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January 6, 2020<\/strong><\/p>\n What is your favorite childhood book?<\/strong><\/p>\n Define “childhood.” Or let’s not. Let’s just say that I’ll talk about books I enjoyed after the age of ten. And I couldn’t tell you how far above ten for most of them!<\/p>\n We always had books in the house growing up. Old books passed on from other family members seemed to gravitate to us. There were more books than my mom could keep on her bookshelves in the living room, so they ended up in the attic. And I loved digging through the boxes, looking for old favorites and new discoveries.<\/p>\n That’s where I found my first favorites. The Bobbsey Twins, The Hardy Boys, and Nancy Drew. Out of the three series, The Hardy Boys were my initial favorite, but we didn’t have many of the books. It didn’t take long to gravitate to Nancy Drew, as other friends were reading the series and we traded books. Plus, it was easy to ask for another of the books for birthday and Christmas presents. I kept those books until I went away to college and passed them on to another fan.<\/p>\n (FYI-I have that copy of Ivanhoe on my bookshelf. It’s in sad condition, with torn and yellowed pages, but it’s still readable. It was originally owned by a school library,\u00a0 and is the Academy Classics for Junior High Schools edition, dated 1926.)<\/p>\n By the way, I suggest being careful if you go back and read some of your old favorites. They don’t always hold up to an adult perspective. The casual racism in the older versions of the Nancy Drew books can be annoying. And Ivanhoe? I need to remind myself that it’s historical and has to be read from that perspective.<\/p>\n It’s easy to see how those early favorites have influenced my writing. And why I struggle with using the British version of English over the American version. (Grey vs. gray, snuck vs. sneaked, labor vs. labour … you get the idea. That along with going through a phase of reading Barbara Cartland as an adult.)<\/p>\n I’m going to make a rash assumption that many of these books won’t appear on anyone else’s list. (Except for Nancy Drew.) So let’s follow the links below and find out!<\/p>\n January 6, 2020<\/p>\n What is your favorite childhood book?<\/p>\n Rules:1. Link your blog to this hop.<\/p>\n 2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.<\/p>\n 3. Promise to visit\/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.<\/p>\n 4. Tweet\/or share each person’s blog post. Use #<\/span>OpenBook<\/span><\/span><\/a> when tweeting.<\/p>\n 5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \r\n\r\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pjmaclayne.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/old-books-436498_1920-300x200.jpg?resize=300%2C200\")
My hunger for reading soon led me to more mature books. Ivanhoe. Rebecca. Frenchman’s Creek. The Scarlet Pimpernel. Even then I preferred novels that featured more action than romance.<\/p>\n\n