What was your favorite children's book growing up?

Question

If you have kids, which one is your child's favorite?

Answer 1

Oh, my personal favorite was Tom Sawyer. I had a picture-book version before I was five. My sister gave me the real thing when I was eight or nine, and for several years I read it at least once a year. Eventually it led me to Huckleberry Finn, which is still the closest I think we've come to the Great American Novel. In the fifth grade, I was in the operetta (trading a blue bottle for a chance to white-wash the fence), and as a bearded adult I was an extra in the 1973 movie musical w/ Johnny Whitaker and Jodie Foster. I read it aloud to my own five children, and they enjoyed it as much as I had.

More important, it was this book by Mark Twain that made a place for realistic literature for children, stories about real boys instead of King Arthur's knights. It (with Little Women for girls) led the American breakaway from British children's literature. With Tom and Huck, and Jo Marsh, American kids began to see themselves in books written for them.

OK, I know, Tom eventually became the sorta stereotypical all-American (naughty) boy, and the book has some racist sterotypes that, however much we might like to ignore them, are very much a part of our past. Parents reading the book to their children these days will need to have open discussions of these cultural flaws.

As my wife and I read literally hundreds of books to our five children, we developed a whole library of favorites. At the top of the list for them, undoubtedly, would be the Narnia books, especially The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, but also the others right down to The Last Battle, another special favorite. Others would be The Hobbit, the Little House Books, Lloyd Alexander's Prydain series, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (which also has some unfortunate racial stereotypes), The Mouse and His Child, the Borrowers series, and many, many picture books--none of which had been available to me as a child when I spent all those years with Tom Sawyer.

My own favorite from reading to our children was the little-known Mouse and His Child by Russell Hoban, interesting on one level to adults for its satire and irony and on another to children for its pure animal fantasy (a kind of existentialist Velveteen Rabbit). Then there was Watership Down and The Sword and the Stone and Robert Lawson's books and the Gammage Cup series. The list could go on and on . . . .

But you asked for my own personal favorite. It's gotta be Tom Sawyer. He still gets his fence white-washed the easy way (that's American enterprise); he still lies to Aunt Polly; he still tries to impress Becky Thatcher; he still becomes blood brothers with Huck, he still gets lost in the cave and shows up at his own funeral. Yep, he's still the barefoot boy all us boys wanted to be.

Answer 2

Umbrella by Taro Yashima,
Caps For Sale
Corduroy
Blueberries for Sal
The Gorilla Did It

Charlie & The Chocolate Factory
Little House on the Prarie series
Chronicles of Narnia

Answer 3

Sweet Pickles Book Series

Answer 4

I had many at different ages! As a small child it would be Charlotte's Web. As I grew older I loved the baby Sitter Club books and as I hit pre teen it was The Fear Street Series. After that it was all the Young adult novels about falling in love and such and having the prefect life!

Answer 5

Too many to name! But I do remember one I loved around 7 years old. It was called The Great Green Turkey Creek Monster by James Flora. It's unfortunately out of print, but I got a copy off ebay.

I also loved Charlotte's Web and any Beverly Cleary books.

Answer 6

I read a simpilified version of Jane Eyre and got hooked to this day, I was 9.
I do not remember which books I liked as a small child, but comic and detective serieses hooked me on reading around the age of 6-9.

Answer 7

I always like " How The Grinch Stole Christmas" In fact I have a story just like it called " How The Grinch Started Halloween" That I wrote. I will becoming out hopefully in the next year or two. I've got a few more books that will be coming out sooner.

Answer 8

The Hungry Caterpillar

Answer 9

The Giving Tree

Answer 10

Not really a children's book, but I loved Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, and still do to this day.

My daughter currently loves any book that features cats- Touch and Feel Kitten, etc.