This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic is all about series that readers have given up on before finishing them. I’m going to put my own spin on this theme, and take a trip down memory lane with some of my favourite childhood book series. Climb aboard my time machine, we’re heading back to the ’90s!
Before she was winning awards and hearts for stunning books like The One and Only Ivan and Crenshaw, Katherine Applegate brought us one of the most popular children’s books series of the late ’90s-early ’00s. Over the course of 54 books, five children saved the earth from bad aliens using the transforming powers granted to them by a good alien. It was awesome, and I was obsessed.
The very first Goosebumps title, Welcome to Dead House, was published in 1992, and between 1992-1997, 62 titles were published in the Goosebumps series. These spooky-but-not-too-spooky books were everywhere when I was in elementary school, and along with the TV series Are You Afraid of the Dark? helped satiate our youthful desire for scary tales. My personal favourite in the series was The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight, the twelfth book in the series.
I was a pretty eclectic reader as a kid, enjoying everything from science fiction to horror to animal stories. And like many little girls, I was absolutely crazy about horses. The Saddle Club series, which debuted in 1988, followed three young riders as they had equine adventure after equine adventure. Again, like many children, I enjoyed reading stories about children who were a bit older than me – it was exciting to imagine myself being 12 or 13 and having all sorts of fun with friends. It’s interesting to note that while the books themselves might have changed, books about horses are still incredibly popular with young readers today!
Whenever parents lament their children’s reading choices to me at the library, and beseech me to find “real” books for them to read, I proudly share my own reading history, including my own obsession with this extremely popular spin-off to the Sweet Valley High series. I can clearly remember scouring used book stores on family holidays, desperately looking for titles I’d missed. Sweet Valley Twins follows identical twins Jessica and Elizabeth as they navigate middle school and try to forge their own independent identities while maintain their special bond as twins. It was frothy and silly and not particularly well written and I inhaled them. So, if your kids want to read “junk” books like Geronimo Stilton and you’re hoping that I can steer them away from books they love, just remember that I was the one who didn’t read anything by Sweet Valley Twins for months on end.
Lurlene McDaniel’s Sick-Lit Books
When John Green’s young adult title The Fault in Our Stars,about two teens with terminal cancer, came out, I had to give a little giggle, because so called “sick-lit” has been around at least since I was reading about dying teens back in the ’90s. McDaniel wrote more than 70 books about seriously ill kids with AIDS, cancer, diabetes, cystic fibrosis, organ failure, heart disease, suicide and all sorts of terrible things. So, whenever well-meaning adults fret about exposing children to “sad” topics, wanting to protect impressionable youths from death and other depressing things, I can’t help thinking back to my own childhood and the speed with which I devoured these incredibly melodramatic titles.
A vampire bunny who sucks the life out of vegetables – what’s there not to love?! This hilarious, slightly spooky series actually debuted in the 1970s, and the last book in the series was published in 2006.
This is another series that was actually published long before I first read it in the 1990s, but it quickly became one of my childhood favourites. I was fascinated by the story of four siblings who lived on their own, free from any grownups, making their own rules and enjoying complete freedom. What child doesn’t dream of being able to be their own boss, at least for a little while? Just looking at this cover makes me nostalgic!
Oh, how these books bring back memories! As a neurotic tween myself, Anastasia always felt like a kindred spirit. In my favourite title in the series, Anastasia, Ask Your Analyst, Anastasia shares her worries and her thoughts with a bust of Sigmund Freud – now this is the sort of girl I can relate to! The series has been challenged over the years for things like casual references to Playboy and drinking, and was actually removed from a Florida school because of a parent’s complaint. Oh, for the days when children’s books could reference real life!
Wayside School isn’t like any other school – instead of being built horizontally, it was built vertically, 30 stories up! The three books in this series were a staple of many ’80s and ’90s childhoods, with one book written in the ’70s, one in the ’80s and the final book in the ’90s!
Like many children, I grew up obsessed with animals and drawn to animal stories, like Ursula K. Le Guin’s Catwings books. Four kittens are born with wings, and have to navigate their lives as very special cats in a world that isn’t quite ready for flying felines. The fact that there were two characters named Jane didn’t hurt matters, either!
And there you have it, ten series that this ’90s kid devoured, and that still stay with me all these years later. I’m surprised and delighted whenever I see one of these books proudly sitting on a library or bookstore shelf, just waiting to connect with a new generation of readers! What childhood books do you still remember fondly?
Have a great week, friends!
What a great list. Love the variety.
Oh gosh, I loved the Saddle Club books when I was younger, though I never actually read them all!
My TTT: https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2018/06/26/top-ten-tuesday-165/
yay for The Boxcar Children! My TTT
Were those animorphs books the ones where you flicked the edges of the pages and it made an animation of the kids transforming?? I loved the goosbumps books – although had nightmares about that sponge beneath the sink one for weeks, don’t know why that was the thing i found scariest!
These books sounds so much fun! I wasn’t into reading when I was young. I actually struggled with it a lot, but I did read a few of Lurlene McDaniel’s books. Not sure which ones, but I remember that they were sad and I cried haha.
I was painfully, painfully shy, so I spent a lot of time in my room with my books! I definitely had more book friends than real friends!
Animorphs! I love that it is at the top of the list, I was obsessed! Which is hilarious to me because I very rarely read books that are anything like that as an adult. Boxcar Children also holds a special place in my heart, as does Babysitters Club!