If we’re talking elementary school, I just don’t know.
I was a voracious reader pretty much from the time I learned how. Books, magazines, product labels (ha!)…if there were words in front of me, I read them.
Since elementary school books are pretty short, I read countless books at that time, and none stand out to be particularly.
If I had to choose, I probably would go with Laura Ingall’s Wilder’s Little House books because they are just so comforting and sweet.
(And they have to be the editions with Garth Williams’ illustrations because anything else is heresy. PERIOD.)
If we go a little bit older, I remember really loving Louisa May Alcott’s An Old Fashioned Girl.
I haven’t reread it in ages, but I think at the time I liked it because I really identified with Polly, the main character. Like me, she wasn’t flashy or exciting or edgy; I remember her being kind of steady and sweet.
So, I suppose when I saw things working out for her in the end, it made me feel like maybe it’s ok to not be flashy and exciting.
I keep thinking that I need to reread this one, because it will probably hit different at 41 than it did at 11!
I agree with Laura Ingalls Wilder but I also loved Heidi and the Anne of Green Gables series.
Little house were my favorite as a kid too. I read them in third grade then recently reread some as a 40+ mother and the Long Winter was terrifying. I don’t think I fully got as a kid how dire their situation was
All of the books! Top favorite remains the Emily series from L.M. Montgomery, and some of her less famous characters are also my favorites — Jane, Valancy, Marigold, the Story Girl. But, as most dyed-in-the-wool readers know, the longest ingredient in most shampoos is methylchloroisothiazolinone, so there’s that too.
As a little, little kid: “Marvin K. Mooney, Will You Please Go Now?” and also I will never not love Steven Kellogg books.
p.s. Our two oldest and I just finished the first six of Little House (the new sets only come with that many, so I need to locate my falling-apart set to finish the others). I happened to read Prairie Fires at the same time as we were reading a couple of them. Comparing the real events with the fictionalized events is an eye-opener.
*oldest girls
I’m 33 and still LOVE An Old Fashioned Girl. It’s on my list of top ten favorite novels of all time.
Ok, this makes me less scared to re-read it. I should just dive in and give it a try.
I loved all of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, but also something that really stands out was The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Warner. As I got older, Z for Zachariah by Robert O’Brien. My Sixth grade teacher Mrs. Wrinkle read us a chapter of that book every day after lunch. We loved it!
I loved The Boxcar Children too.
I LOVED The Boxcar Children – I daydreamed of living like them. Another favorite was The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett.
I was always and still am an avid reader. (I read labels too -oh, and all the billboards if I’m a passenger in a car.) Most days, I’m reading something for hours.
Nancy Drew, Cherry Ames, Trixie Belden…all of those mystery series girls books were big favorites! I still have them, read one occasionally, and they are pretty strange and unrealistic now. There were other books (series or not) that seem to have had a deeper meaning, helped me more, and are still enjoyable- Beany Malone, by Lenora Mattingly Weber- remember her and her family? I followed her from a young girl to a married mother who struggled with things, had challenges, and learned a lot about life that I wasn’t getting at home or in school.
This is such a great question! I’m going to get An Old-Fashioned Girl next time I go to the library!
I had so many favorites! My grandmother read some of the oldest Bobbsey Twins books from her childhood (early 1900’s), and I loved all of them, especially At the Seashore! My grandmother was also an author of children’s lit, so I of course loved her books (the Hannah series & others). Some of the first books I remember and loved getting from the library were by Lois Lenski, including Strawberry Girl. I also loved all the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, as well as many by Louisa May Alcott (Little Women, Little Men, Under the Lilacs, Rose in Bloom). One of my very favorite books from my childhood to this day is A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I think my choices might date me LOL!
I loved Strawberry Girl!
I have two all time favourite childhood books that I am too scared to read again incase they don’t live up to my sweet memories.
The first is ‘When Hitler stole Pink Rabbit’ by Judith Kerr which I reread as a child until it almost fell apart. I only found out recently when Judith Kerr died that it was autobiographical which made it even more poignant.
The second is ‘Children on the Oregon Trail’ by Anna Rutgers van der Loeff. Again I only realised it was true quite recently when my eldest was studying for his History GCSE (I’m in England and a part of the History course he studied is entitled ‘Making of America’) and he was regaling us with the heroic tale of the Sager children and I was almost in tears realising all the horror they went through was true.
Looking back I have no idea how a working class English girl in the West Midlands in the early 1970s got her hands on these books! My parents certainly weren’t readers, a mystery indeed.
I read everything now, even the back of shampoo bottles in the shower!
Oh yes, I read When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit. And like you, I did not know it was autobiographical.
I absolutely loved Island of the Blue Dolphins. I reread it countless times.
The Secret Language by Ursula Nordstrom. I must have checked it out of the elementary school library 100 times. My mom finally bought me my own copy. I still have it on my book shelf.
I’ve never heard of that one!
It’s great! You should see if your library can get it. I read it once a year. Awesome little girl book.
The Witch of Blackbird Pond. It made me feel less lonely for being an assertive, questioning, defiant child.
The Boxcar Children books are what I remember most. I think I loved reading in early elementary, then fell out of it until after college and started to love it again in my mid-twenties. In my thirties, reading is one of my favorite things.
Sooo many, most of the ones listed here in the comments, though I had a special fascination for all pioneer stories, including LIW books. Like many, I thought I wanted to live that way. Then I sort of did (and do . . .) and realized I am so glad I do not live in that time and in that way for real. Hooray for indoor plumbing and electricity.
The plumbing is such a huge one.
Have you ever thought about The Long Winter in terms of menstruating women? That seems like a nightmare to handle in such circumstances.
I never did consider that, but I highly doubt they menstruated during that time of low calorie intake. Much more sobering to contemplate would be being a nursing mother at such a time.
Now when I read them with my kids, I can’t help but think that Pa was kind of an irresponsible head of family and I would go crazy if I had to say, “Whatever you think is best, dear,” to my husband when he wanted us to pick up and move for the millionth time.
Hmm, that is true. One small mercy in the midst of starving.
And yes, poor Ma. All those moves, just as they were getting settled.
Teddy Bear of Bumpkin Hollow…then Heidi when I was a little older…then Wuthering Heights when I was in my teens maybe…