P2S Link-up Childhood Favorites

 

This week's Preview to Summer link-up is our last one before we share our swaps tomorrow!  Remember you can link-up here at The Simplicity to share with the other bloggers.  Many thanks to Nina over at run(dance)love for hosting the link-up of Childhood Favorites.  This challenge brought up so many fond memories of story times at local libraries and being introduced to chapter books from a young age.  I thought of school projects and kindergarten crafts.  I also thought of times when my mom and dad would read me stories and the time when I moved to reading them from my chapter books.  Many of these have become "classics" with me and something that I would like to share with my future children. 

Children's Illustrated Books

 

 

 Illustrations for a child and even still as an adult, bring a story to life with whimsical characters that are so easy to love.  The Rainbow Fish's tale of sharing was easily symbolized through the giving of the beautiful, sparkly scales.  Of course, with my resounding love of glitter as an adult, I think some things have stayed the same ;) Stellaluna was linked with a unit about fruit bats and I had large beanie baby toy bat that looked very similar to her that I loved as a small child.  If You Give a Mouse a Cookie spawned other similar stories but this one remains my favorite.  The illustrations and coy humor invited children to show compassion and courtesy to others with the entertaining fancies of a little mouse. 

 

 

I adored Clifford and The Berenstain Bears!  I would check out Berenstain Bears books from the library to read as many of them as possible.  I loved their family and the illustrations so much.  I was obsessed with dogs from a young age and so I loved the idea of having a large dog like Clifford.  I also loved the name Emily Elizabeth and wondered what I had to do to earn the use of two names instead of one ;)

Beginning Chapter Books

   

 

I hadn't read many of the Babysitter's Club books until my aunt picked up a huge collection of them from one of her friends.  Her friend's daughters collected them over the years and she had over a hundred of them to sell.  My aunt got the entire collection for my cousin and I to share.  I loved reading about the characters and Kristy's idea to start the club.  It was fun to "grow up" with them and see the character development as well as relationships.  When Mary Ann dated Logan, you cheered, and eventually when they broke up, it was hard but you just understood.  They were a fun group of literary characters to have in my pre-teen years.

 

 

I don't really like anything "scary" and especially nothing gory.  My "big" move was going to the section of my elementary school's library that held a large collection of Goosebumps books by R.L. Stine.  I read one and became addicted to these fast reads with plenty of plot twists.  These were my potato chip books and I would love to start collecting these again for fun.

 

Finally, Laura Ingalls Wilder was also introduced to me at my elementary school's library.  When it was our library hour once a week, we would walk down the hall and sit on the carpeted floor while the school's librarian would share with us some of her recommended reads.  There I learned about the Ingalls and how they lived in Wisconsin and lived in log cabins.  I read all of Laura's books and enjoyed seeing how she grew up from a little girl to becoming a teacher and eventually having her own daughter, Rose.

 

What were some of your favorite childhood reads?