crystal skull, etc?
 
Definitely Scary Stories as mentioned in the OP. Goosebumps as well. I loved horror as a kid, still do but I'm out of that "curious" stage. Loved scary books, movies, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, etc, etc.
 
[quote name='Mr Unoriginal']No, that is "In a Dark, Dark Room" and that book is one that stuck with me as well. The scarf story really gave me nightmares when I first read it. Damn, Rocko, this is exactly the book I was thinking of when I clicked on this thread.[/QUOTE]
Ah, yeah. I read that book so many time as a kid. So great.
 
Did that Scary Stories book have a story about a kid that was dared to go into a graveyard and put a knife into the one grave but he accidentally pins his coat to the ground and he thinks he's being pulled down by a hand?
 
[quote name='Maklershed']Oh shit I think I read these. Weren't they presented like encyclopedias but it was nonsense stuff like Atlantis, alien visits, Nazca lines, the crystal skull, etc?[/QUOTE]


yep damn commercial was on tv all the time my school had a few of them those kinds of books are why i got into that kind of stuff.
 
[quote name='Maklershed']Did that Scary Stories book have a story about a kid that was dared to go into a graveyard and put a knife into the one grave but he accidentally pins his coat to the ground and he thinks he's being pulled down by a hand?[/QUOTE]

That's scary stories to tell in the dark. It ends with them getting their leg caught in something, she believed that it was the corpse that grabbed her. It was the knife the held her there, but she died of fright.
 
Goosebumps
All of The "My Teacher is an alien" books
The Stinky Cheese Man and other fairly stupid tales.
I remember liking the Indian In the Cupboard books too
 
[quote name='Paco']Anyone remember this one?

scary_stories1.jpg


[/QUOTE]

Were those illustrations by Stephen Gammell the freakiest things you've ever seen (especially at 8 years old) or what??
 
off the top of my head:

Frank Miller's Hard Boiled (wore out the cover of issue 3 shirt in grade school)
Clive Barker's Books Of Blood
Neil Gaiman's Sandman
Norton Juster's ThePhantom Tollbooth
Lewis's Chronicles Of Narnia
Naylor's Shiloh
Alvin Schwartz's the Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark series
Shel Silverstein's Where The Sidewalk Ends
Shel Silverstein's Light In The Attic
Douglas Preston's Dinosaurs In The Attic
Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game
Heinlein's Starship Troopers
Doyle's Sherlock Holmes series
Doyle's Lost World
Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles
Dicken's Christmas Carrol
Stevenson's Treasure Island
Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings
Jack McKinney's Robotech: Genesis
Doc Savage series
The Shadow series
Lord Dunsany's Time And The Gods
Lord Dunsany's Fifty One Tales
a couple of Lovecraft collections
Robert Bloch's Night Of The Ripper
Robert Bloch's The Opener Of The Way

there are a lot more but I'll have to sit and think about it

[quote name='NeoFrank1']Were those illustrations by Stephen Gammell the freakiest things you've ever seen (especially at 8 years old) or what??[/QUOTE]

My aunt got me an original ink drawing from him (meet him at a teaching convention)
 
There's only two books I really remember from my youth but I can't remember who wrote them or the title.

One book was about a kid or maybe a pair of kids that went on an adventure in some type of fantasy land. I remember one scene where they are eating and what was serve was the actual name of a dish instead of the dish itself. For example, you order steak and you get the word steak and it tastes like steak. There was also a soup in the story called subtraction soup and the more the main characters ate it the more hungry they got.

The second book took place in a black and white world. The people in this world were place into occupation when they got to a certain age, I can't remember what age that was. I do remember that one occupation was for women to give birth. The main character was this kid who got chosen to be the successor to an old guy who held a important position. Basically, what that job was, was to remember what the world wasn't black and white. As the story progress, the old man passes on this knowledge and the kid starts to see color in his world and experience emotions like pain.
 
[quote name='Paco']

scary_stories1.jpg
[/QUOTE]

Those illustrations creeped me the f*** out as a kid. There was a picture where spiders burst out of a girls face that horrified me as a child.

I loved The Giving Tree. This is an excellent yet simple book for kids.

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[quote name='winterice']There's only two books I really remember from my youth but I can't remember who wrote them or the title.

One book was about a kid or maybe a pair of kids that went on an adventure in some type of fantasy land. I remember one scene where they are eating and what was serve was the actual name of a dish instead of the dish itself. For example, you order steak and you get the word steak and it tastes like steak. There was also a soup in the story called subtraction soup and the more the main characters ate it the more hungry they got.[/QUOTE]

This sounds like "The Phantom Tollbooth" The main character's name was Milo and the book was based on jokes using puns and things like that.
 
[quote name='winterice']There's only two books I really remember from my youth but I can't remember who wrote them or the title.

One book was about a kid or maybe a pair of kids that went on an adventure in some type of fantasy land. I remember one scene where they are eating and what was serve was the actual name of a dish instead of the dish itself. For example, you order steak and you get the word steak and it tastes like steak. There was also a soup in the story called subtraction soup and the more the main characters ate it the more hungry they got.[/quote]This is a shot in the dark, since I don't remember the book I'm about to guess very much at all, but was it The Phantom Tollbooth?

[quote name='winterice']The second book took place in a black and white world. The people in this world were place into occupation when they got to a certain age, I can't remember what age that was. I do remember that one occupation was for women to give birth. The main character was this kid who got chosen to be the successor to an old guy who held a important position. Basically, what that job was, was to remember what the world wasn't black and white. As the story progress, the old man passes on this knowledge and the kid starts to see color in his world and experience emotions like pain.[/QUOTE]
The Giver, by Lois Lowry.
 
The Three Investigators
Hardy Boys
Harriet the Spy
Have Space Suit, Will Travel
Encyclopedia Brown
Sherlock Holmes
A Wrinkle in Time

are some of the ones I enjoyed as a kid.
 
Thanks. You're both right. The first book is called The Phantom Tollbooth. The Giver is the second book and Wikipedia says it's a trilogy too; loosely connected though. I might have to make time to read these again.
 
Wow what a nostalgic thread. I had forgotten most of these books until now. I used to be a big bookworm as a kid but just don't have the time to curl up with a book anymore. I can't think of anything new to add other then I've read most of the stuff listed so far.
 
Roald Dahl books (Matilda, The BFG, James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory were some of my favorites)

Goosebumps (especially the choose your own adventure ones)

The Redwall series

Skinnybones
 
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