Debbie's Childhood Reading

Our question of the week has to do with books we read during childhood that have really stuck with us.

If I put my mind to it, I could probably come up with a list about a mile long. But just rattling off the ones that pop to mind immediately, here are a few that have stuck with me through the years:

From early on:

• Any and all Dr. Seuss books. I especially loved Fox In Socks and The Sleep Book.
• John Ciardi's You Read To Me, I'll Read To You poems, illustrated by Edward Gorrey
• The poetry volume of the Junior Classics series (favorite poem at the time: "Jabberwocky")
• That's Good, That's Bad by Joan M. Lexau, illustrated by Aliki
• "Stand Back," Said the Elephant, "I'm Going To Sneeze!" by Patricia Thomas, illustrated by Wallace Tripp

Then of course there were the years dominated by...

• The Little House on the Prairie books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Count me amongst those who read each of the books dozens of times.
• Around this time, I also loved the All-Of-A-Kind-Family books by Sydney Taylor.
• And I really liked a book the title and author of which I can't recall, but involved a boy who left the house one morning for a walk and came back to find his house burned down and his family presumed dead. He went off on his own, perhaps with his dog (I'm fuzzy on that part) and managed to survive in the woods by the highway by rigging up a little something so that trucks going by wobbled and lost a bit of their loads - these bits of lost cargo served as his provisions. At the end, the family turned out not to be dead. Plot details hazy, but I read and re-read this book many times. I think the author's last name was in the first half of the alphabet, because I still remember the shelf area of the library where the book was.
• Oh, and let's not forget Freckle Juice, Nate the Great books, James and the Giant Peach, From The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, and dozens more I'll think of later.

Later, during my teen years, my reading was all over the map (though frequently in the area of the map covering frequently challenged books):

• A series of books, something maybe having to do with someone's attic - all I remember is the cutaways on the mass market paperbacks
• Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber. Yikes! I don't think I could read that book now, but back then I was fascinated by it.
• A romance book written by someone named Skye something. The book itself didn't impact me, but the notion that someone would have the name Skye was mind-bending. Then someone clued me in that it was a pen name. Oh! That was mind-bending, too. I immediately decided I should have a pen name, something as glamorous sounding as Skye. I settled on... Denise O'Dharbe, which is an anagram of my name. (But no, I haven't written any romances.)
• The Best Little Girl In The World by Steven Levenkron. I think the book was meant to be illuminating as to eating disorders, but unfortunately I think the book served to heighten many a girl's interest in anorexia.
• The Velvet Room by . Actually, I'm not sure I found the book itself that absorbing (I don't remember any of it), but that room has stuck with me!
• A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck. I don't remember much about this book now, but I think it was a definite early influence on my eventual vegetarianism.
• I Know What You Did Last Summer by Lois Duncan.
• Deenie by Judy Blume

I read many other books during my childhood, but those are some that pop into my head as having left their mark. I'll probably add to this list as more influences percolate up.