Wow - reminders of some of my absolute favorite childhood books: Wrinkle In Time, Phantom Tollbooth, Harriet the Spy, Mixed Up Files. I never could get my sons interested in them. They loved to read but just weren’t interested in most of what I suggested. I’m thinking I’ll start 2025 with a jump back to my childhood and re-read them for the first time in 5 decades.
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Henry Huggins, Otis Spofford. Such good childhood memories.
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This is my one a month dozen that I tend to go back to. Each read brings some incremental significance or insight as I get older.
Catcher in the Rye
Slaughter House Five
Brave New World
A Separate Peace
Fight Club
Lord of the Flies
Grapes of Wrath
Old Man and the Sea
Metamorphosis
Fountainhead
1984
Heart of Darkness
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Black Beauty.
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Many of these childhood books bring back such vivid memories! Black Beauty, From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs…, A Wrinkle in Time. Loved them.
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Just yes.
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If we’re doing children’s books: Black Beauty, The Secret Garden, All Louisa May Alcott (my personal favorite was eight cousins), and The Five Little Peppers.
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LOVE The Mixed Up Files…still think about the book every time I visit the Met.
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I loved Eight Cousins, too, but the Anne of Green Gables series was my favorite.
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I love her memoir My Own Two Feet.
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Does anyone else still have their copy of The Boxcar Children? I do! Book one…the best.
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The Boxcar Children, The Secret Garden, The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew … loved all of them!!
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Loved most of the children’s books already mentioned. In addition
E. Nesbit: Phoenix and the Carpet, Five Children and It, The Story of the Amulet etc.
Edward Eager: Half Magic and the sequels
Narnia books (read as a teen)
All of a Kind Family
The Shoes books by Noel Streatfeild
Little House Books
Betsy-Tacy Books
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For a thirteenth book that would consolidate aspects from several of these twelve, I’d suggest One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
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As a kid I absolutely loved the Black Beauty books. After I read the books, I wanted to learn to ride, but my Mom told me it was very dangerous. As soon as my GD is old enough to read them, I’m buying the series.
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Loved Ballet Shoes and the Chronicles of Narnia.
Also loved “The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet” by Eleanor Cameron and “Hitty, Her First Hundred Years” by Rachel Field.
I mentioned up thread that The Abandoned by Paul Gallico is my favorite book. My D got me a copy of Thomasina by Paul Gallico for Christmas which I’ve never read. So excited to read it!
I would’ve added this one had I remembered it!
Also, y’all need to get on the Where the Red Fern Grows train! It used to be THE read aloud in class book for 6th graders when evil teachers liked to watch the whole class cry. 
. Tbfair, it might not have been as popular outside of my home state which was the setting. There was a movie made from it though.
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Forget about that one. That is a great one and caused a lot of tears.
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Bridge to Terabithia was the first book to make me sob real tears.
I was stunned to learn that it is (or has been at points) one of the top 10 banned books in the country.
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