Another mythology-fantasy series that I like, probably my favourite, is the Chronicles of Prydain (5 books)...
I like best The Black Cauldron & Taran Wanderer.
The bit in Taran Wanderer where he fights the evil powerful wizard who had stolen & mastered the secret power of the crescent necklace is dead exciting :cool:
Anyone else liked Alfred Hitchcock & The Three Investigators?
They've been out of print for years now. They were much better than the Hardy Boys.
My favourite was the Mystery of the Stuttering Parrot.... To-to-to be, or not to-to-to be, that is the question
And I loved those, yeah, I've still got a bunch of them. My favourite was The Mystery of the Vanishing Treasure where (SPOILER!) it turns out that the spooky face in the window was the top midget of a pyramid of midget acrobats dressed up as gnomes. Or something.
I was a huge Enid Blyton fan as a kid and I had all of the Famous Fives, Malory Towers, St Claire's, Secret Seven, Adventure series and the Faraway Tree. Think my mum still has most of them at her house, we had a clearout of my books a couple of years ago, but I couldn't bear to part with them. Also a fan of Francis Hodgeson Burnett, loved The Secret Garden and recently read A Little Princess for the first time. And I am part of the generation that's been brought up on Harry Potter and Twilight, I remember being stupidly excited when I got 2 of the HP books for Christmas one year!
Give me any book and I will read it . When I was young my parents always gave me books as presents. It was never a doll or a makeup set; other people gave me those things.
So I also grew up reading Enid Blyton books, Malory Towers, St. Claire's, Famous Five, all of them! Now I read children's books when I need cheering up, because they are so innocent and simple and straightforward. I read HP Philosopher's Stone about a month after it came out and before anyone else knew it existed. I remember telling my friends about it and they looked at me as if I'd gone crazy. A year or so later they'd jumped on the bandwagon and I had to smile to myself at the absurdity of them telling me about the books.
I read books like Artemis Fowl series, and Keys to the Kingdom series, The Spooks Apprentice series, and anything Eoin Colfer writes (Half Moon Investigations, The Wish List). I love YA books. Books by Sarah Dessen, I pounce on. I read Twilight a few weeks after it was published as well! Before the world got sucked in. By the time everyone was in awe of Eclipse, I moved on though (Meyers' writing went from good to shite in between Twilight and New Moon and got worse as she kept writing!) If I'm getting a book, I usually check the children/YA sections first.
I do actually get funny looks from friends who are married and have children and possibly think I'm stuck in my teenage years. I don't really care. I don't think there is any shame in being an older reader, reading children's books .
What always occurs to me in regards to childrens literature is that, by and large it's written by adults. So it stands to reason that it's going to have crossover appeal. Yes it may have been written with children in mind, but not many authors would bother writing something that didn't engage themselves also.
I read all sorts, and a lot of my favourite books are childrens or teenage literature. I particularly like Phillip Pullmans short stories for children, they are very imaginative. Roald Dahl also.
One of my favourite books from childhood was Enid Blytons Magic Faraway Tree. I read a little of it recently and although now I can see that the writing is simplified for children, at it's heart it's still an enchanting story and I plan to re read it properly soon.
I regularly re-read Rosemary Sutcliff's books every few years which is why I'm looking forward to the film Eagle which is based on her classic Eagle of The Ninth
I love Harry Potter,and I am desperately waiting for the next Skulduggery Pleasant book,I am at this very moment reading The magic thief by Sarah Phineas,seems ok so far,not gripping yet though,and I plan to give Percy Jackson a go.(I'm 32)
I do find it odd that I like to read these kind of books,because when I'm not reading these,I have my nose in a good detective novel(have just finished Cody Mcfadyen's Abandoned)
I love Harry Potter. If anybody asks why me as an adult is reading a kids book I awlways say its because when they came out I was stilla kid and Im following it through!!
I think what most of the books you are all referring to are Young Adult or YA books. Which isn't Children's Literature. Most of you are reading Young Adult books. Which are submitted to YA publishers who publish them. Children's Literature is completely different.
I am a YA author pushing my manuscript to agents and frequent a forum called Absolute Writer Water cooler where most of us congregate.
Comments
I like best The Black Cauldron & Taran Wanderer.
The bit in Taran Wanderer where he fights the evil powerful wizard who had stolen & mastered the secret power of the crescent necklace is dead exciting :cool:
They've been out of print for years now. They were much better than the Hardy Boys.
My favourite was the Mystery of the Stuttering Parrot.... To-to-to be, or not to-to-to be, that is the question
And I loved those, yeah, I've still got a bunch of them. My favourite was The Mystery of the Vanishing Treasure where (SPOILER!) it turns out that the spooky face in the window was the top midget of a pyramid of midget acrobats dressed up as gnomes. Or something.
Quite a few of them seem to be available on scribd.com, if you don't mind digital. (And possible illegality, doubt if they're out of copyright!)
Cheers for the link
Strange that they went out of print, the stories still hold their own, would have thought they would remain popular with kids today
So I also grew up reading Enid Blyton books, Malory Towers, St. Claire's, Famous Five, all of them! Now I read children's books when I need cheering up, because they are so innocent and simple and straightforward. I read HP Philosopher's Stone about a month after it came out and before anyone else knew it existed. I remember telling my friends about it and they looked at me as if I'd gone crazy. A year or so later they'd jumped on the bandwagon and I had to smile to myself at the absurdity of them telling me about the books.
I read books like Artemis Fowl series, and Keys to the Kingdom series, The Spooks Apprentice series, and anything Eoin Colfer writes (Half Moon Investigations, The Wish List). I love YA books. Books by Sarah Dessen, I pounce on. I read Twilight a few weeks after it was published as well! Before the world got sucked in. By the time everyone was in awe of Eclipse, I moved on though (Meyers' writing went from good to shite in between Twilight and New Moon and got worse as she kept writing!) If I'm getting a book, I usually check the children/YA sections first.
I do actually get funny looks from friends who are married and have children and possibly think I'm stuck in my teenage years. I don't really care. I don't think there is any shame in being an older reader, reading children's books
That does ring a bell, though not, unfortunately, very loudly.
It's certainly reminding me of something I read years ago.
I read all sorts, and a lot of my favourite books are childrens or teenage literature. I particularly like Phillip Pullmans short stories for children, they are very imaginative. Roald Dahl also.
One of my favourite books from childhood was Enid Blytons Magic Faraway Tree. I read a little of it recently and although now I can see that the writing is simplified for children, at it's heart it's still an enchanting story and I plan to re read it properly soon.
I do find it odd that I like to read these kind of books,because when I'm not reading these,I have my nose in a good detective novel(have just finished Cody Mcfadyen's Abandoned)
She died a few months ago.
I think what most of the books you are all referring to are Young Adult or YA books. Which isn't Children's Literature. Most of you are reading Young Adult books. Which are submitted to YA publishers who publish them. Children's Literature is completely different.
I am a YA author pushing my manuscript to agents and frequent a forum called Absolute Writer Water cooler where most of us congregate.