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I absolutely LOVED to read while growing up. A couple of my favorites:
Summer Sisters (Judy Blume): this was her 3rd "adult" book and I LOVED it. Loved it so much in fact my 8th grade math teacher busted me for reading it during class. Then refused to give it back!
Harry Potter (J.K. Rowling): I was 12 when the books came out and disregarded them as "little kid" books. My Mom gave me the Sorcerer's Stone for Christmas when I was 15 and I couldn't put the series down for the next 7 years.
The War of the Worlds (H.G. Wells): I couldn't read this book at night as it was truly terrifying to me.
I read a sci fi book when I was in junior high (sometime between 1965 & 1967) that I found in the Yarmouth, Maine Jr/Sr high school library. I've tried to find it for years. I remember very little about it except that it took place on a strange planet. There were telepathic creatures that were mistaken for stones by the "hero" and the "hero" sent messages in compact bursts at certain times when his/her ship passed overhead. That is absolutely all I remember of it and some of that may possibly be mixed with other books.
If this sounds remotely familiar to anyone, I'd love to hear any additional memory you have of the book. Someday, I hope to find the book again so that I could re-read it.
Sorry to mention it again but The Once And Furture King stands out. After that I read anything about the Greek Gods or anything having to do with King Arthur. I read Beowulf a couple of times. Not sure where I got the book from & I still have it. The Medieval Myths by Norma Lorre Goodrich I've read it twice sence I was a teenager. It was a collection of stories. I did read The Lion The Witch And the Wordrobe, I never read any of the others though.
The Chip Hilton series. By Clair Bee. They were rereleased, and I think updated, a few years ago.
I got Biff Brewster once in awhile. Never a Hardy Boys or Tom Swift fan.
The grade school I went to had the whole Cherry Ames series. A large percentage of the girls that went to school with me became nurses. I think that series had a lot to do with it.
The ubiquitous Where the Red Fern Grows. When I was in Junior High/Middle School, my impression was that there was no unassigned book that was more widely read.
Terry Brooks' Shannara series, which I read before I ever picked up Lord of the Rings. When I eventually read the latter, I realized how The Sword of Shannara was just a reworked LOTR.
Paul O. Williams' The Pelbar Cycle, about scattered stone-age civilizations in the Mississippi River valley circa 3000 AD, a thousand years after a global nuclear holocaust.
I was a big fan of
Sweet Valley High
Babysitters Club
Judy Blume -- I remember sneaking in the 7th grade to read Wifey.
Lois Lowry
Lurlene McDaniel (books where kids were usually battling leukemia)
Encyclopedia Brown
Paula Danziger
So much good stuff was read and read again. Sustained silent reading rocked!!
After graduating from Trixie Beldon and Edward Eager series at about 10 or 12 I moved on to Phyllis Whitney, Victoria Holt and Jane Aiken Hodge. I also remember reading Go Ask Alice and Dave's Song and the Pam and Penny Howard book series.
Quite honestly, I don't remember ever reading a "young adult" book. I think I went straight from childrens books to adult books. Unless you count things like Jules Verne as 'young adult'. Maybe that genre did not exist yet in the 1950s. I know there were things around like Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, but I never know anybody who had read one. Everybody went straight from the Bobbsey Twins to Mickey Spillane.
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Anyone know the title for this book?
