What non-curriculum books did you read as a kid?

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Hi BrutalRhubarb.
I have to admit, after the yogurt incident I thought you were a troll.
Sorry.

I can't remember the names of most of them, but I read one book that I love to this day. It's called "The Secret Garden". It makes me feel inspired every time I read it.

Annansi and the Moss Covered Rock
Anything about animals
Anything Lion King related

Hello Otter,
That was slightly devious, wasn't it? I enjoy poking things before I pick them up, and thats basically what I was doing in my early posts. Not that I stop poking around, tho, so watch out!

My mom also read me the Illustrated Classics... dumbed-down, kids' versions of Oliver Twist, Little Women, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Secret Garden and Tom Sawyer and perhaps another one... they were fun.

I remember also reading Emily of New Moon as a kid, Ellen's Secret, Underdog, Family Picture (formerly Family Pose), my mom read me A Little Princess, and I also read The Final Journey.

I hardly read fiction until my teens. When I was younger I mostly read nonfiction books. I do remeber reading some HG Wells that early, as well as a couple books by Marguarite Henry and Judy Blume.

When I was a teen, I read for my own enjoyment Shakespere, Joseph Conrad, Anthony Burgess, Piers Anthony, Heinlein and other sci fi stuff, WWII novels, Vonnegut, Kerouac, Tolkien, some other stuff I don't recll at the moment.

The only nonfiction I read as a kid was stuff about people in disasters!

I also read:

Cloning Miranda
Did I mention these two; A Semester In The Life of A Garbage Bag and Matilda? I also read The Twinkie Squad; did I mention that one?


When I was really yuoung, I read or was read many many books, including 50 Below Zero, Purple, Green and Yellow, I Have To Go, the Human Body, The Bearenstein Bears-- In The Dark, Messy Room, Get the Gimmies, and the Truth, and others... When Dinosaurs Die, Horton Hears a Who, Green Eggs and Ham, Winnie the Pooh stuff, Sesame Street stuff, something about a pot that kept making spaghetti and flooded the whole town with spaghetti, Cinderella, and some French little Golden books including The Ball of the Twelve Princesses... a story about two kids in a garden gardening, named Sebastian and Gaylie (sp?)... Polar The Titanic Bear, Inside The Titanic, two more Titanic books with pictures, I think one was called Exploring the Titanic... Titanic: The Long Night, and many others.

Mostly encyclopedias and art books. Never really got into fiction until college.

Your memory for all these titles amazes me, Ana54.

Alot of books about sports statistics

How could I have forgot The Obnoxious Jerks? It's all about social activism at school. It's hilarious and something I'd have done in school. A lot of Aspies who either have a sense of humor, are into fairness or both would get such a kick out of it.

I don't really remember much about what I read before junior high, other than skipping around in some old encyclopedias that we had (and maybe some Hardy Boys).

In junior high I read a lot of science books and magazines. Especially anything relating to particle physics, relativity, quantum mechanics, and astrophysics/astronomy. Also a lot of Asimov's non-fiction books of essays. For magazines I read Science News, Omni, Discover, Science Digest, Scientific American, and whatever else I could find. I didn't read much fiction (still don't), but I remember reading some science fiction, Edgar Allen Poe and Sherlock Holmes.

Use_your_words's avatar just reminded me that I read The Great Gilly Hopkins!

When I was a kid, I read everything I could get my hands on. Mostly fiction. I didn't have any books of my own, so I read my mom's ad aunts children and youth books. Since all of the titles are German... Most of them were books about animals, horses, some detective stories, typical Hanni and Nanni, Secret Garden, fairy tales, Nils Holgersson, also the most popular series of Astrid Lindgren and many more.

I continued reading adults book, even Stephen King's works and stuff like that ate age 8 or so though. No children's books left at that time. I decided I didn't like his books at all though and continued with fantasy novels my mom still had, my favourite being Tad Williams' 'Tailchaser's Song'!

Good god, I couldn't list the books that I read. I read all the time when I was a young one. I even read books during class. It got to the point where the teachers stopped trying to get my attention when the next class started and just left me reading away. I eventually noticed usually 10 to 15 minutes into the class and caught up with everyone else.

I read pretty much every Hardy boys book, every Encyclopedia Brown, nearly all the Boxcar children books. I liked series, because I felt that I got to actually know the characters and could focus on the story rather than one off books where I had to try and learn the characters all over again.

Some of my favorite books were:
The Secret Garden. I got this as a secret Santa gift in school and it is probably one of my most loved gifts. I seldom read a book more than once, but I have read this one at least 4 times. I think I identified so much with both Mary and Colin who were so lonely all the time.

Where the Red Fern Grows. I loved this book too. I think it is one of the few times I had to stop reading a book due to the tears blocking my vision. I liked how the book was about the relationship between a boy and his dogs, didn't really deal with relationships between people.

Those are ones that really stood out in my mind after all those years I still love them.