(no subject)

[oyceter]

Wow! So I was reading minnow1212 and melymbrosia's old book posts (I love the memories function), and I stumbled onto Mely's post on Ellen Raskin, which I clicked on because I just recently read Leon/Noel. And there's this little comment in there that says she wrote Figgs and Phantoms!!

That was the weirdest book I read as a kid, and I still remember the uncle's funny armbands and Mona and the pirate guy and the strange isle of Capri, which always reminded me of those drinks in foil packages. I can't believe Ellen Raskin wrote that! Wow! It was like being in the bookstore and discovering someone relatively famous wrote Half Magic, which was another one of those books I read as a kid (always associated it with Five Children and It, for some reason). But, wow! I'm going to have to dig up that book again to see if it's as weird as I remember.

In other news, a friend from work drew me from my picture with Fool-Rat here. I look like me! It's so funny! And my glasses are half slipping off my nose and I don't quite know where I should be looking.

Hee, I've always been fascinated with having my portrait done.

Comments

[angeyja.livejournal.com]

It was like being in the bookstore and discovering someone relatively famous wrote Half Magic, which was another one of those books I read as a kid (always associated it with Five Children and It, for some reason).

OMGosh.. now, I have this half memory of a book and there was something about.. darn the sleep soaked grey cells.. a boy an old house and for some odd reason shrubs trimmed in fantastic shapes?

What are the books that stick in your memory? My first was an old illustrated Cinderella, and then horse books and fairy talses, and then Tolkien, Cooper, Garner, Alexander, L'Engle and Lewis.. a little later Norton was a favorite although I also read Poul Anderson, Heinlein, and Zelazny. Many others but those come first to mind pre-coffee.

I'm sure I'm going to step away from the key board and have a million more but those were the first. fairy tales and horse books until about twelve, lots of fantasy until thirteen or fourteen and then SF too. Nancy Drew and Cherry the nurse were in there too when I was very young, around ten? because I remember them before moving to Cincinnati, which was '70 and 4th grade and right when the heavy reading started..reading as sustenance as oppsed to dessert.

[oyceter]

Huh, interesting! I don't think I know that one =(.

Books that stick in my memory -- geez. D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths is one of the main ones, and this series of books on myths and legends from around the world. That's from pre-Taiwan days. That and the Oz series, which are very vaguely remembered. And fairy tales, which I read voraciously... the more variations the better.

Lots of classics -- Little Women (although I liked Little Men better), A Little Princess and Secret Garden, though I liked Little Princess better because Sara read. Five Children and It. Half Magic. Peter Pan. Little House on the Prairie series.

I went on an LM Montgomery spree starting in sixth grade, and I still love those books, particularly Rilla of Ingleside. The Murray family L'Engle books. Tolkein, who was my first real introduction to the fantasy genre. I still remember how heartbroken I was when Gandalf died in Fellowship. Ender's Game, probably the first sci-fi book I ever read. Sixth grade was probably when I really started devouring books because I'd finally found something to focus on. Up till then, I had always known I was looking for something like the fairy tales I read, but I never quite knew that there was an entire genre sitting and waiting for me ^_^.

Sounds to me like Green Knowe

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

Lucy M Boston's The Children of Green Knowe. Fantastic book if chlidren's books about distressed gentlefolk don't give you political hives. The sequels have some nice moments as well.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Figgs and Phantoms, and yes it's just as weird and wonderful as you remember. And if you haven't, her others are equally weird and wonderful. Try The Mysterious Adventures of Leon (I Mean Noel).

[oyceter]

Oooo, yeah, that's the one I just read a few weeks ago ^_^. I loved it and its purple flowered couchness. I need to find the Tattooed Potato too...

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Your friend has an amazing sense of line. I'd treasure that picture forever.

[oyceter]

He's got his own website (www.davebydesign.com), quite neat!

[eileenlufkin.livejournal.com]

"Wow! It was like being in the bookstore and discovering someone relatively famous wrote Half Magic, which was another one of those books I read as a kid (always associated it with Five Children and It, for some reason)"

I can't tell if this is something you have already discovered, or would like to discover, but Edward Eager is wrote Half Magic. He's relatively famous for a children's book writer. He always mentions one of the magic books by E Nesbit in his magic books, because she wrote the kind of books he was trying to write. I don't remember if he references one of her non-magical books like The Treasure Seekers in Magic or Not.

[oyceter]

I just did find that out last week, but thank you ^_^.

It's always so strange finding out that books that I thought were obscure are actually fairly well known.