Required Reading-and a tag for bloggers :)

I'm a big reader...always have been and probably always will be. Aside from little kids books (Dr. Seuss, etc...) the first books I remember getting really into were The Babysitters Club series....and I mean waaaaay into them. I have memories of going to the mall with my grandparents and being allowed to pick out anything that I wanted...could have been clothes, a toy, a new cassette tape of New Kids on the Block, whatever...but if there was a new BSC book on the shelves, it was coming home with me that day. (for the record, Stacy was my favorite) Also, if you're ever super bored & want to borrow any of my BSC stuff (board game, videos, movie, etc...) you just let me know :)

Does anyone remember the Ramona Quimby series by Beverly Cleary? I was also a huge Judy Blume fan (and later went on to read some of her adult books as well).

Soon enough, I moved into Sweet Valley Twins and Sweet Valley High (who didn't want to be the Wakefield twins??)

Then came high school...and the required reading lists of books. Sure, we had to read some stuff in middle school, but I don't remember it being quite as much as high school. There were times that I resented having to read some of the stuff....like I said, I liked to read, so the required reading sometimes interfered with my personal reading choices! But in hindsight, I am happy and grateful to have read so many books in school. There were some that I didn't care for (The Good Earth) and others that I have read over again as an adult and still love (To Kill a Mockingbird).

I've heard a lot of people say that you don't get anything out of high school english class, it was a waste of time, they learned nothing, etc....but I disagree. If anything, I think it helped to continue my love affair with books and introduced me to some that I would have never picked up on my own, but ended up loving after having to read them for class.

All of that being said, fellow bloggers should consider yourself tagged...I want to see a post with your favorite books of the past! Childhood, tweens, required reading....whatever you want to include.

I listed some of my favorites above already, but other faves include (in approximate chronological order and I'm stopping at the end of HS):

-Sideway Stories from Wayside School

-Harriet The Spy

-Nancy Drew series

-Trixie Belden series

-The Secret Garden

-The Pigman

-Flowers for Algernon

-The Diary of Anne Frank

-Romeo and Juliet (if anyone from my HS is reading this, do you remember having to act this out in Mr. Perry's 9th grade english class???)

-Their Eyes Were Watching God

-Wuthering Heights

-Catcher in the Rye

-To Kill a Mockingbird

-Oedipus Rex

That's all I can think of off the top of my head and I'm sure I'm forgetting some good ones...so be sure to include them in your list :)