Some of the other books I have really fond memories of that I couldn’t fit in this list are:
The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia McKillip, 101 Dalmatians by Dodie Smith, A Cricket in Times Square by George Selden, Charlotte’s Web and The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White, Anything by Roald Dahl, Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink, Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh, Little Sisters of the Grassland, The Kids Whole Future Catalog by Paula Taylor, The Rescuers by Margery Sharp, The Borrowers by Mary Norton, The Tripods Series by John Christopher, Anna to the Infinite Power by Mildred Ames, The True Game books by Sheri S. Tepper.

And then there are the books I only have vague memories of and can no longer identify, but which I know I loved at the time. And the ones I’ve forgotten! And the ones I didn’t discover until I was a “grown up”, like the Betsy-Tacy books by Maud Hart Lovelace.

So perhaps I will continue the series of postings more sporadically over 2009, to give these books (and others) their due. I’ve really enjoyed the nostalgia and hope that you folks reading this have been at least somewhat entertained.

But now what I really want to know is: what about you folks? What have I missed? What is on your own list of childhood favorites?

If I start listing favorite scenes I think I may end up siting the entire book, so I will restrict myself to three: the lily maid reenactment, Matthew and the puffed sleeves, and Anne’s recitation at the White Sands hotel. Beyond that, it was the Island itself that really made me love these books, I think. Through Anne’s eyes (and presumably L. M. Montgomery’s) it was as magical as any fairytale land.

Aside from Anne of Green Gables, I’m especially partial to Anne of the Island (as it is a school book, and I love school books in general). I’ve also grown much more fond of Rilla of Ingleside in recent years, though I couldn’t get into it as a kid.

As a side note, I will comment on some other Montgomery novels. I’ve read the Emily books, which I know some folks favor. Personally, while I enjoyed them, I didn’t love them — there was too much of an edge to them, I think, for them to be comfortable reading for me. But I adore The Blue Castle, and will regularly page through it to read random passages just for the pleasure of the descriptions.

I remember practicing a recitation of the names of the dwarves from The Hobbit. I remember drawing a picture of a Hobbit in the second grade, with hairy feet and short pants. I remember paging through the books time and again to my favorite parts: Weathertop, the Council of Elrond, the Mines of Moria (drums in the deep!), Galadriel and her gifts, Eowyn standing against the Ring Wraithe. I remember making sure my Lord of the Rings pillowcase (from the animated movie) was right side up, showing the Fellowship and Galadriel rather than the Black Riders and orcs.

I know that it has flaws. I will admit that when I re-read it now I skip over the poems and songs most of the time, and I do wish the ladies got a bit more to do. But I love it in spite of its flaws.

I will start off by saying that I honestly did not recognize the religious themes in these books for many years, and certainly not during my first readings. I grew up in a church-going Protestant family so it’s not that I wasn’t exposed to Christianity, but I just had a clear separation in my mind that God was in one box and Stories were in another, and so I remained oblivious to any influence the former had on the latter. I recall feeling rather silly when I finally realized what I’d been missing, but on the other hand I’m kind of glad that I came to the understanding more slowly, and read them first simply because they were rousing tales with interesting characters and fabulous worlds. Now that I know more about Lewis himself, and have thought more deeply about religious issues personally, the books have taken on different meanings. But I still think of them first and foremost as just plain stories.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe stands out most strongly in many respects, being the first of the series (at least in the traditionaly sense, if not chronologically). I’ve never passed by a wardrobe since first reading this book without wondering could it be…? How lovely to find my own doorway into another world, especially one inhabited by creatures like the beavers, and Mr. Tumnus, and of course Aslan. I identified strongly with Lucy (preferring to be Valiant than Gentle) and ached with her at the pain of not being believed when she first tries to tell her siblings about Narnia. I think Lewis tapped into a very strong emotion there, and one in some ways peculiarly strong for kids. That feeling that you’ve discovered something wonderful and magical (be it Narnia, or a cool bug on the doorstep, or a funny looking cloud) that you desperately want to share with others and having them simply dismiss it. My own parents always took me seriously (thanks Mom and Dad!) but not all adults, or even other children, did.

Prince Caspian stands out to me in memory primarily for Reepicheep, for the tree-people feasting on all sorts of different soils and loams at the victory feast, and for the sorrow of learning Susan and Peter wouldn’t return to Narnia. It seemed very cruel and sad to me when I first read it (I also thought Peter and Susan should be more upset than they seemed). Over time I’ve come to understand better why it happens. I also remember being rather affronted that Lucy seemed to be held as the one in the wrong for not following Aslan when the others didn’t believe her (again!) when she said she’d seen him. I didn’t understand at the time why Aslan couldn’t just show himself and make the rest of them see him. But I was very proud of Edmund for believing her.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader made me very happy by bringing back Reepicheep and Caspian, even if I had to also deal with Eustace. My strongest memories of this book are of Lucy reading the Magician’s book (I understood the temptation she felt to read the spells!), most especially the spell for the refreshment of the spirit, which ends up being a story she forgets almost as soon as she finishes reading it. I have often felt like I myself read that story, in a dream perhaps:

And she never could remember, and ever since that day what Lucy means by a good story is a story which reminds her of the forgotten story in the Magician’s Book.

I must admit I don’t have particularly strong memories of The Silver Chair, but strongest of all is probably Puddleglum the Marsh-wiggle. Then there was The Horse and His Boy which confused me at first, being a tale of an entirely different part of the world beyond the wardrobe, taking place back when the four Pevensies ruled Narnia. But I loved it as much as the rest — in fact it remains in my recollection one of my favorites, though I really ought to re-read the entire series again.

Then came the beginning of the story: The Magician’s Nephew. I was delighted to finally learn the origin of the lamp-post, of the wardrobe, of the Professor, of the White Witch, and of Narnia itself. And, finally, The Last Battle. My very strongest memory of which is the scene in which Aslan stands before the doorway, as streams of creatures and beings come forth and look into his face. And how when some look, their expressions change to one of the fear and hatred, and those pass into Aslan’s shadow, never to be seen again by the children. But the rest, those who looked on Aslan with love, went instead into the Door — including some who had done wrongs in their life, and many thought to be dead and gone. That image has stood vividly in my mind every since I first read it.

There is much more I could say about these books, but it would require a long post on my own religious and spiritual beliefs, which would require considerably more thought and time than I have at the moment. I will add one more thing, however, since it comes up so often in discussions of these books. That is the “Problem of Susan”. My short commentary on this is: I felt it quite sad that Susan did not return to Narnia — I didn’t feel angry, but I did feel a little resentful, because I felt that she was being depicted as the stereotypical shallow female obsessed with her looks. And while there are certainly a good number of women out there who feed that stereotype, I was sad that Susan fulfilled it. I really wanted her to thwart it. I will point anyone else interested in this to this thoughtful posting by my friend and fellow writer R. J. Anderson. It has given me a lot to think about and consider on the topic, some of which I am still mentally digesting.

All that said, I remain very grateful to C. S. Lewis for these books, for Lucy, for the wardrobe, for Mr Tumnus, for Aslan, for all of it. My greatest disappointment in these books was that Turkish Delight, when I finally got the chance to sample it a few years ago, was nothing like the delicious delicacy I imagined. I’m not sure what Edmund was thinking. Why didn’t he ask for divinity, or toffee, or fudge?

Edited to add this additional McKinley-related reflection
I have a distinct memory of being at a workshop/lecture for our school’s gifted and talented program that was supposed to be about something like “encouraging genius” or maybe “recognizing genius”. I view the whole thing dubiously from the present day but at the time I was 11 or 12 and really wanted to be “special” so of course I was eager to not to fail be be genius material. The fellow leading the program did various things like having people look at Rorschach-type shapes and having them say what they saw (if you saw static things you didn’t have so much genius, according to him, as if you saw things in motion or active).

Anyways, he also went around asking the kids what their favorite books were. I suspect he was looking for Ullyses or something, but mine was (honestly) The Blue Sword. That was one of the few (thankfully) times in my life I’ve actually been made to feel unworthy for favoring fantasy. Not that he said anything specific I recall, but his reaction made me feel like it was a baffling or silly choice, and unworthy. Not ‘literature’ = not genius.

But I am proud to love fantasy, proud that many of the books on this list are full of fantastical lands and people. Because they are also full of imagination and an enthusiasm for the myriad different directions life can take, and they are nevertheless full of people who struggle to do the right thing and make a difference in the world. And I’m not so much interested in being a genius as I am in telling stories people love and want to read, that entertain them and make their own worlds a little bigger and brighter.

It was at the top of the tower, and the tower was a round one, so Maria’s room was circular, neither too large nor too small, just the right size for a girl of thirteen. It had three windows, two narrow lancet windows and one large one with a window-seat in the thickness of the wall. The curtains had not been drawn across the windows, and through them she could see the stars.

~and~

The ceiling was vaulted, and delicate ribbing of stone curved over Maria’s head like the branches of a tree, meeting at the highest point of the ceiling in a carved representation of a sickle moon surrounded by stars.

~and~

The bed was a little four-poster, hung with pale-blue silk curtains embroidered with silver stars, of the same material as the window curtains, and spread with a patchwork quilt made of exquisite squares of velvet and silk of all colours of the rainbow, gay and lovely.

~and~

Over the fireplace was a shelf, and on it stood a blue wooden box filled with dainty biscuits with sugar flowers on them, in case she should feel hungry between meals.

But dream bedrooms aside, there were many things I loved about this book. I wouldn’t call it a dark or complex book; in fact I imagine many readers might find it overpoweringly sweet. But it has all the ingredients I like in a comfort book: beautiful, quaint settings, deliciously described food, a bit of adventure and romance, lovely descriptions, and a sort of sense of nostalgia, like the entire book is suffused with a golden age glow. Everything works out alright in the end, and nothing is ever quite so terrible it can’t be borne.

I was very excited to hear they’ve made a recent movie of this book, titled The Secret of Moonacre. There’s a trailer up on YouTube. And what a promising cast! Ioan Gruffudd, Tim Curry and Dakota Blue Richards (from the Golden Compass movie). It looks like they’ve upped the magical aspects considerably, but I still would love to see it and hope it is eventually released in the US.

Tangent #1: Frances doesn’t wear clothing in the books, but the adult badgers do. It didn’t seem odd to me as a kid but it does now. But I don’t think Frances would look as cute if they put her in a little skirt or the like, so I am glad they are the way they are.

Tangent #2: While looking at the reviews for the Frances books on Amazon I found that most other readers loved them as much as I did. There were, however, a bunch of very negative reviews for Bedtime for Frances, prompted by the inclusion of spanking in that book, and what the reviewers saw as parental coldness and even cruelty. I don’t have a copy here to refer to, so I can’t really comment on the book directly myself. I will say, for what it’s worth, that I have no memory of that aspect of the book so I don’t think it was particularly traumatic for me as a kid. Then again, my parents didn’t spank us either so perhaps I didn’t really understand it at the time.

Tangent #3: While googling to find out a bit more about the author, I found a reference that said the author’s father rewarded his kids with nickels for clever remarks and excellent artwork to stimulate their development. Cool!

It’s particularly interesting to me that this is one of the few novels for younger readers that I can think of in which the main character is actually an adult– a parent, in fact. But I was nevertheless eager to read about the widowed mouse Mrs. Frisby as she struggled to find a way to save her home from the farmer’s plow so her ill son wouldn’t risk dying in the move. Mrs. Frisby has thrilling adventures: rescuing Jeremy the crow from his tangle of string before Dragon the cat could attack, visiting the Great Owl to ask for advice, and finally seeking out the mysterious rats who live under the farmer’s rosebush to ask for help. And she does it all as a simple field mouse. She doesn’t have the extraordinary powers of the rats, but she manages to be just as much a hero, and to do extraordinary things.

The rats themselves were also fascinating. I loved all the details of their home and lifestyle, with its electricity and library. I loved the rats themselves: dashing Justin, wise Nicodemus, even dense Brutus. I loved the mystery of their origins as laboratory rats, and the story of their escape from NIMH, and their plans for the future.

I must admit that my memory of this book has been influenced heavily by the movie, which I loved also (but which is very different from the book in certain plot points, notably the inclusion of more magical elements). Still, just now, picking up my battered old copy and paging through it, I started reading and got lost in it all over again.

Some of my other favorites were Serendipity (treat the oceans nice!), The Gnome from Nome (friendship is what warms you on the inside!), and Flutterby (be yourself!).

Some of the books can be a bit over-the-top with the cute factor and the starry-rainbow-sparkle-unicornishness, but I loved them as a kid and still enjoy looking through them now. And while the morals are well chosen and important, the stories themselves are fun and don’t beat you over the head with the message.

Twelve-year-old Theo is on a trip to Nantucket Island with her dad and annoying TV star stepmom. But it’s not so bad; she loves the island, she makes friends with island-boy Kip. But mysterious things start happening as well. Theo receives a strange but beautiful necklace of shells and black stone as a welcoming gift. She starts to see things in the waves. She begins to wonder if Kip’s Gram isn’t just senile, if perhaps her weird mutterings mean something dire. She begins to investigate the ancient lore of the island and her own connection to it.

I re-read this book many many times. I loved the Island, which impacts the book so strongly it almost feels like a character itself. I loved Theo. I loved Kip and Theo, together. And of course I loved the hidden magical stuff that is slowly revealed over the course of the story. There’s a reason all these books with kid protagonists who discover their own secret heritage are so successful, I think. Lots of us readers wanted (want!) to believe we are special too, that maybe we inherited some fabulous magical power, even if it was scary and got us into adventures.