Number one on my list, for those who haven't been following my blog on a regular basis, is James Howe's Bunnicula series. I'm not shy about admitting this is a childhood favorite that I still love to read & if you've read my author interviews you've seen me mention it as a part of one of my favorite questions, the question being basically a shorter version of this topic. I'm not 100% sure where I first saw the book, but I'm pretty sure I saw & purchased it from aWeekly Reader's monthly book insert. I don't know if I'm such an old fogy that what I'm referencing is lost on some of the younger people who might swing by my blog, so let me quickly explain. A Weekly Reader was like a mini elementary school newspaper that we would read in class or as homework once a week. Once a month the Weekly Reader would come with an insert that was about 4 pages long that listed books that we could purchase for our age group. My parents, being the smart & wonderful parents that they were, never had a problem letting me buy one or 2 books from it each month, depending on the cost. We may not have had a lot of money, but they saw the importance of feeding a young mind & loved nurturing my not quite realized love for books & writing. Anyway, I believe that is where I first saw Bunnicula. Please allow me to explain the concept of Mr. Howes series to those of you who haven't read or heard of it yet. Bunnicula is a vampire bunny that sucks the juice out of vegetables to sustain his appetite & life. The father & son in the book found the bunny while leaving a movie theater after watching Dracula & thought it would be neat to name the bunny partially after the movie they were watching just before they found him. They later bring the bunny home to a house with a dog by the name of Harold & a cat named Chester. Chester is actually a well educated cat that the father named after a set of encyclopedias & when no one is home he reads anything & everything in the fathers library. Sadly, Chester actually has a little more knowledge than he can handle or comprehend & gets it in his mind after reading way too many books about vampires that the bunny must be destroyed in the same way a vampire would be killed to protect the family. Harold on the other hand just thinks he's an innocent little bunny, & what's the harm in a few drained veggies? The entire book is written from the dog's point view & the manuscript was supposedly personally delivered to the author with a note explaining everything. I don't I know what I expected when I first saw the book, except that my decision to read the book may have been based solely on the cute bunny & dog on the cover & the peculiar name. I do remember that once I started reading it I couldn't put it down & when it ended I wanted more. Luckily at the time there were 3 more, now there are a few more I haven't had the chance to read. The other 3 books are: The Celery Stalks at Midnight, Nighty-Nightmare, & Howliday Inn. I remember getting the entire set eventually & being so entranced with the stories that on one particular camping trip I spent most the night in the tent reading the story out loud to my tape recorder so I could have it on tape to listen to if I so choose. I was so into the books that I could of cared less that we were camping at our favorite lake. It was so bad, my parents had to eventually haul me out of the tent & put me in book timeout, LOL. After that I fell in love with not just stories told from an animals perspective, but all things paranormal. If you haven't read it I suggest you do, it's a fun quick read that I think everyone should experience, young & old.
*Not all the stories in the series are about the bunny, but they all involve most the household animals getting mixed up in something supernaturally & or spooky.
Even though Bunnicula is the book & series I hold closest & dearest to my heart, Choose Your Own Adventures is probably what eased me into my interest in reading in the first place. For anyone who doesn't know what they are, let me explain. Choose Your Own Adventures, lets call it CYOA for short, is not really a series of books as much as it is a group of books. Almost any author could write one. The concept behind these stories was that the authors would take a story idea and every few pages or chapter they'd make the reader decide how they want the character in the story to react to a situation by giving them different pages to turn to for the different choices, thereby choosing your own adventure. You can read the story over & over & if you choose differently each time you could basically create a new story with each read. Each book is like having several books in one. I think it's a great way to introduce kids to reading, by making them a part of the outcome of the story they are reading. I know that the idea of such a thing fascinated me when I was 8 & at 36 I still find them a fun way to pass time. When I was around 8 I also became sick & couldn't run around & go outside like a lot of kids my age & these CYOA books helped pass the long hours indoors. My favorite one out of the hundreds that exist was called The Magic of the Unicorn & I must have read it so much I almost broke the spine & wore the pages out from turning them so much. I think that CYOA also helped ignite my interest in writing. I don't know how exactly, but CYOA showed me that there was unlimited writing possibilities & I remember even trying to write my own CYOA a time or 2. While I don't have a thirst to read CYOA's anymore I still think of them fondly & I particularly remember The Magic of the Unicorn, I was horribly in love with unicorns & wizards for much of my youth. If you have kids I suggest you show them these & if you've never read one I think you should try & read at least one because if you don't your missing out.
*This is just one title & author in The Choose Your Own Adventure book series. They wrote about everything from space aliens to baseball. I no longer have a copy of The Magic of the Unicorn, but if I ever find a copy I'm sure I'll snatch it up & not let it go, I have so many great memories attached to this particular copy.
Finally, I think I will end this walk down memory lane with Where the Sidewalk Ends. This was a spectacular book that I think at least everyone from my generation either read or had read to them. Shel Silverstein is the author of this collection of bizarre poems. They are fun & bizarre. Something both girls & boys alike can enjoy. Some of my favorite poems were Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out & another about a worm that lives in our nose & bites your finger off if you pick it, I told you bizarre & sometimes a little gross. Of course my absolute favorite poem was, I'm not 100% clear on the name, The Unicorn & it told the story of why the unicorn no longer exists. Shel Silverstein's poems were fun & showed me that poetry wasn't just stuffy ballads. Every year my elementary school would prepare all the children for a poetry contest between kids at our school & ones at a neighboring elementary school. We had to write a poem that we would read in front of an audience & judges that would later decide the winners & runner-ups for each grade. I think to prep us & to help get our creative juices flowing the teachers would have us read poems from Where the Sidewalk Ends out loud in class. This book, like the rest I've mentioned, ignited my interest in writing & helped push it into overdrive. I was constantly trying to write poems to rival Mr. Silverstein's. I think Where The Sidewalk Ends is a timeless book of poems for kids & adults who are young at heart, like me. I also think every school should make it required reading, but hey, don't trust me. check it out yourself.
I'm going to stop here. I think, no matter how hard I try, that these 3 books/ series helped shape my mind & interest in reading & writing. I mean, isn't it what we do in our youth that helps shape who we'll become? I hope this post brings back good memories for some & I hope those who may never of heard of them will try & find them & read them. For these books are fond memories for me & helped me through tough times when I wasn't able to be a kid like my friends. I'd love it if anyone who reads this has the urge to share, that they do so below in the comments section of this post. Also, if you've noticed any mistakes about the books I'm referencing, please feel free to correct me, but I think my only real mistake, if there are any, is what Shel Silverstein book The Unicorn poem is from. Real quick, anyone following my blog on a regular basis can expect an author interview from Mary Adair who wrote Passion's Vision & Mark Murphy author of the YA book The Curse of the Thrax real soon, so please keep an eye on my blog for the next interview if you're interested. For everyone else including my regular readers, I would like to end this post by saying, Read, Read, Read & share your love for reading with the young. Thank you for join me again. Peace , Love & TTFN.
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