Long-Lost Childhood Books (was: Books You Can't Stop Reading)

[Ebony]

You know, as I read everyone's selections on the thread I couldn't 
help but remember all the books I left behind in childhood!

Here are some books that make me long for childhood--stuff I loved to 
pieces as a child but haven't read since age 14:

--The Moomintroll books (author just died this year--I *must* find 
these books again!)
--Just As Long As We're Together, Judy Blume
--Harriet the Spy, Louise Fitzhugh
--The Borrowers, Mary Norton
--Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry and Let the Circle Be Unbroken, 
Mildred Taylor
--Choose Your Own Adventure, various authors (there was also 
another "choose your own ending" series I liked WAY better... those 
were historicals)
--The Ramona/Beezus/Henry Huggins books, Beverly Cleary
--Junius Over Far, Virginia Hamilton
--Bridge to Terabithia, Katherine Patterson
...and I feel like I'm forgetting many!

There are also some that don't count on the list above:  the Little 
House books were my favorite series from fourth to seventh grade, 
only supplanted by LMM around age 12.  I re-read them during 
undergrad while interning in a children's library and found that a 
bit of the magic was gone.  (Then again, watching the Sullivan movies 
just aren't the same either since last year's debacle.)

I found my favorite childhood storybook a few years ago at the 
aforementioned library as well.  *Canute Whistlewinks and Other 
Stories* by Zacharius Topelius, Finland's version of Hans Christian 
Andersen. 

I still haven't read all of Narnia, only the first two... and I own 
them all!  But I much prefer *The Magician's Nephew* over *The Lion, 
comfort for me, it's sustenance (the Psalms), entertainment (the the 
Witch, and the Wardrobe".  But I have read *The Four Loves*, *Mere 
Christianity*, *Surprised by Joy*, and am eager to begin *The 
Abolition of Man*... don't those C.S. Lewis books count?  :-D

And I can't believe that I didn't add to the list the one book that I 
read more than even Maud's:  the Bible.  Not only is it the ultimate 
historical books), and disquietude (Judges... whoa!) all wrapped into 
one. 

This actually ties into long-lost childhood reads.  My introduction 
to most of the Bible wasn't really Sunday school, since I didn't grow 
up going to church.  I first learned the majority of what was in the 
Bible from two sources:  the Jehovah Witness' *My Bible Storybook* 
and Arthur S. Maxwell's ten-volume *The Bible Story*.  My mother gave 
away both, but in recent years I've spent a pretty penny to reacquire 
the latter.  They are now on one of my bookshelves.  :-D

--Ebony AKA AngieJ