Reading is good

I read like a maniac when I was a kid. I could read in grade one and didn't really stop voraciously devouring books until I went to university, where reading was temporarily replaced by drinking. My father was everlastingly grateful that my passion for Harlequin romances stayed behind when I left home. In truth, boy fantasy was replaced by the not so romantic reality of drunken encounters with the opposite sex, but I'm sure he never clued in to that.

Motivated by Crazy Aunt Purl I give you my favourite childhood books, in no particular order: I started with 10 but it grew...

Susannah of the Mounties and a few of the sequels. This was apparently written in 1936! but it had horses, the cool Mounty uniform... I adored it and wanted to be a Mounty (riding side-saddle, no less!) for ages.

Misty of Chincoteague and the related ones. Horses, yum. Again, written in 1947. What was up with that?

Black Beauty. 1887!!!

The Black Stallion 1941. I must have read that a million times and I think there were a billion spin offs that I read even though they were progressively worse and worse.

My Friend Flicka series. (1941 - it must have been a good year for horsey novels). Again, I adored the original and after a few they seemed to deteriorate. I don't know why I'm surprised - how many plotlines can there be about horses in the mountains? This series suffered from the fatal flaw of introducing romantic relationships - I dropped them like hot coals when that happened.

Nurse books. I seemed to read such old fashioned books! All the nurses wore caps (ah, the ritual of graduating from nursing school and having your cap pinned on) and were reverent and deferential to the doctors. They must have been 1950's vintage. Again, eventually they all seemed to fall in love and I became disgusted and stopped reading them.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Loved the first one, lost interest after a few.

Every single Laura Ingalls book. I even tolerated her getting married but I didn't really like it. I wanted her to stay Pa's little girl forever. I wonder how many school pictures show my hair in braids like hers? Lots. Now that TV show was awesome since they didn't follow the books, just made up episodes (at least as far as I could tell).

A Wrinkle in Time. I ADORED this book, though I can't remember why. I should read it again.

Watership Down and Jock of the Bushveld, which my dad read to us. I saw the movie of WatershipDown with my dad and it was the beginning of my disenchantment with movie adaptations of books. One's imagination is so much better, I think.

Enid Blyton, the Fabulous Four, the Fantastic Five, the Secret Seven, Mallory Towers - anything to do with British kids having adventures, going to boarding school, riding horses or - even better - both. They all blur together but I could not get enough of them.

Nancy Dew and the Hardy Boys, though I definitely preferred Nancy Drew. I'll still read these if I come across them. Ned Nickerson was the biggest sap in the universe, and combining Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys into one TV series was a tragically bad idea, although by then I thought Parker Stevenson was cute.

Stubby Amberchuck and the Holy Grail. From my dad, about WWF wrestling, being a lesbian... odd things. But I love it. Still have it, and the note my dad wrote to me when he gave it to me.

And every single harlequin-type romance published between about 1980 and 1985.