The Anne of Green Gables series! During my early teen years in Switzerland, I loved these stories so much that I developed a passion for Prince Edward Island and Canada. I secretly signed up for an exchange student year so that I could fulfill my dream to live in Canada, and surprisingly my parents agreed to let me go at 16. While I came home after a year, I returned to Canada for my university studies and indeed ended up as a teacher on a wind-swept island (Newfoundland) for several years. When my husband and I moved back to the mainland to be close with family we unknowingly had moved a ten-minute drive from the farmhouse where Anne of Green Gables was filmed and, for a while, attended a church whose nursery looked onto the lake and bridge where Anne and Gilbert got engaged (this discovery was one of my biggest jaw-drop moments in memory!). Thus is seems that Anne has followed me along in my life (I even share L.M. Montgomery's birthday:).
Ruth, that’s incredible. What a wonderful series of memories and events. I’d love to read an essay by you on the intersections of your life and Anne of Green Gables.
Ha, who knows... there are even many more connections. One of them was that I actually got in contact with the person who lived in the farmhouse where Anne of Green Gables was filmed, and discussed plans for hosting a weekly homeschool group there (which did not happen afterall). That would have been too perfect:)
When I was 12, my favorite books in the world were about animals. There was a series of books called All Animals Go To Heaven, but Cats, or Dogs, or Horses subbed for Animals. I ate it up. I loved The Black Stallion books, Lassie, Lad A Dog by Albert Payson Terhune, Champion Dog Prince Tom, and The Incredible Journey.
Wonderful. I also loved Anne at around age 10 to 12. I also applied for exchange student and requested Canada or New Zealand. I was awarded USA , luckily New Hampshire which felt close to my Canadian request. My eldest has now emigrated to Canada and i am saving money to go visit in a year or two, God willing. And she knows we have to go to Prince Edward island if that is the only place i get to go to ;)
So many favorites in the comments already — I loved the Prydain novels, Black Beauty, the Black Stallion and all the subsequent books, Anne of Green Gables and sequels, Narnia, the Girl of the Limberlost, The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, Island of the Blue Dolphins, all the Sherlock Holmes stories....I could go on.
Probably my favorite, though, was Madeleine L’Engle’s “A Wrinkle in Time” and the whole series (Murrays and Austins both) that went with it. I think an early attachment to L’Engle explains more of my current faith than either Lewis or Tolkien.
Yes, A Wrinkle in Time and that whole series immediately popped into my head. It completely captured my imagination. I don't generally have the best memory, but I have vivid memories of exactly where in my library I was when I first picked up those books and started reading right there & then.
Loved this book in so many ways. Meg was like me, the bright girl who hasn’t learned to hide it effectively, yet so wanting deep friendships. Madeline captures the need of young adults for a mission, mentors, and something to believe in.
The Black Stallion, hands down. I’ve never been much of a re-reader but I probably read that one over five times. It starts out like Castaway and ends like Chariots of Fire.
Yes, I LOVE this question! I’m still only in my late teen years, but there are some books I look so fondly upon because of how they influenced my reading.
There’s a couple, but they would have to be “The Last Battle” from the Chronicles of Narnia, “Pilgrim’s Progress” (the original) that I read when I was about ten years old, and “The Fellowship of the Ring” that I also read when I was ten. I was never really one to read and re-read, but whenever I do reread, these are some of the first books I go to. This was my childhood literature, as strange as it may sound.
That’s wonderful. I never read the Narnia books until I had kids of my own, but I know people who’ve read them from childhood. Books like that end up being lifelong companions.
I must have read it 20 times back then! I’m glad they didn’t try to make a movie out of it. Now I’ve come to appreciate The Silver Chair much more, as well as The Last Battle.
I’ve heard from a lot of people that “The Horse and His Boy” is their favorite.
Ooh, I’ve been wanting to read “Treasures of the Snow” for a while, now. I read Patricia St. John’s autobiography last year, and loved it. I haven’t been able to find any of her books at our bookstores (and our bookstores surprisingly have some good selections). Maybe I should just order it online.
Have you read any of Patricia St. John’s other stuff? She wrote a lot of books for the kids she was ministering to in Switzerland and Morocco (if I remember correctly).
I’ve read Pheasant Cottage by PSJ; my daughter also read Star of Light (the Morocco one) and Tanglewood Secret. There are two more byPSJ we haven’t read.
Hardy Boys, all day long. Which makes sense that I went to Chandler and Hammett and their inheritors. Now, I plan to focus on Simenon and Christie for a decade.
Where the Red Fern Grows was a great read! I have had my grandchildren read it and I always ask if they cried at the end! It’s a great story with excellent normative values. A close second were the Tales of Sherlock Holmes which I have read numerous times
Heck, I'm tearing up right now about WTRFG. Thanks! What a great story. I have a nephew visiting our farm next week. I think I'll leave it on his bedroom table and see if it gets picked up and read.
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was pure magic to me. It was the first time I felt physically transported to another place. To this day (and I’m 68) I FELT Edmund rubbing his face in the fur coats, which changed into pines…I FELT the cold and stillness when he crunched over the snow. What a gift to experience that kind of…I’ll use the word again…MAGIC…at 10 years of age!
Brer rabbit! Tho prob was before 12 years, long ago!!! Love anansi stories. On reading the comments i am having a lovely journey of remembering beloved books. Then theres john wyndham and science fiction came into my life! ( your essay on his work was great)
‘Salem’s Lot -- Stephen King was not so ubiquitous then but it felt cool and subversive to have knicked a scary vampire novel from my older brother’s bookshelf
I read a lot , but the following stick in my mind. My favourite book then ( i am now 68!)was the little women set especially ‘jo’s boys’. I am English and my other favourite was Girl of the Limberlost’ which is also not a uk book and i am surprised my mother chose it out of the library for my age. Alice through the Looking Glass, but i think i read that a lot earlier. And again, Anne if Green Gables’ set. Must have been a usa section when i was 12:) Favourite poet was walter De la mare. Hope that starts the ball rolling.
From uk and live in tropical tiny singapore. While i am
Content here as its safe and generally efficient, You are lucky you can at least go on road trips and enjoy vast space:) and seasons( tho not fond of winter)and i understand califonia is very dry. being older i appreciate city living, things are nearby and work. in extreme situations, cities get fixed first. I miss the wild flowers and the smell of flowers , frangipani and jasmine seem to be the only fragrances. And the quiet!! I can understand reading the limberlost and longing for its wildness. I think the fact it was so ‘other’ to a young uk girl at the time was its attraction. I am
Re reading ‘dream of little angels’ now which is set in Alabama around 2013. again, to me its very ‘other’ in culture and nature. Nicecto be somewhere else in a book:) although it is a detective book about a murder, so a different genre. Enjoy the wild flowers:)
First assigned essay in Basic Comp freshman year of HS : what is your favorite book? I wrote enthusiastically about Gone With the Wind. Never thought I’d end up actually living in the South decades later (with mixed feelings about having loved that book...)
A good lesson about the moral complexities of life.
From today’s vantage point, the Tarzan novels I mentioned above are unconscionably racist. We take what we can from our reading, redeem as much as possible, and let the rest go.
Same here. I LOVED GWTW so much at 14. Became an avid GWTW collector of book and movie memorabilia. Then I became an adult. Learned more about history and GWTW just hits different. Sold my entire GWTW collection except for about 5 pieces. Mixed feelings is an understatement. I don't even know how to discuss really my heart's love for this book/movie compared to what my brain knows about it's truth.
Joel J Miller had his Tarzan books. Mine were several notches lower. I bought and read every new episode of Bomba the Jungle Boy. I didn't realize at the time how racist they were. One of the few areas of life where I feel I was cheated was the measly selection of children's books in my small town library. I'm making up for it by reading good children's literature as an adult.
It’s also funny how fashions and standards shift. Remarkable levels of racism in prior generations were passed over as if there was nothing wrong with it—and in large measure that’s because we were so acclimated to such characterizations we wouldn’t have seen them as morally amiss.
Anne of Green Gables was my most beloved book around that time. Like many young girls, I had a fondness for orphan stories like The Secret Garden and The Witch of Blackbird Pond. I need to re-read Joan Aiken because I gobbled up her books around that time. I just don't remember the details. Anne has been a faithful friend and sharing her with my daughter was a gift for both of us.
Anne fans may want to hear the wonderful Anthony Esolen read "The Lady of Shalott" today on his Substack, Word and Song!
That was the heyday of my young adult fantasy reading period. I loved The Chronicles of Prydain series by Lloyd Alexander. For me these were a literary precursor to Tolkien's adventures, sort of a gateway to more advanced reading. Haven't read them in years but my copies in those days were worn out.
Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs. I did NOT initially read this as an adolescent, however it’s a childhood book that I return to again and again, even as a mid-40 something woman. This book brings me joy, it makes me laugh, and it reminds me of a simpler place in time. Isn’t that what books do best???
The Anne of Green Gables series! During my early teen years in Switzerland, I loved these stories so much that I developed a passion for Prince Edward Island and Canada. I secretly signed up for an exchange student year so that I could fulfill my dream to live in Canada, and surprisingly my parents agreed to let me go at 16. While I came home after a year, I returned to Canada for my university studies and indeed ended up as a teacher on a wind-swept island (Newfoundland) for several years. When my husband and I moved back to the mainland to be close with family we unknowingly had moved a ten-minute drive from the farmhouse where Anne of Green Gables was filmed and, for a while, attended a church whose nursery looked onto the lake and bridge where Anne and Gilbert got engaged (this discovery was one of my biggest jaw-drop moments in memory!). Thus is seems that Anne has followed me along in my life (I even share L.M. Montgomery's birthday:).
Ruth, that’s incredible. What a wonderful series of memories and events. I’d love to read an essay by you on the intersections of your life and Anne of Green Gables.
Ha, who knows... there are even many more connections. One of them was that I actually got in contact with the person who lived in the farmhouse where Anne of Green Gables was filmed, and discussed plans for hosting a weekly homeschool group there (which did not happen afterall). That would have been too perfect:)
Anne would love this, especially the secret application! What a great story. Your parents understood you very well. Thanks for sharing!
When I was 12, my favorite books in the world were about animals. There was a series of books called All Animals Go To Heaven, but Cats, or Dogs, or Horses subbed for Animals. I ate it up. I loved The Black Stallion books, Lassie, Lad A Dog by Albert Payson Terhune, Champion Dog Prince Tom, and The Incredible Journey.
That’s wonderful. I remember enjoying the Freddy the Pig stories by Walter R. Brooks.
C.S. Lewis was fixated on animal stories as a child and created a whole world—Boxen, I think it was called.
Wonderful. I also loved Anne at around age 10 to 12. I also applied for exchange student and requested Canada or New Zealand. I was awarded USA , luckily New Hampshire which felt close to my Canadian request. My eldest has now emigrated to Canada and i am saving money to go visit in a year or two, God willing. And she knows we have to go to Prince Edward island if that is the only place i get to go to ;)
Thanks for sharing Lesley :) Hope very much you get to visit soon!
So many favorites in the comments already — I loved the Prydain novels, Black Beauty, the Black Stallion and all the subsequent books, Anne of Green Gables and sequels, Narnia, the Girl of the Limberlost, The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, Island of the Blue Dolphins, all the Sherlock Holmes stories....I could go on.
Probably my favorite, though, was Madeleine L’Engle’s “A Wrinkle in Time” and the whole series (Murrays and Austins both) that went with it. I think an early attachment to L’Engle explains more of my current faith than either Lewis or Tolkien.
I never read Wrinkle in Time until an adult with my own kids. I read it to them over a couple of weeks in the evening. Incredible story!
A wrinkle in time was marvelous
Yes, A Wrinkle in Time and that whole series immediately popped into my head. It completely captured my imagination. I don't generally have the best memory, but I have vivid memories of exactly where in my library I was when I first picked up those books and started reading right there & then.
Loved this book in so many ways. Meg was like me, the bright girl who hasn’t learned to hide it effectively, yet so wanting deep friendships. Madeline captures the need of young adults for a mission, mentors, and something to believe in.
The Black Stallion, hands down. I’ve never been much of a re-reader but I probably read that one over five times. It starts out like Castaway and ends like Chariots of Fire.
That’s a gap in my childhood, though my sister read and loved it. Not sure how I missed it growing up.
Yes, I LOVE this question! I’m still only in my late teen years, but there are some books I look so fondly upon because of how they influenced my reading.
There’s a couple, but they would have to be “The Last Battle” from the Chronicles of Narnia, “Pilgrim’s Progress” (the original) that I read when I was about ten years old, and “The Fellowship of the Ring” that I also read when I was ten. I was never really one to read and re-read, but whenever I do reread, these are some of the first books I go to. This was my childhood literature, as strange as it may sound.
That’s wonderful. I never read the Narnia books until I had kids of my own, but I know people who’ve read them from childhood. Books like that end up being lifelong companions.
Mine was ‘the Horse and His Boy’ from Chronicles of Narnia. Also, Little Pilgrim’s Progress and Treasures of the Snow by Patricia St John.
The Horse and His Boy happens to be my favorite of the Narnia stories.
I must have read it 20 times back then! I’m glad they didn’t try to make a movie out of it. Now I’ve come to appreciate The Silver Chair much more, as well as The Last Battle.
I’ve heard from a lot of people that “The Horse and His Boy” is their favorite.
Ooh, I’ve been wanting to read “Treasures of the Snow” for a while, now. I read Patricia St. John’s autobiography last year, and loved it. I haven’t been able to find any of her books at our bookstores (and our bookstores surprisingly have some good selections). Maybe I should just order it online.
Have you read any of Patricia St. John’s other stuff? She wrote a lot of books for the kids she was ministering to in Switzerland and Morocco (if I remember correctly).
I’ve read Pheasant Cottage by PSJ; my daughter also read Star of Light (the Morocco one) and Tanglewood Secret. There are two more byPSJ we haven’t read.
Okay. I will definitely have to check them out. Thanks!
Happy Reading!
Hardy Boys, all day long. Which makes sense that I went to Chandler and Hammett and their inheritors. Now, I plan to focus on Simenon and Christie for a decade.
The new penguin translations of Simeon are wonderful!
They look so good. I want them all. :)
I think I read some Hardy Boys back then, though I don’t recall any of the stories. I can see your trajectory there, however. Makes total sense.
Where the Red Fern Grows was a great read! I have had my grandchildren read it and I always ask if they cried at the end! It’s a great story with excellent normative values. A close second were the Tales of Sherlock Holmes which I have read numerous times
Heck, I'm tearing up right now about WTRFG. Thanks! What a great story. I have a nephew visiting our farm next week. I think I'll leave it on his bedroom table and see if it gets picked up and read.
My dad taught freshman English and assigned Where the Red Fern Grows. Somehow I skipped it. It’s a hole in my education!
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was pure magic to me. It was the first time I felt physically transported to another place. To this day (and I’m 68) I FELT Edmund rubbing his face in the fur coats, which changed into pines…I FELT the cold and stillness when he crunched over the snow. What a gift to experience that kind of…I’ll use the word again…MAGIC…at 10 years of age!
Amazing. How wonderful to have that memory.
Anne of Green Gables *or* The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle. Gosh I loved that one by Avi. So thrilling!
Avi! I’ve tried to get my 13-year-old to read it. So far, no dice.
My kids haven’t read it yet either. Crossing my fingers they will want to pick it up eventually…
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle was one of my favorites! ❤️
So. Good.
Did anyone else devour Grimms fairy tales? Loved them then.
I definitely read some of those, same with Aesop’s Fables. A few years ago I got a collection of Russian Folk Tales; those are pretty wild.
Brer rabbit! Tho prob was before 12 years, long ago!!! Love anansi stories. On reading the comments i am having a lovely journey of remembering beloved books. Then theres john wyndham and science fiction came into my life! ( your essay on his work was great)
Wyndham was a joy to discover.
‘Salem’s Lot -- Stephen King was not so ubiquitous then but it felt cool and subversive to have knicked a scary vampire novel from my older brother’s bookshelf
Haha. Fun.
I read a lot , but the following stick in my mind. My favourite book then ( i am now 68!)was the little women set especially ‘jo’s boys’. I am English and my other favourite was Girl of the Limberlost’ which is also not a uk book and i am surprised my mother chose it out of the library for my age. Alice through the Looking Glass, but i think i read that a lot earlier. And again, Anne if Green Gables’ set. Must have been a usa section when i was 12:) Favourite poet was walter De la mare. Hope that starts the ball rolling.
Those are some excellent selections.
Loved the concept in Limberlost, but lived smack in the middle of dry, concrete California, so had to wait years to be in a place of wildflowers.
I am
From uk and live in tropical tiny singapore. While i am
Content here as its safe and generally efficient, You are lucky you can at least go on road trips and enjoy vast space:) and seasons( tho not fond of winter)and i understand califonia is very dry. being older i appreciate city living, things are nearby and work. in extreme situations, cities get fixed first. I miss the wild flowers and the smell of flowers , frangipani and jasmine seem to be the only fragrances. And the quiet!! I can understand reading the limberlost and longing for its wildness. I think the fact it was so ‘other’ to a young uk girl at the time was its attraction. I am
Re reading ‘dream of little angels’ now which is set in Alabama around 2013. again, to me its very ‘other’ in culture and nature. Nicecto be somewhere else in a book:) although it is a detective book about a murder, so a different genre. Enjoy the wild flowers:)
First assigned essay in Basic Comp freshman year of HS : what is your favorite book? I wrote enthusiastically about Gone With the Wind. Never thought I’d end up actually living in the South decades later (with mixed feelings about having loved that book...)
A good lesson about the moral complexities of life.
From today’s vantage point, the Tarzan novels I mentioned above are unconscionably racist. We take what we can from our reading, redeem as much as possible, and let the rest go.
Same here. I LOVED GWTW so much at 14. Became an avid GWTW collector of book and movie memorabilia. Then I became an adult. Learned more about history and GWTW just hits different. Sold my entire GWTW collection except for about 5 pieces. Mixed feelings is an understatement. I don't even know how to discuss really my heart's love for this book/movie compared to what my brain knows about it's truth.
Joel J Miller had his Tarzan books. Mine were several notches lower. I bought and read every new episode of Bomba the Jungle Boy. I didn't realize at the time how racist they were. One of the few areas of life where I feel I was cheated was the measly selection of children's books in my small town library. I'm making up for it by reading good children's literature as an adult.
It’s great to have that opportunity!
It’s also funny how fashions and standards shift. Remarkable levels of racism in prior generations were passed over as if there was nothing wrong with it—and in large measure that’s because we were so acclimated to such characterizations we wouldn’t have seen them as morally amiss.
Anne of Green Gables was my most beloved book around that time. Like many young girls, I had a fondness for orphan stories like The Secret Garden and The Witch of Blackbird Pond. I need to re-read Joan Aiken because I gobbled up her books around that time. I just don't remember the details. Anne has been a faithful friend and sharing her with my daughter was a gift for both of us.
Anne fans may want to hear the wonderful Anthony Esolen read "The Lady of Shalott" today on his Substack, Word and Song!
I love thinking of books and their characters as faithful friends.
That was the heyday of my young adult fantasy reading period. I loved The Chronicles of Prydain series by Lloyd Alexander. For me these were a literary precursor to Tolkien's adventures, sort of a gateway to more advanced reading. Haven't read them in years but my copies in those days were worn out.
I never read the Prydain stories, but when I worked at a used bookshop I sure shelved a ton. They were super popular.
Oh I LOVED those books!
Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs. I did NOT initially read this as an adolescent, however it’s a childhood book that I return to again and again, even as a mid-40 something woman. This book brings me joy, it makes me laugh, and it reminds me of a simpler place in time. Isn’t that what books do best???
That’s excellent. Yes, it’s amazing how books can transport us.