Books that moved you as a child

[Sprocket.]

The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

 

[madamv]

My mum has the snow goose on lp. We used to love listening it as a family.

A day in the life I read as an adult. Amazing book.

 

[Sprocket.]

My mum has the snow goose on lp. We used to love listening it as a family.









A day in the life I read as an adult. Amazing book.

Read both in English at secondary school about twelve years old for the Snow Goose and a year later for One day in the life. . . Never forgotten either.

 

[2hats]

it involved the goings-on inside a sofa - where all the loose change and fluffy sweets have fallen - being chased around the springs by a pair of scissors will never leave my subconscious

Does this ring a bell by any chance..?

 

[BCBlues]

John Wyndham's Tripods series which I read before the tv series was on so must have been about 9. Was the first science fiction I'd read.

You're probably confusing it with Day of The Triffids which was by John Wyndham??

Didn't get into that book so much as one of his other works The Chrysalids. I read this when I was about ten and some 45 years later I get the same imagery in my mind when I think about it.

 

[maomao]

You're probably confusing it with Day of The Triffids which was by John Wyndham??

No, I just got the author wrong, the books that I got very into as a kid were the Tripods. I read everything I could find by both authors though.

 

[wayward bob]

Does this ring a bell by any chance..?

omfg take it away

 

[wayward bob]

I find myself frustrated by wayward bob 's mention of 'A rag, a bone, a hank of hair', which I was very taken by when I read it aged about 9, but I also remember not understanding the end, and I can see loads of references to the 'twist' online, but unsurprisingly nothing explaining what the twist is. So if anyone remembers, please do a spoiler post, as it's driving me nuts now!

if i could properly remember it i would

 

[not-bono-ever]

Wyndhams " the chrysalids" - fuckin hell- very powerful

 

[marty21]

Read this several times as a kid , loved it .

 

[buscador]

About a dog forced to wear a hideous floral jumper. It inspired me to throw up all over myself when I'd been forced to wear a hideous floral dress to a party. The plan worked: my mum came to fetch me home; I never had to wear that dress again.

I've still got the book somewhere, along with my treasured Herbs, Magic Roundabout and Hector's House annuals.

 

[May Kasahara]

Excellent work I loved the Harry books as a child and now regularly read No Roses For Harry to my own spawn.

 

[Sweet FA]

Great nostalgic thread

A couple of my favourite authors have been mentioned:

Robert Westall, though my favourite was definitely The Devil On The Road - it involved ghosts and loving descriptions of motorbikes, what more could a 9 year old want? Also the Weirdstone of Brisingamen (and how do you pronounce that? I always read it as Brizzinguhmen (stress on 2nd syllable) my wife had it read to her as Brysingarmen (stress on 3rd syllable). Also Tripods and Stig of the Dump.

The ones that I loved most and read and reread from about 9 or 10 onwards were all by SE Hinton. Her books had it all; gangs, rich vs poor, shit/absent parents, motorbikes, fighting, kissing and romance but no shagging, love, friendship...gah, the emotional turmoil of it all

Another one I read over and over was The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier. So savage; from the opening violent football match to the torture of a fixed boxing fight towards the end. I think it was the brutality of the themes that got me - school is a war zone filled with bullies, hidden traps, teachers that can't/won't protect you, rules that you don't understand and friends that can only watch as you get fucked over.

Cheers OU, just had some emotional moments looking for the editions that I read as a child - the covers have a weird resonance.

 

[Orang Utan]

I only read The Outsiders last year. It's a wonderful book. I read it at a festival while everyone around me was gurning.

 

[kittyP]

I haven't read the whole thread properly but I will try and think of some that have not been mentioned.

This book had a massive effect on me as a kid.
It is actually quite scary when you are at it's target audiences age.
It manages to have a sense of loneliness and bleakness up against a sense of love and homecoming.

I think, even though they are very very different books, the reasons I liked it and it effected me so much are kind similar to the reasons above for The Children of Green Knowe.

 

[kittyP]

The Christian element of the Narnia series completely passed me by. I still don't get it really.

Yeah it did me too and I hate it when people spout it as a reasons that kids shouldn't read them.
It's not like they are suddenly going to turn in to religious extremists by reading it is it?

 

[kittyP]

Depite the fact I am a Grownup, I can't cope with Goodbye Mog. I cried seeing it in the fucking library.

Oh goodness noooo!! *bursts in to tears*

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

ooh the Children of Green Knowe I remember that creeping me out when I was a kid, can't remember why though

 

[killer b]

try also: Turbulent Term of Tyke Tyler. Almost a social realist kitchen sink kids book looking back on it.

I'm reading this to my kids at the moment. It's brilliant.

 

[May Kasahara]

Another one I read over and over was The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier. So savage; from the opening violent football match to the torture of a fixed boxing fight towards the end. I think it was the brutality of the themes that got me - school is a war zone filled with bullies, hidden traps, teachers that can't/won't protect you, rules that you don't understand and friends that can only watch as you get fucked over.

Totally agree with this, a refreshingly bleak book.

 

[Orang Utan]

If you want bleak, the recent winner of the Carnegie Medal (sort of Booker prize for kids) was Kevin Brooks' The Bunker Diary. It would be grim reading even if it was for adults.
I've actually found that many kids can handle that stuff better than adults cos they don't understand the gravity of certain situations as well as some of us adults.

 

[Saratoga]

Goodnight Mister Tom

It was a book that was reccomended about wartime britain. I had read a few others at the time and it was going OK until we reached the stage about the lads return to London, his mother and Trudy.

At the time I had my own stresses and used the book as my own escape and finding that in the book was really moving for me. Not many books could reduce me to tears at the time, but there you go.

I got it in a school reading assignment and excelled a bit much with the 'report' on it and after that started reading things like Clive Cussler books as well crime stuff.... But I'll never forget GMT.

 

[Geri]

My mum has the snow goose on lp. We used to love listening it as a family.

I have it as well, my English teacher played it to us in junior school.

I managed to convert it to MP3 and it's on my ipod now. Listening to it always makes me cry.

 

[madamv]

My mum too

 

[mentalchik]

Loads of folk tales and mythology but the biggies were,

1974 when i was eleven (these ^ are actually the same as mine which are woefully much loved and re-read hence a bit battered but let off for being 40 years old)

and,

1978 when i was 15.............still my all time favourite although i had been hoovering up Moorcock, Azimov and others since i was around 12 thanks to my then ex stepfather



(sorry dotty, the box the set came in has long since disintegrated and there is some sellotape on Dune, much loved)

 

[quimcunx]

Black Beauty moved me to feel miserable for him.

 

[DotCommunist]

Loads of folk tales and mythology but the biggies were,

1974 when i was eleven (these ^ are actually the same as mine which are woefully much loved and re-read hence a bit battered but let off for being 40 years old)

and,

1978 when i was 15.............still my all time favourite although i had been hoovering up Moorcock, Azimov and others since i was around 12 thanks to my then ex stepfather



(sorry dotty, the box the set came in has long since disintegrated and there is some sellotape on Dune, much loved)

grounds for divorce m8!

 

[mentalchik]

listen what do you think you'll look like when you're 36 ?

 

[doddles]

Well, as a boy yearning to fly, Reach for the Sky. Douglas Bader's story.

 

[Idris2002]

Orang Utan the above is a reason why the stone table/cross metaphor is so blatant. The various torments and ridicule handed out to JC in the proccess of his crucifixion are mirrored by the suffering of aslan.

CS Lewis was a vile misogynist cunt mind. I've got one of his short sci fi pieces that is just disgusting. The rocket men have made a base on the moon. In order to sate thier manly needs Earth sends them an old madame and an ascetic duty type idealouge woman. So disgusted are the men that they climb into a rocket and fuck off back home.

I mean really

One of the Narnia books (Silver Chair, I think) has a witch blatantly based on some Oxbridge materialist atheist lady philosopher who wiped the floor with him in a public debate.

You damned fool, Lewis.