Friday five (or... Saturday)
Sun, Jul. 6th, 2003 12:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceter1. What were your favorite childhood stories?
Fairy tales and myths and legends. We had a few fairy tale collections that I would read over and over (and get rather creeped out by... as many weren't the Victorian bowlderized versions). And I would haunt the local library for as many different national myths as possible. One of my last memories of my old house in Colorado involves me sitting on the floor (all our furniture had been shipped) with a towering stack of books trying desperately to finish one on Egyptian mythology before I had to return it to the library. Never got to =(.
2. What books from your childhood would you like to share with [your] children?
I want to read Just So Stories aloud to them. I want to give them Roald Dahl (James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, The Witches, and especially the BFG, which was my favorite book for a while). I'd give them Frances Hodgson Burnett, Five Children and It, E.B. White, all the Anne books and probably all the other L.M. Montgomery books, the Narnia books, the Dark Is Rising series, Patricia C. Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles, all of Diana Wynne Jones, Harry Potter, Lloyd Alexander's Prydain series, Robin McKinley, Madelein L'Engle, the Oz series. I guess Harry Potter and Diana Wynne Jones don't really count as books from my childhood because I just recently discovered them. But I still want my kids to read them! If I have children, I want them to grow up to be readers.
3. Have you re-read any of those childhood stories and been surprised by anything?
Most of them I reread every two years or so. Hrm. I should pick up Roald Dahl again. Mostly I've been surprised by how much I still love them, even though I've read them all dozens of times. I was surprised a few years ago to learn Narnia was a religious allegory. I was surprised at how... plodding Wizard of Oz was, which greatly disappointed me. Sometimes I catch things that I didn't as a kid.
4. How old were you when you first learned to read?
I think sometime in kindergarden? That would make me, what, five?
5. Do you remember the first 'grown-up' book you read? How old were you?
It was Trumpet of the Swan. *smiles fondly* I can't remember how old I was... I think first or second grade.
Fairy tales and myths and legends. We had a few fairy tale collections that I would read over and over (and get rather creeped out by... as many weren't the Victorian bowlderized versions). And I would haunt the local library for as many different national myths as possible. One of my last memories of my old house in Colorado involves me sitting on the floor (all our furniture had been shipped) with a towering stack of books trying desperately to finish one on Egyptian mythology before I had to return it to the library. Never got to =(.
2. What books from your childhood would you like to share with [your] children?
I want to read Just So Stories aloud to them. I want to give them Roald Dahl (James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, The Witches, and especially the BFG, which was my favorite book for a while). I'd give them Frances Hodgson Burnett, Five Children and It, E.B. White, all the Anne books and probably all the other L.M. Montgomery books, the Narnia books, the Dark Is Rising series, Patricia C. Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles, all of Diana Wynne Jones, Harry Potter, Lloyd Alexander's Prydain series, Robin McKinley, Madelein L'Engle, the Oz series. I guess Harry Potter and Diana Wynne Jones don't really count as books from my childhood because I just recently discovered them. But I still want my kids to read them! If I have children, I want them to grow up to be readers.
3. Have you re-read any of those childhood stories and been surprised by anything?
Most of them I reread every two years or so. Hrm. I should pick up Roald Dahl again. Mostly I've been surprised by how much I still love them, even though I've read them all dozens of times. I was surprised a few years ago to learn Narnia was a religious allegory. I was surprised at how... plodding Wizard of Oz was, which greatly disappointed me. Sometimes I catch things that I didn't as a kid.
4. How old were you when you first learned to read?
I think sometime in kindergarden? That would make me, what, five?
5. Do you remember the first 'grown-up' book you read? How old were you?
It was Trumpet of the Swan. *smiles fondly* I can't remember how old I was... I think first or second grade.
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Sun, Jul. 6th, 2003 08:49 am (UTC)Young Adult SF/Fantasy "what I read - past tense" : Comics and more fairy tales... and Lloyd Alexander, Paul Anderson, Nancy Bond, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Emma Bull, Joy Chance, Susan Cooper, Chas deLint, Pamela Dean, Esther Freisner, Alan Garner, Diana Wynne Jones, Madeleine L'Engle, Ellen Kushner, Keith Laumer, CS Lewis, George McDonald, Patricia McKillip, Robin McKinley, Garth Nix, Andre Norton, Meredith Ann Pierce, Tamora Pierce, Nancy Springer, Tolkien, Patricia Wrede, Jane Yolen, Zelazny... I know I'm forgetting a bunch!
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Mon, Jul. 7th, 2003 07:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
Tue, Jul. 8th, 2003 05:38 am (UTC)BTW, Emma Bull has written some great stuff: Finder and War for the Oaks is my favorite although Bone Dance and Falcon are good as well. They re-released War for the Oaks in a nice trade paper edition and you can generally find Falcon in a used store. Bone Dance is OOP and hard to find anywhere other than online.
She also wrote a book with Steven Brust called Freedom and Necessity, which is an epistolary novel mixing X-Files-ish vibes, magic and murder.
If you like urban fantasy, you can check out the Bordertown series edited by Terri Windling. Essential Bordertown is the book that's easiest to find.
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Tue, Jul. 8th, 2003 06:05 am (UTC)War for the Oaks! I love that book! I read her Finder as well, but I was a bit confused because I didn't quite understand the Bordertown concept. I really must dig up that series sometimes. And I've been referred to Brust by some other people too, so I also need to hunt that up.
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Tue, Jul. 8th, 2003 07:21 am (UTC)There is a site called Half.com where people sell books, et cetera. You can get some good deals and they divide the condition of the book into categories (Like New, Very Good, Acceptable...and so on).
Brust has a whole running series as does another rec, Lois McMaster Bujold. She has a current series spanning several books about a character named Miles Vorkosigian. It's more sci-fi, but Bujold has a very good sense of humor and it shows in her characters.
Her other series has just started (one book to date and the second coming out soon). It's called Curse of Chalion and is more fantasy oriented. I really loved the main character, Cazaril, and Bujold takes care to give not just him but the rest of the characters depths and motivations that help you see why they make the choices they do.
Anyone recommended Robin Hobb to you yet?
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Tue, Jul. 8th, 2003 08:13 am (UTC)Thanks for the recs! I've been reading Robin Hobb since she started the Assassin series... now waiting for Golden Fool to come out in paperback so I can buy it. Either that, or wait until I can snatch it from the library. I enjoy her a lot, although some of my friends find her incredibly depressing. I don't as much -- compared to George R. R. Martin's Song of Fire and Ice, she's really quite happy, scarily enough!
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Tue, Jul. 8th, 2003 08:31 am (UTC)I love Robin Hobb. Just finished Golden Fool in hardback (I have no impulse control - but I do know where to find cheap Advance Reader Copies of it:). It was wonderful. The relationship between Fitz and The Fool comes even more into focus and there are two points in the book where my heart just broke.
I haven't tried the Chrestomanci books. I've heard different thoughts on them - some people thought they were great while others thought they were unfinished. What did you think?
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Tue, Jul. 8th, 2003 09:00 am (UTC)I've been highly enjoying the first two (Charmed Life and Lives of Christopher Chant)... I can't really say anything on how finished they feel, since I have to read the next two, but I really enjoy her children, especially Christopher. And the Goddess. I also love the world so far and the idea of Chrestomanci.
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Tue, Jul. 8th, 2003 09:10 am (UTC)**(Some early editions had the chapter "Explosions" instead of the chapter called "Fathers").
And, oh, The Fool. Oh man...
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Tue, Jul. 8th, 2003 09:23 am (UTC)Guh, I love how Hobb's been weaving the story of the Fool and the mythology of the White Prophet and the Catalyst into all her books so far!
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Tue, Jul. 8th, 2003 09:28 am (UTC)(no subject)
Tue, Jul. 8th, 2003 09:56 am (UTC)(no subject)
Tue, Jul. 8th, 2003 10:01 am (UTC)Try emailing me at thewildmole1@excite.com (that's the numeral "one" and not an "el").
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Tue, Jul. 8th, 2003 10:28 am (UTC)(no subject)
Wed, Jul. 9th, 2003 06:46 am (UTC)oh no
Wed, Jul. 9th, 2003 05:20 pm (UTC)Re: oh no
Wed, Jul. 9th, 2003 08:43 pm (UTC)