Memories, like the corners of my mind: Books

In this installment of Memories, like the corners of my mind, I will discuss my favorite books when I was younger. (Btw, I picked the title out from the main song (sung by Barbara Streisand) in the movie The Way We Were. If you haven’t seen this movie, you should do so immediately.)

1. Babysitters Club series. My all time favorite book series while growing up was The Baby Sitters Club. As a young girl, I looked up to Dawn, Stacey, Claudia, Mary Anne, and, of course, Kristy. I was sad when Dawn decided to leave them for California, and I was pissed when Stacey left the club for new friends. I never really like Mallory or Jesse; I just didn’t find them important. And I hated Abby; she was the most annoying baby sitter ever! I hated her because of her bad attitude towards Kristy. If I were a charge, I would want to have Dawn, Stacey, or Claudia because they get me.

2. Nancy Drew series. I never could figure out Nancy’s age and if she ever went to school. In many of her adventures, she would be undercover as a high school or college student, but didn’t she actually go to school? Also, she was chloroformed so many times, how could she not have any brain damage? I’m pretty sure her (female) friend, George was gay, especially because she was pretty much described as a man, and I felt bad for George’s cousin, Bess because she had a weight problem. And every word out of Bess’ mouth had to do with food and how she didn’t want to be pudgy. The poor girl had an eating disorder.

3. Goosebumps series. What kid doesn’t love Goosebumps? They were the most frightening stories about haunted houses, abandoned places, and dummies. Yes, the ventriloquist dummies story, The Night of the Living Dummy, scared me senseless. I still have fears because of these books and they lead me to paranoia. Good job R.L Stein, whole generations of children have phobias because of you.

4. Anastasia series. I believe, and I always will, that Anastasia was the poor man’s Ramona. Nonetheless, I do love Anastasia and the wacky adventures she went through. I remember in one of her stories, her mom yelled at her for not washing the dishes with soap. I could relate Anastasia, I could relate.

5. Ramona series. I LOVED Ramona Quimby and her family. She was an amazing female character of any book that I’ve read. I could relate to her on so many levels. I remember moments in the books, such as when her parents made her eat beef tongue, when she “cursed” in front of her family, and her rivalry with her sister. I can relate to Ramona because I’m the baby of my family and everyone still thinks of me in that light.

6. The Face on the Milk Carton series. This book scared the shit out of me because of the kidnapping theme. I had never been scared of being kidnapped by a strange woman in a cult until I read this book. Aside from that, this book did a good job dealing with the subject. I really liked Janie’s estranged family better than the parents that raised her. I could relate to the family because I come from a big family.

7. Wayside School Is Falling Down. Growing up, my township was made out of three towns – Wanamassa, Oakhurst, and Wayside. For a majority of my childhood, I had believed that this book was based on that Wayside School. I was a stupid kid. I liked that each chapter of the book dealt with a different story. My favorite story was when Miss Jelly (I had a Miss Jelly in my school! Oh, the similarities.) sent herself home for bad classroom behavior.

8. Harry Potter series. I was first introduced to this amazing series in 6^th grade, when my English teacher Mrs. Fogler, read it out loud to us. At once, like so many kids I was enthralled with it. I’ll always remember and thank Mrs. Fogler for introducing me to Harry Potter. One of the main reasons I love Harry Potter is because he grew up with me. The book came out when I was around 12 years old and it ended in my third year of college, he was learning about the world, as I was learning about the world.

9. Love at the Laundromat. I remember reading this book after the Face on the Milk Carton series. I remember that the cover of the book had a couple holding hands in front of a laundromat. This book is very predictable and the title is self-explanatory. All in all, it was still a good one.

10. Little House on the Prairie series. My favorite part of the Ingalls story was the way she would describe the food. She would go in these paragraph long descriptions about the meals she, her mom, and her sisters would prepare. I believe this is where my food obsession must have started from. My favorite book was the one where she and Almanzo started courting and eventually got married. The romantic in me is just bursting to get out. P.S – Nelly was such a bitch, I hated her.

11. Maniac Magee. When I was younger, I always wanted to runaway from home. Because my parents would never allow that, I had to live vicariously through Maniac Magee. I think this book is more for boys, but I still loved it. I’ll never forget about the stop ball pitch.

12. The 100 Dresses. This is one of the first books that made me cry. This story is about a poor girl that is the black sheep of her class. Everyone makes fun of her because she is poor and wears the same dress to school everyday, but she claims that she has 100 dresses. By the end of the book, we find out that the 100 dresses were drawings she made of dresses that she wanted. Just thinking of it makes me cry.

13. Holes. Once again, Mrs. Fogler introduced me to a classic kid’s story. I really liked the plotline and mystery in this novel. And the best part of it is that the boy’s name is Stanley Yelnats because the last name is his first name backwards. I liked that Shia Labeouf played the boy in the movie too.

14. Cam Jansen series. If I ever misplaced something, Cam Jansen would be the first person I’d ask to help me find it. I love her photographic memory and the fact that she said “Click” whenever she was memorizing something.

15. Amelia Bedelia series. Amelia Bedelia taught me that no matter how much I screw up at a job, if I bake a cake, everything will be forgiven. I liked the illustrations and the rhyming in the book. If I were in the family she worked for, I’d have her ass fired.

16. The Tripod series. I know a lot of kids didn’t like this series. When I first read them, I didn’t like it, but it grew on me. I liked the plot of the story, how these three kids were going to stop the tripods ruling the world. Now that I think of it, this series was pessimistic, and kind of reminds me of 1984. Humans were enslaved by alien/robot things that put chips into our brains. What’s creepier than that?

17. Matilda and any Roald Dahl book. I loved Matilda! I wanted to be her, minus the bad family. I loved how smart and independent she was, she is definitely a feminist character! Ronald Dahl is an amazing author and I loved how his books had a dark undertone. I loved reading Witches, especially when they turned the boy into a mouse!

18. Peppermints in the Parlor. I love any book that has an orphan as the main protagonist. And if she’s figuring out what happened to her long lost aunt and uncle that will only sweeten the deal. That title is super cute too, good alliteration.

19. The American Girl Collection Series. I always wanted one of the dolls, but I never got one. Anyways, my favorite American Girl was Samantha because she was awesome. Just like in Peppermints in the Parlor, Samantha is an orphan, but she lives with her wealthy grandmother. I didn’t like her grandmother because she seemed cold and unforgiving. But I liked that Samantha’s aunt was a feminist fighting for the female voting rights. Susan B. Anthony would be proud.

20. The World Wide Dessert Contest. I read this book because I liked the cover, and the story was just as good as the cover. I’m a little hazy on the plot of this book, but I do remember the cover was yellow and had lots of desserts on it. This is about an inventor who always loses the local dessert contest until he meets up with the most famous chef in the world. The lesson I learned is to judge a book by its cover.

Three last things:

1. I’d like to give a shout out to Guttenberg for creating the Guttenberg Printing Press, if it weren’t for you, there wouldn’t be any books.

2. I realized that reading all these books made me the food obsessed and paranoid person I am today. Thanks books, I hope my children read you one day. (Of course this thought is silly because we probably won’t have books by then. The Amazon Kindle will become our overlords.)

3. This list is not compiled in any order. I just wrote down the book titles as I remembered them.