Childhood Favourites - Which ones do you remember

[GeoffC]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Who did Mr. Roosevelt need to grant permission for the writing of his autobiography to? Himself?

Yeh - he must have talked himself into it ...

A chip off of the old block eh Harry ?

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by NatCh

I much enjoyed those myself, though I didn't encounter them until the Disney Channel miniseries came out in the late '80s.

Originally Posted by tlrowley

Gee, I always thought it was a CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corp.) series

Ah, yes, thanks for the correction: you're quite right, I should have said that I first saw the miniseries on the Disney Channel (we didn't get the CBC in Houston). In fact, as I recall, it was on one of their free weekend previews and the preview ended before the miniseries, resulting in my buying the thing so I could see the end of it.

[WillAdams]

HarryT asked:
>Who did Mr. Roosevelt need to grant permission for the writing of his autobiography to? Himself?

It was necessary for the transcriber of Geronimo's autobiography to go over the head of the War Department to Pres. Roosevelt who granted permission for Geronimo to tell his side of the story.

William

[HarryT]

Oh, I see. Sorry - thought you meant Mr. Roosevelt's autobiography . Thanks for the clarification!

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

My first regularly-read books were things like Curious George. (No, I'm not going to see the movie.) Then I started reading mostly comics... but as many of those were Classics Illustrated, I soon started buying the original lit of the Classics comics, most notably the works of Wells and Verne.

That (plus a school reading of A Stitch in Time) got me into SF, which pushed me into the Bradbury catalog, then the Clarke catalog, then Star Trek, then (thanks to a not-so-exciting trip to the grandparents' one weekend) to Doc Savage.

[badgoodDeb]

Originally Posted by RCR

My favourite poem was "Disobedience" in which a protective child warns his mother:

James James said to his mother,
"Mother," he said, said he
"You must never go down to the end of the town
If you don't go down with me."

The mother disobeys his instructions, goes downtown without him, and disappears. James James makes it absolutely clear to everyone it's not HIS fault. I really loved his categorical denial of responsibility.

@RCR: Here is the full text, part way down the page:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...=1006011206686

The Kingston Trio did that as a song in the early 60's. (At least, it was them or somebody very similar). Now you've got the song running through my head!

Whoops, I take that back. It was The Chad Mitchell Trio (similar style to the Kingston Trio). Have a listen:
http://www.amazon.com/Bitter-End-Cha.../dp/B000001843
I've got it on vinyl still! From a friend - I wasn't quite old enough to be collecting albums when it was new.

[tsgreer]

My first real, real reading adventures:

Danny Dunn, the Invisible Boy. (I LOVED the Danny Dunn books!)

The first three Tarzan books. My mom bought them for me at a rummage sale so that I would keep quiet while she looked for deals. I was around 10 years old, so that was pretty hefty reading for me.

And in my teens, my favorite books of all time were from the Book of the New Sun series by Gene Wolfe. I've read the first book from that series, The Shadow of the Torturer, several times since then.

Ahhh, the good ole days before bills and mortgages...

[pilotbob]

The earliest books I remember reading were the Hardy Boys series. Then I found out the same author wrote the Nancy Drew books and read those. Now, when I read them again to my kids I can't believe how lame/repetative they are.

The other early title I remember was reading _A Wrinkle In Time_. I think that got my started on SF. Also, the Hobbit was an early favorite.

BOb

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by tsgreer

(I LOVED the Danny Dunn books!)

I loved those! I also really liked The Mad Scientists' Club -- I recently learned there are other books in that series (I only knew of the one) but I haven't tracked down copies to read them yet, so don't tell me what happens!

I also remember a series of "mystery" stories, whose name I can't remember ... I guess its several details that stand out strongly in my memory. The characters were a group of four or five friends who ran a neighborhood detective agency. I remember one female character, but I think the rest were all male. There was a geeky gadget character, a character who's main contribution was his sense of smell (he had a big nose, too) and the main character who wasn't all that smart, but was clever and charismatic. I think that character's name was "Dirk McGurk, but since I haven't been able to find anything about the books, I'm doubting if I'm remembering that correctly.

Ring any bells for anybody?

[vivaldirules]

I've been hunting for some years for the name of a book I read in 1965 or 1966. It had a boy named Henry (?) who was bright, had a friend, and solved mysteries or problems or the like. It could have been one of a series since there were so many like that at the time but it was not Encyclopedia Brown or any other one that I've been able to track down. In the particular book I'm thinking of, the boy came up with the idea of using insurance as a means to avoid wars between nations. The book was important for me because this was probably the first instance that I sat down on the floor and read a book intensely from purely personal desire. I was not read to as a child and this book started me to read for pleasure. I was about nine at the time. As an adult I've been very curious about what had suddenly grabbed my attention. If you recognize it, I'd be most pleased in hearing from you.

[RCR]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

Whoops, I take that back. It was The Chad Mitchell Trio (similar style to the Kingston Trio). Have a listen:
http://www.amazon.com/Bitter-End-Cha.../dp/B000001843
I've got it on vinyl still! From a friend - I wasn't quite old enough to be collecting albums when it was new.

Thanks. That really put a smile on my face.

[HappyMartin]

Black Beauty was an odd book I thought, I just remember the sad bits.

It was also very controversial in South Africa believe it or not. The draconian censorship board that guarded the morals of the country banned all material deemed to be unsavory or that posed a risk to the countries security. I am not sure which of those 2 categories Black Beauty was deemed to represent but apparently the censor board never read the book and mistakenly believed it to be the tale of a black beauty queen. In apartheid South Africa that was enough to get the book banned until the board were informed of their error. Apparently beautiful black horses were acceptable but beautiful black women were not. Oh yes, You just have to love the "good old days".

[RobbieClarken]

Great thread!

As a child, my favourites were:

• Emily Rodda - Rowan of Rin, Finders Keepers
• Paul Jennings - 'Round the Twist' short stories
• Ian Flemming - All the James Bond books
• Roald Dahl - Matilda, The BFG

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

The earliest books I remember reading were the Hardy Boys series. Then I found out the same author wrote the Nancy Drew books and read those. Now, when I read them again to my kids I can't believe how lame/repetative they are.

No, that's not entirely true.

Both the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys series were published by a publishing house called the "Stratemeyer Syndicate" using "house names" for their "authors" - "Caroline Keene" for Nancy Drew, and "Franklin W. Dixon" for the Hardy Boys.

Edward Stratemeyer (the publisher) and later on, his two daughters, sketched out rough plot outlines for each book, but the actual writing of the books was "farmed out" to a variety of different authors. Most of the early Hardy Boys books were actually written by a chap called Leslie McFarlane, and most of the early Nancy Drew books were written by a woman called Mildred Benson.

The plots are, as you say, very predictable and mechanistic, but I love reading them.

Both series were "re-written" in the 1950s to update them and make them more "politically correct" - the original books had very negative and stereotypical portrayals of black and chinese characters, for example - but were drastically shortened and the plots simplified in the process, it being apparently felt that, by the mid 1950s, teenagers would be put off by 300-page books. Most "fans" consider the "original" versions of the books to be enormously superior to the re-writes. I suspect that it would have been the re-writes that you would have read.

[WillAdams]

Natch, agree on _The Mad Scientists Club_ books --- though I haven't read those to my kids, I am planning on purchasing a set for them.

William