Top 10 Tuesday: Childhood Favorites

7:47 AM


I'm posting one day in advance of my regular schedule in order to participate on the weekly meme Top Ten Tuesday hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week's topic is "freebie" so I chose childhood favorites.

As a matter of fact, I still own all of the books in the list so that means they are still interesting for adults. Here are my top 10 childhood (and current!) favorites:

Robin Hood by Louis Rhead: I can't remember how many times I've read this. I took out my old copy to see if I found any interesting notes on the margins, but I could only find passages underlined. Almost all of them are character descriptions. Maybe I had a bad memory as a child.

Alice's adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll: I was a bit of an escapist as a child, so Alice's entrance in a misterious, scary and crazy world was right up little Paula's alley. The caterpillar was one of my favorite characters.


InkHeart by Cornelia Funke: the first book of this trilogy was released in 2003, so you can guess I discovered it as an adult. But I'm not ashamed of it. I mean, there's a book binder who can bring characters to life when he reads a book out loud, there's a story within a story, an incredibly smart villain and the movie adaptation has Brendan Fraser in it - how could I not like that? How could anyone not like that?

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: A must read. So many magic lines!


Marcovaldo or the seasons in the city by Italo Calvino: I had to read two of Italo Calvino's books for school, but they aren't exactly children's books. Somehow I've never read any books by this Italian author as an adult so his books are stuck as a part of my childhood.

Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Waterson: I know these are comic strips and not a book per se, but boy was I crazy about Calvin. I used to cut the comic strips out of the Sunday newspaper and collect them. I thought I was really similar to Calvin which means I must have given my parents a lot of trouble.


Tistou of the green thumbs by Maurice Druon:  Many people compare this book with The Little Prince and I agree that both are very poetical and delicate. It tells the story of a sensitive boy who could grow plants just by touching the ground with his finger. He will go on to try to help others live a more beautiful life.

The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter: I won't lie - I discovered Beatrix Potter's works as an adult through Renée Zellweger's movie. I became enchanted by her life, her books, her sweet characters and drawings.

The Yellow Bag by Lygia Bojunga: Unfortunately not even the Spanish translation of this book is available at Amazon. I hate recommending books people can get at, but I had to include at least one Brazilian book here! This book tells the story of Raquel, a girl who puts her unfulfilled wishes into a yellow bag: her desire of being born a boy, of being an adult and a writer. One day the novel she wrote becomes true and one of the characters of her story - a rooster  - appears inside her bag. This book reflects so much of my childhood:   I also had this bag where I kept a souvenir from each family member.

The Paul Street Boys by Ferenc Molnar: I read this book when I was in 6th grade and everybody in my class was crazy about the story. It's about a bunch of boys who need to defend their playground from another group of boys who want to take it from them. 

It was a great experience remembering all these amazing stories while I wrote this post. I'd love to hear what your childhood favorites are!

Images via 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.  

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14 comments

  1. What a fun post! We don't share many favorites, but it was fun to read about yours! I might share my own too!

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    1. I'm glad you enjoyed it! I love writing and reading lists! I hope you do one too. Today's topic is free so you can choose whatever you want - they have some pretty cool ones ;)

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  2. I'm crazy about children's books. I'm in an online group that is trying to read all 1001 Children's Books You Must Read. Most (all?) of these are on that list.

    Here's my
    Top Ten Books on Happiness.
    It would make me so happy if you stop by!

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    1. I also adore children's books. I can't believe the books from the list are on your must read children's books! I'm sure you'll enjoy most of them.

      I'll definitely stop by later to check your list. I'm a bit of a melancholic person so I'm always on the look out for happy books! xx, Paula

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  3. Wow, I just adore the pictures! When I was a child I didn't read that many books, to be honest. The few that I have probably aren't even being published anymore. v_v' So this post is really great to read for me. :D

    Patricia // My Post

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    1. Too bad you can't find the books you used to read. I imagine how exciting it would be to suddenly find one in a used book store!

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  4. It was a bit difficult to choose from all of the great topics they had, but this was the one that attracted me instantly!

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  5. Great list! :) And your blog is beautiful!

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  6. Thanks, I'm glad you liked it ;)

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  7. Hi Paula! Lovely blog and list! Beatrix Potter was basically my childhood. Also, love(d) the Chronicles of Narnia. Yes, gotta love Calvin! :)

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  8. Hi Nicole, thanks for the visit! Oh, I like Narnia so much, I wish I had discovered it sooner. Have a great weekend ;)

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  9. "Paul Street Boys"!
    I never knew it's english title but I had a feeling this is it and Your description matched correctly. Yeah... one boy who accepts to be a private and everyone else being general! Kind of the story of my life actually ;)
    We had it in school, called "Chlopcy z placu broni" in polish, very touching...
    It's so fantastic You also had in Brazil! Never knew it is so popular!

    Speaking about the others, I have to admit I can't really make such a list... I had a certain number of children books, or illustrated books, but none of them stuck in my memory that much... The only book I associate with childhood is Robinson Crusoe and a couple of less known titles :)
    I guess it was all bout Disney & stuff with me...

    Well I can surely write "Paul Street Boys" in now :) Big thanx for reminding me about this title again! Gonna have to read that :)

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  10. I'm so glad you read Paul Street Boys too! It's an incredible book, isn't it? Though it's not that popular in Brazil, my school was probably the only one that had it as mandatory reading.

    I guess it was somewhat easy to make the list because I still like children's books and never stopped reading them. If I had stopped reading them as a teenager, I'd probably wouldn't remember them that easily today.

    How nice you associate Robinson Crusoe with your childhood. I associate it with my "Readings of the Canon" class in college - much less nostalgic!

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  11. Naah.. Then You've got to read RC again... common! ;)
    Let's make a deal... I'm gonna read every position from Your list and You gonna go trough RC again ;)

    And it's funny but I do have to say that although I don't have such a list I do have a lot of children books, most are my own from my childhood ( mainy huge editions of fairytales, legends and greek mythology ) and some that I bought recently, bacause these just looked to cool to pass... Maybe I am planning little bit to early, or I am too nostalgic, but I collect them dreaming to read them to my children... when I'll have them some day ;)
    It's rather strange right? People usually have kids first and then buy books ;)

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