Top Ten Tuesday

Thanks to Barbaloot, I've been stewing over this post for the past week. Or so. Trying to nail down a list of the top ten books that have influenced my life is like asking me to name my ten favorite flavors of ice cream. Thought-provoking, to say the least. I choose my ice cream very carefully. As much as I've been stewing over these, I decided I couldn't wait for Thursday (and besides, Tuesday sounds more alliterative).

These ten books (or series) helped frame my childhood in such a way that I will never forget reading them for the first, second, and even hundredth time. These are all books that I've passed on to my children, and although they have long since passed me up in the book collecting department, it never hurts to fall back on some really good classics.

• 1. Little House on the Prarie - if you have never read these books, you simply have not grasped the great American tradition of The Pioneer. Even though the Ingalls weren't Mormon, I still got a great thrill when I read about everything from making butter to making dresses, traveling across the open prarie, and of course, all the food they stuffed down those little Farmer Boys' throats. Can you imagine pie for breakfast? AND pancakes, and sausages, and oatmeal.... I'm gaining weight just thinking about it.
  
  
• 2. The Great Brain Books - My fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Slater, was a great advocate of reading aloud. She read the entire Great Brain series to us throughout the course of a year, and I loved every minute of it! Catholics living in Utah? In the 1870's? I didn't know such a thing was possible! And of course, I fell in love with J.D. Fitzgerald the day he saved his little adopted brother's life from the clutches of a blood-thirsty escaped convict and cattle rustler. I loved that these books were also based on a real family, and I've since read the adult non-fiction books based on the same family by the same author, "Papa Married a Mormon" and "Mamma's Boarding House." Alas, all of these books are out of print, and my personal collection has been read and re-read so many times that they're falling apart.
  
  
• 3. Encyclopedia Brown - Ten years old and masterminding the neighborhood crime watch? To a fourth grader, nothing gets better than that. My brother collected every single one of these books -- there's got to be at least fifty of them -- and I remember sneaking into his room and stealing temporarily borrowing these books from his shelves. I never did guess the solution to any of his cases -- even though the answers were painfully obvious, once I read them -- and now my Emma is addicted and can't seem to get enough of Encyclopedia Brown!
  
  
• 4. And Both Were Young - Oh, my goodness, this book was very important to me in Junior High. I've already blogged about this book -- here and here (you'll have to scan down to the middles or ends of each post to get to it) -- and I still wish that Somebody Important would discover this book and turn it into a movie. I have it all pictured out in my head -- Anna Sophia Robb would be Flip, and some hot, hunky, brooding European actor would be Paul, but I have yet to discover who that would be. And please don't suggest Robert Pattinson, because frankly, he just gives me the creeps. In any case, this was a great coming of age story about post World War II, mixing cultures and exploring all kinds of issues that real people had to deal with while recovering from the ward. Loved it. Loved it. Loved it!
  
  
• 5. Anne of Green Gables - once you get past the flowery writing style of L.M.Montgomery, you can very easily get hooked on these books. I remember I first started reading them because my sister had read them, and I was getting tired of her quoting the books left and right and I had no clue what she was talking about. It's such a wonderful story! It's better than any Cinderella story ever written-- a young orphan overcomes an incredibly dysfunctional beginning in life and gets adopted and goes on to live a full, happy, normal life. If you can set aside everything you know about Anne from the movie and read the books, you will find that there is so much more to the story!
  
  
• 6. The Secret Garden/A Little Princess -- I don't know much about Frances Hodgson Burnett, but I do know she knows how to entertain little girls. I used to imagine myself as the Little Princess, living in the attic next door to an impossibly rich millionaire, having all my dreams come true. And the Secret Garden has been made into one of my all time favorite musicals ever -- I believe I've mentionned that a time or two before as well.
  
  
• 7. Little Women - do you see a recurring theme here? Stories of girls growing up in difficult times -- another war story, incidentally. I guess I like war stories better than I thought I did. I used to imagine myself as Jo, scribbling away in the attic. (I still scribble, but nowadays it's called "Blogging".) In the meantime, I also love that the story is almost an autobiography of Louisa May Alcott, and despite her difficult beginnings, she, too, made an excellent contribution to the world.
  
  
• 8. The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe - this is the first time I have to say I enjoyed the first book, but for whatever reason, I couldn't get into the rest of the series. I'm not a huge fantasy fiction reader -- well, at all, really -- but this one captured my imagination like very few other books ever did. I loved to draw as a kid, and I remember devoting notebooks after notebooks to my various renditions of what I thought Narnia looked like. I still have my vision of the White Witch clearly etched in my mind, especially the dress she wore. I guess you could say this was the book that began my love for costuming!
  
  
• 9. Pride and Prejudice -- it almost seems cliche to add this one, but what young girl hasn't imagined herself falling in love with the richest man in the country?And oh, how I wished I could insult a guy to his face with the grace and poise and finesse of Elizabeth Bennet!
  
  
  
• 10. Fantastic Mr. Fox -- If I hadn't gone into costuming, I would have gone into architecture, and all because of this book. I bet, if you go back to my house in Hawaii, you might still see the remains of the little animal village I created in my back yard when I read this book. I recreated their tunnels throughout the landscaping, bringing this story to life in my own way. Admittedly, I am not a huge Roald Dahl fan -- I mean, the guy was fairly eccentric. Chocolate factories and big friendly giants were a little -- uh -- creepy. In a British sort of way. And this book has it's share, with the three farmers and all. But the animals were so dang adorable! And inventive! And smart! And FANTASTIC! And I have very high expectations for the movie which is supposed to come out next month. As much as I adore George Clooney, I really have a hard time imagining anyone playing Mr. Fox without a British accent. Sorry, George.

So there you have it. Take some time, think about your own list, and share it with the world!

P.S. -- Picture day went as well as could be expected. Here's a tip if you're planning on taking family pictures any time soon: make sure your four year old child (and forty year old husband) has had a NAP and don't forget to bring SNACKS!