Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Books I Have Loved (or When Real was the Deal)

Tip of the Day: Is Amazon taking over the publishing world? They've aquired the children's trade list at Marshall Cavendish. http://bit.ly/vDkYC8


I was thinking about all the books that I loved loved loved when I was a kid reading novels in the children's section of the library.

My aunt bought me this Judy Blume novel and I became hooked on everything she'd written.

Bruce Coville provided me with ghost mysteries! So did Betty Wren Wright. I remember being seriously creeped out when the dolls acted out the murder!










This series by Candace Ransom was handed down to me by a friend in fifth grade and I remember wishing the books went for longer than ages 12-15.

This pink cover of Barthe DeClements has stuck in my head over the years. Gotta love girls doing makeup!


Barbara Park, in her pre-Junie B. days, was my hero. Her books were HILARIOUS. SKINNYBONES and OPERATION: DUMP THE CHUMP are other fab reads that I still recommend to kids today when they ask for humor.





As you can see, with little exception they fell into two categories: realistic contemporary fiction, or realistic contemporary ghost stories.


I know the advent of Harry Potter in 1997 changed the bookshelves in the children's areas at libraries across the country, but in the late 1980s-early 1990s, were there many historical ghost stories/fantasies/sci-fi books for kids?


What did you love reading in the rockin' '80s?


Deena, Miss Subbing for Pubbing

2 comments:

Kristina Springer said...

I read these same books! Wow, we didn't have much choice back then huh?

Kate Fall said...

I loved problem books: Deenie, Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack, Go Ask Alice. Girls whose parents were forcing them into cults, that sort of thing. I was also the kind of nerd who loved every book my teachers assigned, up until A Separate Peace in high school.