Ok – I took everyone’s advice and ignored the yarn for this week’s Sneak Up and am reading Harry instead. 🙂 I’m actually almost done with the book. I will admit that I have stopped to do one thing or another (I’m not ignoring your orders – just the new yarn) but I will finish the book today. It’s good and I’m anxious to see how it all turns out. I have enjoyed the author’s creativity in these HP books. (And there are some inventions in there that I think would be darned handy to have around.)
So, since we still need a contest for July, I thought I’d see what everyone’s favorite book is. I love to read and while I can’t necessarily come up with one favorite book (although I will say I loved all of the Chronicles of Narnia), I thought I’d share my favorite childhood books with you. It’s funny to read them now, because I’m not sure why these became my favorites out of all the ones I had. But they did. The Lonely Doll is not a book I ever owned, but I remember checking it out from the library multiple times because I loved it so much. I majored in Elementary Education in college, with a minor in Reading, and somehow during one of my Children’s Lit courses, I rediscovered this book. (I always remembered it – just couldn’t remember the name or author.) I was so happy to find it available to order and now I have my own copy. It’s about a doll and two teddy bears who live in a house (no adults) and get into all kinds of adventures. I think there might’ve been a sequel or two, but this was the one I liked.
My other two favorites were Bunny Blue and Mr. Snitzel’s Cookies. This is my original copy of Bunny Blue from when I was young, but I found Mr. Snitzel on ebay a few years ago. (Is there anything you CAN’T find on ebay?) Now I have these books displayed in a cupboard and I like having them there. Every so often I have to go back and read them. So what about you? Are there books from your childhood or adulthood that you’d call a favorite? I know that a lot of knitters are also book lovers, so it’ll be fun to get some new suggestions for good books. Leave your favorite book here in the blog comments by next Wednesday, August 1st, and I’ll do a random drawing for our monthly Loopy Gift Certificate! I’m also going to do the August blog contest very soon, in celebration of our one year anniversary – so keep an eye out here for that as well. There is a great grand prize for that contest!
Ok – back to Harry………..
Sheri um,no,mySockapaloozaPal’ssocksaren’tdoneyet.Harryisgettinginthewayofeverything.
my favorites were all of the Eloise books. she was a little girl growing up at the plaza. when i was young we made a special trip to visit her room there – i wonder if its still reserved for her. i particularly remember her trip to moscow and named my secret friend after the title.
i appreciate everyone sharing favorites. i just finished evening by susan minot. it was a really emotional read and takes a bit to get into. i am sirendana on shelfari if you would like to get the whole shebang.
my recent (five-year) favorite is a pocketful of names by joe coomer. i loved all of his books but this was my favorite.
As a child/teenager I read Laura Ingalls, Judy Blume, the Nancy Drew books, and many others. I can’t have just one favorite!
As an adult, there are too many out there. I’ve always been a fan of Ann Rule, but currently knitting books are taking control. =)
I love E.L. Konigsburg books–especially The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and The View From Saturday. I also love the Narnia books, A Wrinkle in Time and the books that followed that.
As for adult literature–my favorite book of all time is Catch-22. I also like Kurt Vonnegut.
I liked this last HP book. I thought the ends were wrapped up nicely, and my questions were answered.
You’ve still got a week to finish your Sockapalooza socks…go, knitting needles, go!
Oh, without question my favorite children’s book is The Voyage of the Basset by Mames C. Christensen with Renwick St. James and Alan Dean Foster. They take you on a fantastical journey through flight of faeries to the mermain’s siren songs, learning about all the mythology that has been referenced in literature throughout the ages. I’ve read it with every one of my grandchildren, as well as all of my tutoring students. One of my grandchildren has been so inspired by the art work of Christensen that she is off to a writing/art camp back east somewhere this summer. She’s written and illustrated two fantasy novels – unpublished, as yet, but then she’s only 12~
Oh, without question my favorite children’s book is The Voyage of the Basset by James C. Christensen with Renwick St. James and Alan Dean Foster. They take you on a fantastical journey through flight of faeries to the mermain’s siren songs, learning about all the mythology that has been referenced in literature throughout the ages. I’ve read it with every one of my grandchildren, as well as all of my tutoring students. One of my grandchildren has been so inspired by the art work of Christensen that she is off to a writing/art camp back east somewhere this summer. She’s written and illustrated two fantasy novels – unpublished, as yet, but then she’s only 12!
Joan
I am an avid reader…usually at least a book a week. But I have to say that my favorite all time ever book, the book I’d choose if I could only choose one to be stranded with on a desert island, would be Man’s Search for Meaning. So inspiring!
As a kid I remember my favorite being The Wind In The Willows. I wore out my copy. i read it yearly, every spring as I was growing up and I’d always tuck in a spring flower between the pages to be pressed. As the years went on, the pages were stained, but the flowers are still in that book and I still have it.
I don’t think it’s possible to pick a favorite book. As a kid I read all the Nancy Drew books, all the Little House Books, all the Narnia books, and so many others. I think I have a thing for series books, like The Harry Pottter ones. I like a good run of books with great characters you can get atached to and want to keep following. My husband and I work our way through detective and mystery series these days as grownups, but always enjoy reading the things the kids do now also. They are currently working on a series by Erin Hunter.
Oh, Sheri….I forgot to mention the Mitford Series. I LOVED all of those books! I only have a little bit left of HP7 and I had to take a break for awhile. Ugh..I want to savor it but I am driven to know the ending!
Love Harry Potter. You must be having a lot of fun reading the last one.
I read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn when I was about ten. It was such a great book, and it’s still one of my favorites.
My childhood favorite book, no lie, was A Tale of Two Cities.
You know you can do it! You can finish your sockapalooza socks!
I was an avid reader but my favorite all time book is still Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss. I love the rhymes & can still recite most of it. Another favorite is My Side of the Mountain.
Anne of Green Gables. It was my childhood favorite and still is. I reread all the books in the series just about every summer at the beach. The Lord of the Rings trilogy is a close second.
All time favorite: The Lord of the Rings.
Before Bilbo, Sam and Frodo……Laura in the Little House books.
Oh Sheri — this one is too hard! You are going to get a lot of favorites. 🙂
Childhood — I loved Nancy Drew and the Sweet Valley Twins (especially the two “novel” size books they put out that followed a few generations — can’t remember the name now — may have to check ebay and see if they still exist out there anywhere)…
Teen years — I read the “Love Comes Softly” series by Janette Oke at least a hundred times.
College years — anything Lori Wick.
Teaching year — I read aloud to the students, and my hands-down favorites were “Beauty” and “Cheaper By the Dozen.” I love those books.
Knitting years — Anything by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. 😉 I especially loved “Yarn Harlot” — had her autograph it for me last year.
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo . . . unabridged. I absolutely love this book and have read it more times than I can count. It’s such a wonderful story of the triumph of the human spirit over adversity.
My son’s favorite bedtime story, The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales by Jon Scieszka and illustrated by Lane Smith, always makes the top of my list for children’s books. Of course all characters must be read with “voices”.
As a kid I read The Chronicles of Narnia to tatters. Then I read ” Gone with the Wind” As a GRIT ( Girl raised in the south) it just doesn’t get any better than Rhett and Scarlet. I have to admit I adore HP. Wish I could bewitch myself some more knitting time.
My favorite was Ferdinand the Bull – “take time to smel the roses” kind of theme. I forget who the author is tho’.
It’s hard to pick just one favorite!
Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, and Anne of Green Gables have all been my staples for many years, but I recently discovered I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith and I wish I had found this book when I was younger!
My favorite children’s book is Where the Wild Things Are. I didn’t like it when I was little, though, because it was too dark and scary. And I just can’t pick an all-around favorite – there are just too many.
As a child one of most favorite books was Misty of Chincoteague. Now I read more than ever but is hard to find time except late at night. I have favorite authors such as Nora Roberts, James Patterson, Stuart Woods, Iris Johansen,Nickolas Sparks, John Grisham, David Baldacci, Dorothea Benton Franks, Perry Osaughnessy, and many others. Two of my most favorite books are by Barbara Delinksy (She is a knitter)
Family Tree and Shades of Grace. I have been know to knit and listen to books on tape, but not really my thing.
My favorite book as a child was James Herriot’s “All Creatures Great and Small”. The copy I read was the same one my mother read over and over as a child. My love for those stories was a way to connect with my mother, and got me my first volunteering gig at a vet’s office. Even today I dream of someday visiting the Yorkshire countryside and curling up with the books that made it feel like home despite never having been there.
After going back and reading the comments before, it looks like knitting and reading go hand and hand with the group.
I can’t choose one. Here are four off the top of my head.
a) Go Dog Go. (great learn to read book. my mum now twitches about it)
b) the secret garden
c) ender’s game.
d) the giving tree…
I used to have a book about a Big Yellow Bear that I loved. I’m not sure if that is the title, but I can still remember parts of the story. Also I loved “Peter Rabbit”.
Sheri, you are cruel. There is no way to choose! I read over a book a day once I was trained out of my dyslexia in grade school – but my favorite AUTHORS would be Agatha Christie, Leo Tolstoy (Anna Karenina), L.M. Boston (Green Knowe series), Arthur Conan Doyle, Carolyn Keene (Nancy Drew), Richard Adams (Watership Down), Piers Anthony (Xanth), David Eddings (Belgariad, Mallorean), C.S. Lewis (Chronicles of Narnia) and Lois Gladys Leppard (Mandie), Angela Elwell Hunt (Keepers of the Ring, good historical christian fiction, if you go for that sort of thing!)
I’m sure there’s more, but I need to go read others’ recommendations!
I can’t help it, I still love Lord of the Rings best. I’ve loved it best ever since I first read it the summer I was fourteen and cried when I finished because it wasn’t real, and I couldn’t go there. I watched every minute of the extra materials that came with the LOTR movie DVDs because Middle Earth had, in a way, become real, and those people HAD gone there.
Fox In Socks.
Good plot twists, excellent prose, and the main character wears socks. How can you go wrong?
“The Outlander” and it’s sequels, by Diana Gabaldon are my favorite books! They’re books I can read over and over and over. They’re considered historical romances, but have a sci-fi twist, with plenty of action, and lots of Scottish brogue! And the main character happens to be named Claire. =)
My favorite book as a child was Little Black Sambo. I still love pancakes!!! As a teen I read and reread the Black Stallion series, the Trixie Belden series and the Lad a Dog series. My favorite book, though, was Treasures of the Snow. I don’t read much now, too much knitting to do, but I love to listen to my Lord of the Rings books on CD.
oh my, only ONE book? hmm, The Children of Green Knowe series, or His Dark Materials series.
Pride and Prejudice, my favorite of all time. I reread it every few years.
Hi Sheri! Sooooo waiting for Yarntini, I have heard some great things about this yarn, I keep checking!!! My favourite books I think (as an adult) have been the Shopaholic series by Sophie Kinsella, as for my childhood, it was a book called “Miss Jasters Garden”, it was a british book, as I grew up there, but I can remember the drawings of the gardens being beautiful english country gardens, perhaps that is why my second passion to knitting is gardening!
I agree with Meg I think my favorites now are the Janet Evanovich’s books, although I do love Anne Perry & Elizabeth Peters & Agatha Christie & Sue Grafton, oh for pity sakes I haven’t met a book I haven’t loved. When I was a kid I used to love to read The Little House On The Prairie books & Trixie Belden. I’ve got a whole book bag filled with audio books from the library now. I knit & listen to my books – pure heaven! (Sometimes I get too involved in the book & just keep knitting instead of following the pattern or vice versa!)
I saved all my kids books from when they were little & what’s really cool is Sofia loves the same ones her Daddy & Aunt Penni loved. She pulled a Disney one out tonight & both her Dad & Aunt started recalling their favorite parts – & of course pulling the book out of each others hands like they did when they were little. Some things never change! At least now my husband quit complaining about all the junk I saved for our grandchildren – he acts like it was his idea!
I’m a bit of children’s lit/YA lit fanatic, so most of my favorite books still are “for kids.” Anne of Green Gables, of course, and just about everything L.M. Montgomery wrote. Also Ballet Shoes and everything by Noel Streatfeild. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, the Little House books, the Betsy-Tacy books, … I could go on and on.
Your question was the dinner topic tonight. I’m a librarian so the best answer I can give is that today my favorite books are:
The Story of Ping, my very favorite book as a child.
Hatchet, and My Side of the Mountain, very engaging books when I was a young adult.
The early Conan books, they’re classics!
Lately I have been wanting to reread Captain’s Courageous.
And DH’s favorite book is one I lent him, Armor by John Steakly. He has read it 3 times!
HP is certainly in there. BTW, there was an article on MSNBC this morning and Rowling has said she will be writing an “encyclopedia” of all the characters as a follow-up to books 1-7 since she has extensive back stories on all of them. The encyclopedia is also supposed to have more information on what happened to many of the characters not mentioned in the epilogue.
Nobody mentioned Mrs. Mike by Benedict & Nancy Freedman! I loved that book. I also read Alice in Wonderland numerous times, tons of Louisa May Alcott, Phantom Tollbooth, the Little House series…. As an adult, I’ve enjoyed James Michener’s earlier books, especially Hawaii and The Source, all of Irving Stone’s fictionalized biographies (e.g. Agony & The Ecstasy), Janet Evanovich for a belly laugh (bring on Bob the Dog any time! and a great girlfriend question: Ranger or Joe?). For thoughtful nonfiction, anything by Karen Armstrong.
Can I cheat and name the entire Betsy-Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace? Betsy, Tacy, and Tib is the first chapter book I remember reading — when I was six, I was at a birthday party, found it on the shelf, and ended up spending the entire party in a back room reading it. (Yeah, my basic personality hasn’t changed that much in thirty-some years.)
One of my favorite children’s books (discovered later in life) is “How to Spin a Rabbit.”
Though I also love “Guess How Much I Love You.” Oh, and Shell Silverstein’s books, and Marguerite Henry’s books, and also dark books like Anna Karenina. I have a whole list of favorites. 🙂
I think my favorite book would have to be The cat who went to heaven by Elizabeth Coatsworth. I remember reading and re-reading that book as a child. I still have my copy (quite beat up)!
Hmm…I guess my favorite books as a small child were Dr. Suess, especially “Green Eggs and Ham” and the “Snitches”. As I got a little older, biographies became a favorite (around Jr. Hi age and all those book reports!) I think the first novel I read was “The Good Earth” by Pearl S. Buck, I think in 8th grade – I was so proud when I finished that book, and it was such as great story! As a young adult, I was hooked on Stephen King for a while, and then read all of “The Clan of the Cave Bear” series – I really love historical novels! HP has been fun, though believe it or not, I am still working on #6! In the past few years, I have had so little free time I have had to choose between reading and knitting, and knitting has won out…I really need to drag out #6 again and get it finished so I can get through #7 before someone tells me how it ends!
Oh, the Places You’ll Go! by Dr. Seuss. This works for all ages! I often give it as a graduation gift 😉
my favorite was mrs piggle wiggle, i loved the magic!
it’s ook, my sockpalooooza socks aren’t done either. my pal told me i could mail hers late since she’s going to be gone during the mailing period, so i get an extra 2 weeks! woohoo
my favorite book? voyager, by diana gabaldon. however, there are two books before it, and it doesn’t work well if you don’t read the first two (outlander & dragonfly in amber). time travel historical (hysterical?) romance. good stuff!
The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper. I loved that book like crazy as a kid. Still do.
Lord of the Rings – I must have read them all 5 times. Can’t count how many times I’ve seen the movies. And the audio dramatization by BBC makes for excellent knitting accompaniment.
Oh I love the lonely doll! Our pediatrician has a copy and we read everytime we go in! (Which is alot when you have 4 little ones!) But my favorite book of all times is “The Giving Tree” by Shel Silverstein! I just love that book! My aunt gave me a copy when I was little and I still love it to this day!
Favorite childhood book — my namesake, “Ameliarann Stiggins and the Green Umbrella”. Loved Amelia Bedelia too — her independent direct streak definitely rubbed off on me. Favorite adult book? Hmmm that’s tougher. I love to escape; so anything Agatha Christie is great. I’d take Shakespeare’s Sonnets or The Complete Emily Dickinson along to a desert island too, though — I love short reads and poems are great for being short (and though-provoking).
My favorite book as a child was “Beautiful Joe”. It’s about a dog that is abused but finds a good family. It was one of my mother’s books and she recently gave it to me. I don’t know who the author is as it is still packed somewhere from the move.
Little Bunny Follows His Nose– it was a scratch and sniff book with a DILL PICKLE *and* a rose. and a mint cookie. and tons of other stuff, but those were obviously my favorites– I can still hear my Dad telling me to scratch it only once so I wouldn’t use up all the scent.