Christine’s Top 7 Favorite books from Childhood

Crivens!

Hello Everybody! So I know it is not Tuesday, but it has been a crazy week. I really liked this topic and so (a little late) and by way of introduction, I am about to reveal a slice of my past to you all. Here is my first post: 7 books I loved when I was younger, and which, (to be perfectly honest) retain a space of honor on my bookshelf to this day.

When I tried to think of my favorite 7 seven books, my first impulse was to return to my bookshelf, see what I had kept and make the list.  Since that bookcase is stored in Phoenix right now, all I could think of was the great children’s books I have read more recently. So, like getting a bad tune out of my head, here is a quick shout out before I start my list for real.   Harry Potter goes without saying, at least for me. Then there is Garth Nix’s Abhorsen books, Niel Gaiman’s Graveyard Book and Terry Pratchett’s Tiffany Aching books (I dare you not to say “Crivens” after reading these books). These are just a few, but I couldn’t resist throwing them out there. Now to begin in earnest…

7: Grimm’s Fairy Tales 

Dark and twisted in all their original glory

My mom read these to my younger sisters and me when we were little.  I am not talking the censored version for children either.  In the version I was read Cinderella’s step-sisters hack off parts of their feet to get them in the slipper, and the fairy godmother is really a tree possessed with the spirit of Cinderella’s dead mother.  This is the dark kind of fairy tale, where the people are desperate or stupid and the consequences are often dire.  I loved the collection, and how there was always another new story to discover.  I think this collection of stories laid the foundation for my sci-fi/fantasy mania.

6: Remember Me

One of these things is not like the others...

 This book was a little out of character for me, I’ll admit.  I was never much into the thriller/horror genre of books.  However, my best friend had read it and she recommended it to me.  This was a very good book.  It is the story of Shari Ann Cooper.  She is murdered early on in the book, and spends the rest of the book trying to figure out which of her friends did her in. In many ways it is a typical story in which the fantasy of seeing your own funeral and finding out what people really thought about you is not the ego boost you thought it might be.  But the story capitavates and keeps your interest.  I didn’t know who the culprit was till the very end, and the end was my favorite part.  I really loved the book for its closing paragraph alone.  No, I haven’t  read the sequels.  I loved this book as a stand alone, and continuing to read seemed to destroy the ending I loved so much.

5: Good Night Mr. Tom

School reading list pays off

This was required reading at some point in my elementary school career.  I read it because I had to, and loved it because I wanted to.  How many books forced on you by school stick with you?  Often, even if it is a book I can grudgingly accept as good, I still resent it for being forced on me by others.  It is so much more fun to make the discovery on your own.  This book, set in England during  World War II, focuses on a young boy and the second chance he gets in the country with an old man named Tom.  In return, the little boy re-awakens Tom to life. I cried.  I admit it.  WhenI read it again, I cry again.  Still touching after all these years.
 

4: Mara: Daughter of the Nile

Intrigue...danger...love?

This was a book that I randomly got in one of those scholastic book sales they used to have at my elementary school. I would read a catalog and then order books for my mom to pay for and which were delivered to me in 2-4 weeks in class. It turned into much more than a passing read to be donated as I aged.  It is about a slave girl in ancient Egypt who becomes torn between trying to earn her freedom and being true to herself.  A tense thriller full of political intrigue, love affairs and the danger of deceit. Poignant, escapist thrilling; all the things a good novel should be for the young and the young at heart.

3: The Perilous Guard by Elizabeth Marie Pope

This book is better than its cover

This book appeals to the romantic in myself that I cannot deny. It also gave me one of my first glimpses into a dirty, dangerous, more earthy version of fairies that fascinates me to this day. Tam Lin sanitized for younger readers, perhaps, but enthralling just the same, for its themes of love lost … and won.

2: Beauty by Robin McKinley

Not the cover I have at home, but you get the idea

I have always loved the tale of Beauty and the Beast. It has long been my favorite fairy tale.  This is one of the best renditions I have ever read. McKinley doees a great job developing the relationship between Beauty and the Beast and creating a family that is not intrinsically evil, but sympathetic. In this version, the real world merges with the fairy, in a less fantastic and more down to earth, old world kind of way. Beauty is not beautiful, nor immune to the intial desperation of captivity. A great book that definitely inspired me to try and write my own variations on fairy tales
 

1: The Seventh Princess by Nick Sullivan

Cheesy cover, good book

This is Absolutely my favorite book from when I was younger. I loved it so much, I decided to read a chapter of it every night to my younger sisters, so I could share it with them.  It is about a girl who, riding the bus to school one day, finds herself transported to another world, where all is not as it seems.  She is declared the next priness in a line of imported royalty that keeps disappearing (like a cannibal island king).   She suspects the dubious Duke Rinaldo, and intrigue and danger follow her quest to discover the missing princesses and save herself from their same fate.  Perhaps it is the typical girl’s fantasy to escape this world and become a princess, but it doesn’t end there.  This princess needs cunning and bravery to save the day.  The ending is great and not as expected as you might suspect from the story outline.   Even rereading it now, I enjoy it. Maybe it is all nostalgia, but this book will always have a place in my library.