Yertle the Turtle by Dr. Seuss. It’s amazing how much more I get out of it as an adult.
I like
Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh , Huck Finn, Kidnapped by Robert L. Stevenson, and the entire Swallows and Amazon series, by Arthur Ransome, a British writer, who tells the story of children’s sailing adventures in the Lake District in the 1930s.
Thank you , OP, I wanted to explore this subject! I read Watership Down and The Hobbit because my boyfriend recommended them when I was 15. He was deeply into drugs, and I was not, but I loved these stories once I figured out what was going on.
Where the Red Fern Grows.
Absolutely A Wrinkle in Time!
Also Phantom Tollbooth. I’d also like to read The Great Brain series if I had time. And the YA books by Patricia Beatty.
I really liked the Amulet of Samarkand and the other books in the trilogy by Jonathon Stroud.
Also found The Golden Compass series to be entertaining.
All of my kids read the OZ books by L Frank Baum and I was surprised at the level of creativity as well as good vocabulary.
Oh, and Five Children and It.
Oh, @surfcity, I ADORED the Great Brain books!
I devoured all the Nancy drew and hardy boy books, and all,the 4 sisters and joe and her boys, then went on to Agatha Christie. Then my Russian please. I missed Laura’s books. I r discoverdmYL in my older years.
When I was 14 I read Madam Will You Talk by Mary Stewart and went on to read all of her books many times. I don’t know if they were kid books but certainly I was a kid and they gave me a picture of what a young woman could be and do. I have reread a couple since; The Moon Spinners and The Ivy Tree. I think I’ll reread some more.
Loved The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Julie of the Wolves, and the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. ( Read The Lord of the Rings so many times that I got tired of it in high school.) Loved The Chosen, which I read in early teens. There are tons of others, but I really enjoyed rereading those with my kids.
Anything by Astrid Lindgren!
@Wellspring --I read Mary Stewart’s “This Rough Magic” at 14, and then many of her other books. Haven’t reread since, but enjoyed them then.
As a devotee of all things Sound of Music, the autobiography of Maria von Trapp does something good for my heart with each re read. Laura Ingalls Wilder as well. I should read Little Women and Little Men again, as I re read so many times in childhood.
I was an avid reader as a child and I saved a small shelf full of books for no reason other than the fact I loved the. When I looked at the shelf as an adult the theme was clear-strong, adventurous girls! The included,
Julie of the Wolves
Harriet the Spy
Island of the Blue Dolphins
Witch of Blackbird Pond
The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
The Secret of the Old Clock (Nancy Drew)
Pippi Longstocking
Charlotte’s Web
A Wrinkle in Time
There are equally wonderful books about strong boys but I think my parents knew my taste. I was one of those kids who at 8 or 9 spent Saturday afternoons out in the woods pretending to be an orphan surviving on my wits.
Anything by Zilpha Keatlley Snyder, Edward Eager, Elizabeth Enright, Madeline L’Engle, Norton Juster, E.L. Konigsberg.
Guess I was into escapist fiction!
The Man Who Was Magic…by Paul Gallico read as a youth and adult,Marjorie Morningstar by Herman Wouk and Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Montgomery are three that sprang immediately to mind. Then comes Mitchner books which my mom had to give permission for me to take out of the adult section of the library and Michael Crichton Andromeda Strain surface next as books I read as a very young girl and reread as an adult.
Just re-read A Wrinkle in Time recenlty. I haven’t been re-reading kids’ books as much recently, given that my kids are grown and I’m in two book groups! I want to go back and read Madeline L’Engle’s Austin series.
I have re-read the Narnia books, the E. Nesbitt magic books (Five Children and It and the Phoenix and the Carpet among my favorites), Half Magic and the other Edward Eager books, Harriet the Spy, and Mixed-Up Files. Mostly because these are on my shelf and accessible when i have nothing else to read. As someone said above, these are like comfort reading. Also re-read Little Women, Little Men and Charlotte’s Web at least once as an adult. Did anyone else read All of a Kind Family books? I re-read the first one as someone gave it to me.
I read the Dark is Rising first as an adult, but have not re-read. Also read Harry Potter as an adult and have re-read them all (even after my kids have beengrown).
I have also liked some of the books my kids have read for school like Holes and The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian.
Re: Mary Stewart I reread [i[Wildfire at Midnight* right before a trip to Skye. (Definitely not a kid’s book.)
Yes to rereading E. Nesbit! She’s wonderful. And speaking of E. Nesbit, it might be time to reread Edward Eager who has a wonderful tribute to her in his book Half Magic. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4662726
Yes, it was reading Eager that led me to E. Nebitt in the first place. Knight’s Castle pays tribute to Nesbit’s Magic City. I could not really get my kids to enjoy those books, however. Do kids still read them?
I do reread books. I especially like to reread books that I read long ago to see whether they hold up well and to find out whether I’ll react to them the same way I did the first time.
One book that I first read as a young teenager that holds up beautifully is A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I loved it then. I love it now.
Little Women, not so much. It’s really rather brutal (e.g., Beth’s pet bird dies of starvation; Amy falls through the ice). And it’s sloppily assembled. For example, there are mentions of Amy going to school months after a whole chapter was devoted to an incident in school that led to her not going anymore. I understand that Alcott wrote the book quickly. It shows.
I really liked the All of a Kind Family books, @mom2and, although I’ve only revisited one of them as an adult. They were my first introduction to Orthodox Jewish culture, which seemed very rich and interesting to someone of my boring Episcopalian heritage. Later, when I had an observant Jewish roommate in college, I knew what she was talking about mostly from All of a Kind Family.