<p>I love the Little House books and was a huge fan of the TV series as well. I was teased, (well into my college years), because I always had to be home at 8pm on Monday nights to watch “Little House on the Prairie”. I loved Michael Landon and Melissa Sue Gilbert and who could resist the evil Nellie Olson and the fun-loving, Mr. Edwards? I have the entire series on DVD that I received a Christmas gift one year. It is possibly my favorite series of all time.</p>
<p>bookiemom–was there an illustration with a Christmas tree and a star at the top with rays coming out of it?</p>
<p>Not the best writing perhaps, but my son loved Encyclopedia Brown and also Miss Mallard mysteries. They’re fun. I learned a lot of duck names from Miss Mallard.</p>
<p>Churchmusicmom, the last book “Son” is amazing. The two in between, “Gathering Blue” and “Messenger” are great as well, but I loved the first and last the best.</p>
<p>It’s amazing any of us get anything done between hanging out here and re-reading children’s books. Well, I guess I don’t get much else done at that.</p>
<p>Can’t believe I haven’t mentioned the Max series by Maira Kahlman: Max Stravinski. Poet. Dreamer.Dog.</p>
<p>Max Makes a Million
Ooh-la-la (Max in Love)
Max in Hollywood, Baby</p>
<p>Can’t believe I haven’t mentioned the Max series by Maira Kahlman: Max Stravinski. Poet. Dreamer.Dog.</p>
<p>Max Makes a Million
Ooh-la-la (Max in Love)
Max in Hollywood, Baby</p>
<p>That illustration for Betsy’s Little Star sounds familiar, but the one shown on Amazon shows Betsy and Star together and a koala bear holding on to the letter S in the word Star in the title.</p>
<p>I did NOT like the Little House series on TV and did not find it true to the books. All the people had way too many possessions and clothing, and the children talked back to Ma and Pa!</p>
<p>Delete Please</p>
<p>I am not a parent but I really liked her books. I thought Farmer Boy was boring though. I remember reading them when I was seven. I still have On the Banks of Plum Creek. Oh the nostalgia.</p>
<p>I liked the Giver, but boy did my boys hate it! They wanted a satisfying end. I read at least one of the sequels, but definitely have not caught up. A stand alone I really enjoyed was Running out of Time about a girl who is in a historical reinactment place that’s gotten a little too realistic when an epidemic hits them and they can’t get medicine. The girl has no idea that she’s been on display (a la The Truman Show.)</p>
<p>And (spoiler alert!) the most amazing book related to historical reinactment is *Another Shore *by Nancy Bond. It’s about a a young woman with a summer job reinacting 18th c Nova Scotian life, when something happens and she’s actually living in the past. Unlike most books of this type, she’s stuck permanently and the plot is really about what do you do then, especially knowing some of the general lines of the way the future is going to go. That book haunted me.</p>
<p>I remember reading Running out of time and thinking it was really creepy…what if we’re all living in some absurd re-enactment? ;)</p>
<p>@gouf78, yes, the leeches in Plum Creek are my most vivid memory of the books as well. And the wolves at the windows. What a great thread about a great series.</p>
<p>Did anybody else read the original Mary Poppins books? I remember two, though there may have been more. I loved those as a child, as well as the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books.</p>
<p>A book I didn’t read as a child but which enthralled me as an adult was The Call of the Wild. I wish I had discovered that book while my sons were still little. I would have loved to read it aloud to them.</p>
<p>I did read the Mary Poppins books. As I recall, she was a pretty different character than the one in the movie.</p>
<p>Has anyone mentioned The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken? I liked that book, as did my older daughter.</p>
<p>I have to say that I hated the Little House tv series. Thankfully I am old enough to have read and reread and reread the books many times before it appeared. :)</p>
<p>I also hated the Mary Poppins movie, which came out while I was in elementary school, largely because it was sugary and inferior to the books, in which Mary Poppins is a tart, black-haired woman who is an intriguing and unique combination of practicality and ultimate mystery.</p>
<p>I enjoyed the Joan Aiken books, too, although the Wolves is probably the best of them.</p>
<p>I love Ursula LeGuin’s work in general (especially The Left Hand of Darkness). I would suggest that anyone who liked the Wizard of Earthsea check out the Riddlemaster of Hed trilogy by Patricia McKillip, which is truly wonderful. Also some of Robin McKinley’s work, notably The Blue Sword and The Hero and the Crown.</p>
<p>While we are on the subject of YA authors, I have to put in a plug for K.M. Peyton, who is one of my absolute favorites. Anyone else even heard of her?</p>
<p>I can’t tell you all how much I have enjoyed this thread. It is so stupendously wonderful to be able to find a group of people with whom to have this conversation. In real life, it’s not one that would happen for me except with my own daughters!</p>
<p>Haven’t heard of K. M. peyton.</p>
<p>zoosermom, this has been fun for me too.</p>
<p>I just remembered Bedknob and Broomstick, a big favorite from childhood. I haven’t seen the movie, but I’m betting it is sugary and nothing like the book.</p>
<p>Also Roald Dahl, which seems to be same age.
The witches, James & Giant peach, the BFG, George’s marvelous medicine, Matilda…
Also liked Anne Lindbergh ( daughter of Anne Morrow & Charles)
And The Grey King series by Susan Cooper ( Arthurian).</p>
<p>Consolation, I agree with everything you said.</p>
<p>K. M Peyton! Flambards and the Beethoven Medal series. Love her. </p>
<p>Love Joan Aiken, although I always liked Blackhearts in Battersea, mostly because of the title, it sounded so deliciously evil. </p>
<p>HATED The little house TV show ( a good friend in college always insisted that Michael Landon was the Anti-Christ, based on that show alone), loved the Mary Poppins books and hated the movie as well. I had a hard time getting my boys to sit still for Mary Poppins at first because they had seen the movie, but once we got in to the first book we read them all and they loved them.</p>
<p>Anybody else read How to be Topp by Geoffrey Willans? One of my favorite books as a kid. A few years ago I read a interview with Nick Hornby in which he said that he keeps a copy of this in every room in his house “in case of emergency.” I only have one in my den and one in bedroom.</p>
<p>As a middle-schooler, I was huge fan of Zilpha Keatly Snyder–anyone remember her books
The Egypt Game, The Headless Cupid, The Witches of Worm, The Changeling, etc.?
Now they just seem creepy. I haven’t read them for a long time, but they all had something to do with the supernatural and a lot of the characters had some sort of psychological issues.</p>
<p>Funny how some people remember the food in Farmer Boy–what I remember is the COLD–even INSIDE their house.</p>