Cheryl's Favorite Books
Some time ago I found a book (in a book store in New Orleans) I loved as a child. It's called Cautionary Tales for Children by Hilaire Belloc. It's old, and the language is archaic, but the black humor in it is wickedly fantastic.
The first books I remember are the Beatrix Potter books. Peter Rabbit, Tom Kitten, Squirrel Nutkin, Jemima Puddle-Duck, and Mrs Tiggywinkle were constant companions. But the first books I remember reading myself were the Famous Five and The Secret Seven series by Enid Blyton. They're the British version of Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys series (books I've never actually read because they weren't available in England when I was a child - not in my local library anyway). Due to the font used on the book covers, I spent my whole childhood thinking the author's name was Gnid Blyton! And of course there was Winnie the Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner by A.A. Milne. How could anyone not love those books? I devoured the Swallows and Amazons series by Arthur Ransome and was bitterly disappointed when I'd read them all. I've just ordered copies from Alibris so that I can read them again. I fell in love with The Borrowers (by Mary Norton) and of course searched my entire house just in case Arrietty had taken up residence there. I read the Secret Garden and The Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett, Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfield, Heidi by Johanna Spyri, Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery, The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (I cried for hours after reading that one), Black Beauty by Anna Sewell, and countless other books I can't remember now.When I was 11, I was required to read The Hobbit for my English class. I hated it. I didn't return to it for several years, but then I couldn't put it down.
At St. Mary's (my all-girls high school) we had a rigorous English curriculum for which I'm always thankful when I take one of those Facebook quizzes and find I've read almost all the books on them! These are some of the books I remember being thrilled/engrossed/horrified by:
Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy (In fact, I couldn't get enough of Hardy's books!)
1984 by George Orwell
The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
The Mill on the Floss by George Elliott
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (and more or less anything else by John Steinbeck)
David Copperfield and Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
And these are some books I remember enjoying:
Anything by Daphne DuMaurier (The Birds, Rebecca, Frenchman's Creek)
Chocky by John Wyndham
King Solomon's Mines by H. Rider Haggard
Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stephenson
And Shakespeare, whose plays we studied in minute detail!
My current favorite book tends to be whatever I'm reading at the moment. But some books I've enjoyed recently are Rain Reign by Ann M. Martin, Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein, The Underneath by Kathi Appelt, Liesl and Po by Lauren Oliver, The Crossover by Kwame Alexander, and A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness (if you don't read any other book, you have to read this one). There's a special place in my heart for Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat because the author, Lynne Jonell, was my first children's writing teacher.
The first books I remember are the Beatrix Potter books. Peter Rabbit, Tom Kitten, Squirrel Nutkin, Jemima Puddle-Duck, and Mrs Tiggywinkle were constant companions. But the first books I remember reading myself were the Famous Five and The Secret Seven series by Enid Blyton. They're the British version of Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys series (books I've never actually read because they weren't available in England when I was a child - not in my local library anyway). Due to the font used on the book covers, I spent my whole childhood thinking the author's name was Gnid Blyton! And of course there was Winnie the Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner by A.A. Milne. How could anyone not love those books? I devoured the Swallows and Amazons series by Arthur Ransome and was bitterly disappointed when I'd read them all. I've just ordered copies from Alibris so that I can read them again. I fell in love with The Borrowers (by Mary Norton) and of course searched my entire house just in case Arrietty had taken up residence there. I read the Secret Garden and The Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett, Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfield, Heidi by Johanna Spyri, Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery, The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (I cried for hours after reading that one), Black Beauty by Anna Sewell, and countless other books I can't remember now.When I was 11, I was required to read The Hobbit for my English class. I hated it. I didn't return to it for several years, but then I couldn't put it down.
At St. Mary's (my all-girls high school) we had a rigorous English curriculum for which I'm always thankful when I take one of those Facebook quizzes and find I've read almost all the books on them! These are some of the books I remember being thrilled/engrossed/horrified by:
Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy (In fact, I couldn't get enough of Hardy's books!)
1984 by George Orwell
The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
The Mill on the Floss by George Elliott
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (and more or less anything else by John Steinbeck)
David Copperfield and Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
And these are some books I remember enjoying:
Anything by Daphne DuMaurier (The Birds, Rebecca, Frenchman's Creek)
Chocky by John Wyndham
King Solomon's Mines by H. Rider Haggard
Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stephenson
And Shakespeare, whose plays we studied in minute detail!
My current favorite book tends to be whatever I'm reading at the moment. But some books I've enjoyed recently are Rain Reign by Ann M. Martin, Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein, The Underneath by Kathi Appelt, Liesl and Po by Lauren Oliver, The Crossover by Kwame Alexander, and A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness (if you don't read any other book, you have to read this one). There's a special place in my heart for Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat because the author, Lynne Jonell, was my first children's writing teacher.