Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Childhood Faves.

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by the lovely folks over at The Broke and the Bookish.

Each week a topic is posted and bloggers count their "top ten" in that category.

This week's category is "Top Ten Childhood Faves." I am really excited about this one, since I was a huge reader as a kid. I'm also curious to see what everyone else has on their lists!

So, without further ado, here are my top ten books from my childhood (These are in no set order)!

10. The Little House Series by Laura Ingalls Wilder: I LOVED these books as a little girl. I felt like I was out on the prairie with Laura. When I originally read these, my grandma lent me my aunt's old editions. Since then, I've invested in my own copies. My most recent reread was last fall.

9. The Kirsten Books (American Girl Series): How many of you had an American Girl doll? I had Kirsten, the Swedish immigrant doll. While I spent many hours playing with the doll and all of her accessories (which are in boxes at my parents' house), I also read and reread her books. I loved the pioneering spirit (can you see a theme?). I still have my copies and recently uncovered them when I was cleaning out my books.

8. Matilda by Roald Dahl: Another childhood favorite. I first read Matilda after my second grade teacher read The Witches by Dahl to our class during story time. When I asked for another of his books to read on my own, she lent me the class copy of Matilda, and I fell in love. Here was another young girl who loved to read as much as I did!

7. The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner: My brothers and I had a small collection of these that we shared. We had random numbers, but my second and third grade teacher had the full set. I'm pretty sure I read the entire series as a child. I loved the simplicity of the stories and the fact that the children were so resourceful.

6. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott: My mother once came home with a box of Children's Illustrated Classics. And while most of them seemed "boy-themed," there were a handful I snatched and claimed as my own. Little Women was one of those titles and led to my obsession with the March sisters and begging my mom to take to me to the theater to see the movie when it came out.

5. Black Beauty by Anna Sewell: Like Little Women, my copy of Black Beauty was abridged and illustrated, but I loved it so much. I was never really a horse girl growing up, but I loved the struggles of Black Beauty's life and the way the story was told. I just recently acquired a new edition, and I cannot wait to read it again.

4. Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell: I could easily put ANY of Scott O'Dell's novels on here, but this is the one that sparked the obsession. In addition to my love of the west and settlement (think of the Ingalls novels and Kirsten titles), I was also fascinated with Native Americans as a little girl. O'Dell's novels were the perfect reads! I reread this one and another title last fall as well.

3. The Giver by Lois Lowry: We read this in my fifth grade class and I have read it so many times since that I have lost count. I love the power of this pioneering dystopian tale. It really captured me as a child, and I still haven't lost that fascination.

2. The Five Children and It by Edith Nesbit: Unlike some of the others on this list, I probably haven't read this since I was a kid, but the story has stuck with me. Five siblings are digging in their backyard when the unearth an ancient Sand-Fairy. It grants them a wish everyday and shenanigans abound. It was fun, entertaining, and a classic when I was a child!

1. The Plain Princess by Phyllis McGinley and Helen Stone: This isn't so much a book as a short story...my grandparents had a cottage up north and there was a collection of children's stories and fairy tales on the bookshelf. One year I didn't bring enough to read, so I pulled a volume down and began reading. And while there were a lot of phenomenal stories in the book, this one always pulled me in. It is a story about a plain princess named Esmeralda, and the measures taken to make her beautiful. When I loved (and still love) about this story is that the princess wasn't stupid. And no one came to save her. Instead, she had to work to transform herself-showing that beauty comes from inside. I read this story every time I go up to the cottage. I wish I had my own copy to share with my future kiddos, but it is sadly out of print. :(

And a bonus...

One of my favorite, favorite childhood books was called ItZwibble, the Star-Touched Dinosaur. It was a picture book and man, did I LOVE that book when I was really young. It was about a dinosaur, sent to earth to locate missing eggs. On his journey, he met a moose and a toucan eating peanut butter....it sounds stupid, but I LOVED it. I still have my copy somewhere. :)

So, what about you? What are some of your childhood favorites?