What book had the most influence on you as a child

[Demonaut]

Mine was "Watership Down"

[Nikia]

1. The Lorax

I think that is why I always have been a Liberal, at least in some ways, since I've been a child. I still cry if I read it or see the cartoon movie.

[yella_dawg]

2. "Black Like Me"

I read it again a few years ago and decided it was pretty shaky, but as a kid, I thought it was profound.

[papau]

3. Call of the Wild - Chapter 4 - Love of Man

I do not quite understand why some folks want to go through life without a dog.

[Southsideirish]

4. "Catcher in the Rye" - 'found out I wasn't alone in my thoughts. (n/t)

[Disandra]

5. "Strange In A Strange Land"

Read it when I was 15 and have never been the same since. A couple of other favs:

"Brave New World"
"1984" (Highly suggest, especially in these times)
"Time Enough For Love"

[Disandra]

7. "Stranger" not "Strange" oops. n/t

[rbnyc]

6. Child? Like 9-14ish or younger?

The big ones for me were I am Legend, Fahrenheit 451, A Wrinkle in Time, and Breakfast of Champions.

[flama]

19. You were old before your time

Now I hope the timelords play catch-up and let you remain forever young.

Ma

:loveya:

[flama]

23. You were always a precocious child

Breakfast of Champions? I still draw pictures of I am a chicken and you are an *. ;-)

:loveya:

Ma

[Khephra]

8. It would be a tie between

The Illuminatus Trilogy and The Book of the Law.

Yep, I was one of those kids sitting off in the dark, shadowed areas of the library with the rest of the Goths.

(I discovered both when I was 14-16)

[Khephra]

9. For the years before that

I'd say:

(And I'm cheating here)

Lovecraft and Stephen King short stories

[solinvictus]

14. "Every Man and Woman is a Star!"

[Khephra]

17. Love is the Law. Love Under Will.

:evilgrin:

[solinvictus]

10. Dracula

When I was 9, my mom wouldn't take me to see the Frank Langella movie, so she bought me the book. Needless to say, the combination of sex, blood, and death made an impression on my 9 year old mind.

[starroute]

11. Lord of the Rings

I spent several years of my life in Middle-earth that would otherwise have been far more unendurable. And I've never stopped looking in our world for the qualities that made that world so special.

On a more political level, Upton Sinclair's series of Lanny Budd books, which drag his hero through every notable political event between about 1913 and 1945, probably did most to develop my sense of 20th century history and where the roots of today's problems lie. (Lanny Budd was, as I recall, the illegitimate son of an artistic left-leaning mother and a Connecticut arms merchant father, and the books explored both sides of this heritage in excruciating detail.)

[ldoolin]

13. Lanny Budd

I'm just getting around that discovering that series now.

Those books have been criminally out of print for years, and just recently came back into print (too bad they're $29 each...I'm snatching them up used as I run across them.)

[ldoolin]

12. The Mad Scientists Club

by Bertrand Brinley. Loved that book as a kid; I never got around to building a giant sea monster to put on the lake (and selling hot dogs and soda to the spectators!), but wanted to...

Best described as a cross between "Encyclopedia Brown" and "The Monkey Wrench Gang". Should be required reading for kids today so they know what those kids with the "hacker" personality did in the era before personal computers.

Also:
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Roald Dahl)
A Wrinkle In Time (Madeline L'Engle)
The Hobbit - but of coursse...

[ldoolin]

16. The above...

The above is for age 7 thru 14 or so.

For the teenage years, I'd have to say that George Orwell's 1984 was the most influential. Reading that book was probably where my liberal beliefs started to take shape.

[wingnut]

36. Yeah!

I always wanted my own surplus midget sub and an underwater cave to keep it in.

[MrSlayer]

15. The Satanic Bible

Confirmed a lot of things for me that I had already suspected.

[HuckleB]

18. "Tales of the Alhambra" by Washington Irving

After that, I couldn't stop reading. It really got the juices flowing.

[thebigidea]

20. "The Illuminatus! Trilogy" at 12 or so, yeah - that did it.

[flama]

21. Watership Down wasn't even a flicker in the author's eye

when I started being read to and reading.

I must thank Christopher Robin Milne's father for Winnie the Pooh and his antics. Those books helped teach me how to read.

No matter what I read after learning how to read (be it Whitman, Gilbert & Sullivan, Steinbeck, or S. I. Hayakawa), Winnie the Pooh will be my hero because he showed me the way. BTW, those other writers mentioned were all read by the time I was 8. Great job, Winnie!

[Insider]

22. soledad brother

free george jackson
angela afro was born

[ScreamingMeemie]

24. Way of the Peaceful Warrior...

...and my daughter says it's boring...Waaaaaaaaahhhhh!! :cry:

[ZenLefty]

25. The Shining

Creeped me out for life. :scared:

[Pobeka]

26. Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" trilogy

[Red State Rebel]

27. As a Child - Caddie Woodlawn

[Lostmessage]

28. Charlotte's Web

But it was so sad that I ended up crying every time I read it.

[CanuckAmok]

29. Crime and Punishment--mom used to beat me with a hardcover copy of it.

Kidding.

The House at Pooh Corner.

[Mikimouse]

30. "Two Little Savages" by Ernest Thompson Seton

n/t

[tigereye]

31. A Wrinkle In Time by Madeline L'Engle

[populistmom]

32. That, and the first two sequels

A Wind in the Door &
A Swiftly Tilting Planet

[Terran]

33. Me too

Made me a sf fan for life!

[absyntheNsugar]

34. Leo The Lop and Ferdinand the Bull

What's normal?

[LWolf]

35. My side of the mountain.

The Hobbit/Lord of the Rings

The Black Stallion

Gone Away Lake

[Loonman]

37. The White Mountains by John Christopher

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0020427115/103-5772229-5243863?v=glance

[FunBobbyMucha]

38. Harold and His Purple Crayon.

Made me imagine, made me draw.

Johnny Bingo was a great book about getting along with other races--a white and a black kid are kidnapped and they have to work together to survive. Read it in the early Seventies, when bussing, etc was stirring up a lot of fear and hate.

I read The Giver three years ago at 36 and it still chills me. I will definitely be available to my son to process that one when the time comes.

[Jen72]

39. Anne Of Green Gables...

She had a big imagination and a dream world, just like me.

Also The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrode, Enid Blyton school stories
(Malory Towers and St Clare's), Charlotte's Web and Jane Eyre

[Jeff in Cincinnati]

40. Instant Replay...

Been a Packers fan ever since.

On the other end of the spectrum, I read most of Kurt Vonnegut's early works by the time I was in eighth grade and have been no damned good for much of anything ever since.

[Draven]

41. Curious George goes to the Hospital.

:D

[kskiska]

42. Struwwelpeter

By Heinrich Hoffmann



See Slovenly Peter! Here he stands,
With his dirty hair and hands.
See! his nails are never cut;
They are grim'd as black as soot;
No water for many weeks,
Has been near his cheeks;
And the sloven, I declare,
Not once this year has combed his hair!
Anything to me is sweeter
Than to see shock-headed Peter.

http://www.fln.vcu.edu/struwwel/struwwel.html

[Coventina]

43. Chronicles of Narnia

I also liked the Wizard of Oz books and was a big fan of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents the Three Investigators".

As a very small child, I really enjoyed the Richard Scarry books.

[chiburb]

44. Dick and Jane... n/t

.

[Selwynn]

45. Young child: The Little Prince. Older Youth: Demian, by Hesse

PS - both books still profoundly influence me today, and the little prince is the book I would want if I was stranded on a desert island and could only have one. :)

[patdem]

46. I read Nancy Drew books like they were bibles. (I loved the Hardy Boys)

but before that I guess Treasure Island captured my imagination. I was an avid reader and not a social as I should have been..but paper dolls helped in the social arena.

[bif]

47. The Giving Tree & Catcher in the Rye

The first when I was a kid, the second when I was a teen. I still puddled up when I read The Giving Tree to my daughter a few years ago.

[Tesha]

48. Collected Works of Poe - with beautiful, entrancing engravings

Turned reading from school work into journey's of imagination - from there I read everything I could get my hands on!