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Favorite childhood books (question)

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Favorite childhood books (question)

Old 04-09-09, 12:07 PM
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Favorite childhood books (question)

I have a nephew that is turning 8. As an avid reader growing up. It brings me back to what I used to read. Makes me want to track some of them down now for old times sake. Some off the top of my head are

Danny Dunn series
Choose your own adventure series
The Great brain series
Indian in the cupboard
Henry Huggins (Beverly Clearly)
Tintin
Asterix
Osbourne spy books

There’s 2 series that I can’t for the life of me remember the title of.

One is about a boy who becames friends with this alien and just deal with everyday life on earth. One thing I do remember is that the alien would always eat dinner or food with a pill. A pill could be steak and potatoes and as soon as you swallow the pill it feels like you ate a steak and potato dinner.

The other is about a overweight boy named Ben (I think) and has a couple friends that deal with being a type of detective, sort of like the Danny Dunn series. I think a clock or something is involved. I know. Doesn’t make much sense.

If anyone can shed some light on those two series, it would make my day.
Old 04-09-09, 02:34 PM
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Re: Favorite childhood books (question)

Originally Posted by Rainet
The other is about a overweight boy named Ben (I think) and has a couple friends that deal with being a type of detective, sort of like the Danny Dunn series. I think a clock or something is involved. I know. Doesn’t make much sense.
The Three Investigators? I seem to remember one of them being referred to as being "stocky".
Old 04-09-09, 04:06 PM
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Re: Favorite childhood books (question)

I LOVED the Three Investigators when I was a kid. I've considered trying to find some of the original printings (back when it was Alfred Hitchcock and the Three investigators) to keep for my kids, and possibly re-read myself again
Old 04-21-09, 12:58 PM
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Re: Favorite childhood books (question)

THe Hobbit
Nancy Drew
Harry Potter
DragonLance and other D&D books (there are a million of them)
Star Wars novels
Old 04-21-09, 02:11 PM
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Re: Favorite childhood books (question)

Danger in the Everglades
Frumpet and Me
Emil and the Detectives
Old 04-21-09, 02:50 PM
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Re: Favorite childhood books (question)

Another vote for Alfred Hitchcock and The Three Investigators. I'd love to get a collection of these. I think they go for a bit of change on ebay since they deleted the Hitch references in later editions.

But I think the stocky character in that series is named Jupiter.

The alien series sounds like it could be the one I read where the alien helps two kids build a rocket to his home on the moon. He would always ask them to bring him back some air in a jar from the moon. I think the alien passed as a small frail human scientist with a larger than normal head.

Last edited by MBoyd; 04-21-09 at 02:54 PM.
Old 04-21-09, 06:00 PM
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Re: Favorite childhood books (question)

Definitely Three investigators. The one you're referring to is the Screaming Clock: http://product.half.ebay.com/Alfred-...foQQprZ4439176

and here's the complete list:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Investigators
Old 04-21-09, 07:12 PM
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Re: Favorite childhood books (question)

For some reason, I'm thinking of the Mushroom Planet series by Eleanor Cameron. I don't know why.

There was also a Roast Beef and Baked Potato gum in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Last edited by Nick Danger; 04-21-09 at 07:16 PM.
Old 04-21-09, 07:22 PM
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Re: Favorite childhood books (question)

Nick Danger! You are my hero!!!! I have racked my brain trying to think of that series for ages!!!! For some reason i thought it was the moon they went to that had an atmosphere, but I mis-remembered it. 1954 . . . wow these books were ancient when I read them in 79 or 80.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Won...ushroom_Planet
Old 04-21-09, 11:27 PM
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Re: Favorite childhood books (question)

I'll throw in Encyclopedia Brown
Old 04-22-09, 02:31 AM
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Re: Favorite childhood books (question)

Throw in someone else who was a fan of The Three Investigators when they were a kid! I also liked Encyclopedia Brown, and The Hardy Boys (the old school ones and the newer, at the time, Hardy Boys Casefiles). I remember reading them with my mom all the time before bed, and we always ended up staying up way to long, just to see what would happen next!
Old 04-22-09, 07:59 AM
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Re: Favorite childhood books (question)

Originally Posted by MBoyd
Nick Danger! You are my hero!!!! I have racked my brain trying to think of that series for ages!!!! For some reason i thought it was the moon they went to that had an atmosphere, but I mis-remembered it. 1954 . . . wow these books were ancient when I read them in 79 or 80.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Won...ushroom_Planet
Old 04-23-09, 09:29 AM
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Re: Favorite childhood books (question)

Maniac McGee
Boxcar Children
Bruce Coville books
Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing

Thanks OP... I feel old now.
Old 04-23-09, 01:31 PM
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Re: Favorite childhood books (question)

Originally Posted by Nick Danger
For some reason, I'm thinking of the Mushroom Planet series by Eleanor Cameron. I don't know why.

There was also a Roast Beef and Baked Potato gum in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
I got that book at a school book fair back around 1963/64 and my parents still have it.
Old 04-24-09, 03:53 PM
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Re: Favorite childhood books (question)

over the years, I have tracked down many childhood books from book sales and from ebay. This allowed me to complete my collections of:
Hardy Boys
Nancy Drew
Happy Hollisters
Three Investigators
Bobbsey Twins
Danny Dunn

I hope my kids will love these series just like I did. alot of great memories from these books. I was a real nerd and bought these books in the same formats I remember as a kid too
Old 04-24-09, 04:12 PM
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Re: Favorite childhood books (question)

Besides a lot of the ones mentioned already...

I remember some of my favorites when I was younger were the Brian Jacques fantasy novels. Redwall, Mossflower, Martin the Warrior, etc.

Gotta throw in Shel Silverstein too.
Old 04-24-09, 05:00 PM
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Re: Favorite childhood books (question)

Originally Posted by burnside986
Maniac McGee
Boxcar Children
Bruce Coville books
Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing

Thanks OP... I feel old now.
I liked Maniac McGee too, in fact I liked his other book, Space Station Seventh Grade even better.
Old 04-24-09, 05:03 PM
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Re: Favorite childhood books (question)

I'd love reading Goosebumps when I was young...thats the only main ones I would read..lol!
Old 04-24-09, 06:19 PM
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Re: Favorite childhood books (question)

Some of these are repeats, but the first is one of my favorites (and hasn't been mentioned!):

The Phantom Tollbooth
The Little House Series by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Hardy Boys Series
The Bobbsey Twins Series
The Three Investigators
Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet (thanks for the memory jog!)
The Mad Scientists Club
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Old 04-24-09, 07:50 PM
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Re: Favorite childhood books (question)

Originally Posted by fumanstan
I liked Maniac McGee too, in fact I liked his other book, Space Station Seventh Grade even better.
Never knew he did another one. Gonna have to check it out.
Old 05-01-09, 04:07 PM
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Re: Favorite childhood books (question)

I mostly read comics as a kid, but I remember reading a ton of Beverly Cleary books in the second or third grade. I loved Ramona Quimby, Age 8 and Ralph and the Motorcycle. I also remember buying 2-Minute Mysteries at a Scholastic book fair that I got into. (I wasn't particularly good at deducing what I was supposed to deduce, though, for some reason.)

In the late 80s I discovered baseball and I remember reading several different books about that subject. I read a biography of Johnny Bench in which I learned that he could hold five baseballs in one hand. There was a book about a young boy who was a fan of the St. Louis Cardinals who helped Stan "The Man" Musial out of a slump by noting that he couldn't see the famed slugger's jersey number on TV when he swung. Musial fixed his swing and came out of the slump.

There was also another kids book about a boy who played Little League, and my brother and I both enjoyed it. All I remember today is that the kid startles a fielder about to tag him out by shouting "Ooga booga!" and he ran or slid to safety.
Old 05-01-09, 04:17 PM
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Re: Favorite childhood books (question)

Phantom Tollbooth is great, I've already read that one with my boy, we'll revisit it when he's a bit older and will get more of the jokes/references.

Hardy Boys, of course.
Danny Dunn.
Alvin Fernald was another series I enjoyed.

I liked the Alfred Hitchcock collections, they had quite a variety of stories in them, and the school library had some great hardbound editions. I can only remember a couple stories--Obstinate Uncle Otis, another about a guy who created a magic weight loss potion, one about some 'dirty' good luck fairies.

I got the Mushroom Planet books from the library book sale a year or so back but haven't read them yet.

I think I liked the Which Way books better than Choose Your Own Adventure.
Old 05-03-09, 10:24 AM
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Re: Favorite childhood books (question)

Hatchet
Old 05-03-09, 11:42 AM
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Re: Favorite childhood books (question)

Originally Posted by mikehunt
Hatchet
Gesundheit!
Old 05-03-09, 03:25 PM
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Re: Favorite childhood books (question)

My favorite book then and now:

Watership Down by Richard Adams

Others:

The Paddington Bear series by Michael Bond
The original OZ books by L. Frank Baum - wonderful for kids of both sexes and all ages
Encylcopedia Brown
I second The Mouse and the Motorcycle, Runaway Ralph, and Ralph S. Mouse. I remember really enjoying those.
The Chronicles of Prydain series by Lloyd Alexander
Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little by E.B. White of course
All the Ramona Quimby and Henry Huggins books by Beverly Cleary
Another vote for The Hardy Boys.

Then I got more interested in the SF novels of Isaac Asimov, Arthur C Clarke, Frank Herbert around 10. Some of these I still read every now and then.

Michael

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