Favorite children's books

[Julie]

I know this topic has come up before, but since some of us were mentioning books we read in school in the other thread, I thought I'd start a thread just for our favorite children's/young adult books.

I had so much fun buying books for my classroom library last summer... I went through the children's section of Barnes & Noble and basically bought every chapter book I read and enjoyed as a kid but didn't own.

Some of my favorites...

Babysitter's Club and the Karen books
Goosebumps
American Girl series
The Ramona books by Beverly Cleary
"Otis Spofford" by Beverly Cleary
"Ellen Tebbits" by Beverly Cleary
"Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing" by Judy Blume
"The BFG" by Roald Dahl
"The Witches" by Roald Dahl
"Mrs. Piggle-wiggle" by Betty MacDonald
"Wait Till Helen Comes" by Mary Downing Hahn
"Daphne's Book" by Mary Downing Hahn
Bailey School Kids series
Kids of Polk Street School series
Pee-Wee Scouts series
"The Westing Game" by Ellen Raskin

[estrella]

Even before I saw your list the first thing that came to my head was "Ramona books"! Fun. I also used to really like the Boxcar children (can't understand why anymore), "Charlie and the chocolate factory" and "Matilda" by Roald Dahl... um, I'll think of some and come back! Hahaha.

[Julie]

I liked the Boxcar Children too; I forgot about those books! They weren't my favorites, but I did have quite a few of them.

I love Roald Dahl too; I read a lot of his books. The BFG and The Witches will always be my favorites though.

[Karina]

I remember alot of Roald Dahl!

[Julie]

I read The Witches to my class last year in October, before Halloween, and I can't wait to read it again this year.

There is a part in the introduction, where it is talking about how hard it is to tell a REAL WITCH apart from a regular woman, where it says "She might even - and this will make you jump - she might even be your lovely school-teacher who is reading these words to you at this very moment. Look carefully at that teacher. Perhaps she is smiling at the absurdity of such a suggestion. Don't let that put you off. It could be part of her cleverness." So of course, I read that with kind of an evil smile last year, and the kids all giggled and shrieked.

Then a couple of days later, I got to the part where it talks about how to recognize a witch, how she has no toes, and wears gloves all the time because she has claws instead of fingernails, and scratches at her scalp because her hair is actually a wig, since she's bald, and it's itchy. So the day after that, I made sure I wore close-toed shoes, and I got some long, black gloves from the Halloween aisle, and I wore those while I read, and I scratched at my head a lot. The kids totally loved it; they would scream every time the gloves came out, hehe.

[Karina]

LOL!!! awesome Julie! That sounds fun.