Now that school is out, it has me thinking about my school days. I keep thinking about the books I chose to read and had to read in school, and decide to write about my favorite experiences. Now in high school I had a fierce addiction to Dean Koontz and Steven King, so it took a lot for me to want to read anything else. However, throughout elementary and high school there were several books that either impacted me as a reader, or just stayed with me.
Here are the books I read in school that I most treasure:
The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe
By C.S. Lewis
I didn’t read this in school on my own, the series was read to us during class. I can remember waiting all day in anticipation for story time to hear this book. I fell in love with C.S. Lewis and he is my favorite author to this day.
Rated 4.7 on amazon.com
The BFG
By Ronald Dahl
I remember us reading this together as a class and being completely in love with it. There were other stories by Ronald Dahl that I loved as well including “James and The Giant Peach” and “Charlie and The Chocolate Factory.”
Rated 4.7 on amazon.com
Number The Stars
Lois Lowry
This was the first chapter book I read on my own from school, and I was completely mesmerized by it. This is the book that sparked my fascination with the Holocaust and WWII. I still love reading WWII memoirs, historical fiction, and the like.
Rated 4.7 on amazon.com
Jeremy Thatcher Dragon Hatcher
By Bruce Coville
This book I picked up from a school book fair. School book fairs were the highlight of the year for me. I usually only got to pick one book, and I remember every day looking through the books weighing and analyzing them to decide which would be my treasure. I loved this book, and it started my love of Fantasy Fiction.
Rated 4.6 on amazon.com
The Indian in The Cupboard
By Lynne Reid Banks
Another book we read together as a class. I don’t remember why I enjoyed this book so much, I just know that I did. I can remember constantly reading ahead of the class, because I hated stopping.
Part of me would like to read it again just to see what I think of it now.
Rated 4.6 on amazon.com
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle
By Avi
I’ve written about this book before, because I loved it so much. It was also a School Book Fair treasure, and by far the best one I ever got. I was in love with this story through and through, and I remember
carrying the book with me everywhere I went.
Rated 4.4 on amazon.com
Animal Farm
By George Orwell
One of the Jr. High required reading books that I most enjoyed, there were others that were okay like Fahrenheit 451, but this is the one that stuck with me. I remember thoroughly enjoying it’s weird quirkiness, but also it’s depth and meaning. “1984” is another Orwell classic on my recent TBR list.
Rated 4.4 on amazon.com
Of Mice and Men
By John Steinbeck
The ever famous small yet poignant classic. This book packed so much great literature into such a small package. I loved it, and I love Steinbeck. It was because of this book that I sought out other Steinbeck treasures. I have not read as many as I’d like but everything I’ve read is gold, and I look forward to the ones still awaiting my time.
Rated 4.4 on amazon.com
To Kill a Mockingbird
By Harper Lee
Another treasured classic I can thank my high school required reading list for. This book was moving and stayed with me. I later watched the movie which I equally loved (doesn’t happen often.) Watching this also started me watching black and white classics. Although I have to thank Carry Grant in “Arsenic and Old Lace” for really fueling my love for classic movies.
Rated 4.7 on amazon.com
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
By Ken Kesey
It’s hard to say what I liked so much about this book… Maybe it was how simplistically complicated Randle was. I was also very intrigued by the picture of mental health that this book paints; how we think about and treat people. It was such an interesting and gripping story. Although I am not a fan of sad endings, the sadness is what made me really think about the story on a deeper level.
Rated 4.4 on amazon.com
These are books that had an impact on me as a reader. Books that moved me and/or got be thinking about life and about literature.
What books did you read in your school years that impacted you?
I enjoyed that walk back in time. Such good choices and fortunately, they can still be enjoyed today.
LikeLiked by 1 person
They certainly can! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
The Black Stallion series and any other horse books I could lay my hands on. I’m still a horse lover. The Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle series. I still laugh thinking about it.
LikeLiked by 3 people
I loved the Nancy Drew series even though each book was essentially the same. Also loved the Judy Blume books. Those were the days!
LikeLiked by 2 people
🙂
LikeLike
This is a great list. We have some of the same favorites. I was just thinking about reading The Indian in the Cupboard!
LikeLiked by 2 people
🙂
LikeLike
Cafe Bean, your posts are always excellent! Thinking of my first books, I could not get enough of the Nancy Drew series. I wish I kept the many hardback books I so loved! At the age of ten, Gone With the Wind changed by reading habits. I can’t remember, but I know spending summers reading was the best thing in the whole world!! Now you have me thinking!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
In 4th grade, my first science fiction book: Rusty’s Spaceship by Evelyn Sibley Lampman. Not long after that, Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. The Gammage Cup by Carol Kendall. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and LotR. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. So many more…
LikeLiked by 1 person
I haven’t read all of them but the ones I have read are amazing and one of them is on my tbr list! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
🙂
LikeLike
Of Mice and Men. I will be reading this Summer.
LikeLiked by 2 people
It’s great one for summer! 🙂
LikeLike
Not really school books but I read the Hardy Boys mysteries as fast as I could but don’t remember a single plot. But Robinson Crusoe and Tom Sawyer are carved into my mind forever. Deserted islands, black caves, treasures, injuns, what boy could resist?
LikeLiked by 2 people
How could anyone resist! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
I was fiercely devoted to James Clavell novels in highschool. As for books I studied…. in my independent study I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Although it was a bit too heady for me at the time, I did manage to get something out of it. I also read Siddhartha, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, A Stranger in a Strange Land, and everything I could find of Harlan Ellison–which wasn’t much until I stumbled across a treasure at a used bookstore in London, Ontario.
LikeLiked by 1 person
So many but the bobbsey twins, the boxcar family, the little house books, the endless steppe and the little princess were faves.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I LOVED the boxcar books! Especially the first one, I should have included it 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
All good choices. Arrrrr!
x The Captain
LikeLiked by 1 person
🙂
LikeLike
I love so many of these. Narnia, EOE, BFG. SOme books are forever eternal in our minds
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes indeed!
LikeLike
The diary of a young girl by Anne frank, R.K Narayan’s Malgudi days (you should definitely check out this) and few short stories like Evan tries an On level full of mystery and fun. Your post remonds me of school days #Nostalgic *_*
LikeLiked by 1 person
I read Anne Frank as an adult, never read it in high school, but so glad I did I loved it! I am intrigued by R.K Narayan’s Malgudi days, I will look it up!
LikeLiked by 1 person
There are a few here that I haven’t read, but am now interested in, so thank you for adding to my to-read list 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Every so happy to do so! 🙂
LikeLike
Great – I remember reading Animal Farm as a teenager – the book is still very modern as the message can be translated into our modern society as well.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes it is 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
The sad thing is, that the book is not so appreciated in germany. We have “Homo Faber” (well, not exactly a childrens book, but it is read in school), but that thing is plain boring,
LikeLiked by 1 person
Pingback: Schoolhouse Reading Gems – worldtraveller70
Way back when in 3rd grade we spent the whole year reading Paddle to the Sea with Miss Sawyer as the teacher.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I remember that I didn’t read lots of books in School but my most favourite one was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Understandable, such a great classic!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I fell in love with reading the Bible early on. Unlike a lot of people, I was fascinated by the Old Testament history. This led me to read the “We were there” historical series for children. They each featured a child’s eye view of a historical event. In the ninth grade, I had an English teacher who got me interested in Greek mythology. I went from reading about the Greek myths to reading The Iliad and The Odyssey and the Greek playwrights, then I ready Livy’s History of Rome and take two years of Latin. As a part of that experience, I read Rex Warner’s fictional biographies of Julius Caesar and Imperial Caesar. Also another writer I loved was Howard Pyle. His Adventures of Robin Hood and King Arthur fired up my imagination. But of all the books and stories I read, it was Jack the Giant Killer that fired up my imagination and made me want to tell stories.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby’ in college, and I still like it today. Sometimes It feels like a journalistic commentary of the time it’s set in, and I can see how it influenced the work of one of my favourite authors: Hunter S Thompson.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I read it in high school, I did enjoy it, and got a lot out of it in terms of learning things about the era.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I loved Riding Freedom, The Last Dog on Earth, Blue Eyed Daisy, and many more!
LikeLiked by 1 person
An interesting combination Abbie Lu. I share Orwell, Steinbeck, Lee, and kesey with you . Just re-read all C.S. Lewis. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
I really liked your list. Some of my favorites from Elementary, High School, College and all those Library summer reading contests are:The Little House on the Prairie books, :Boxcar series, Wind in the Willows, Robin Hood, anything Dckens, The Good Earth, Moby Dick, Anne Frank, Anne of Green Gables, War and Peace, and Gone with the Wind! Wow, what an eclectic group!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Those are all favorites of mine, you have great book taste 🙂
LikeLike