Top Ten Childhood Books

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.  This week's top ten is books from childhood you would love to revisit.  This is going to be a fairly easy top ten for me, since I read quite a bit as a child and I can name ten favourites off the top of my head.  I own a lot of these books, and even have a shelf on Goodreads dedicated to a fair few of them.  A lot of them are series, so I'm just going to stick with either the first book in the series, or the most memorable of the bunch.  Here we go!


1.  Trixie Belden
This series was introduced to me by my mum.  It follows Trixie and the friends she makes throughout the series on mystery-solving adventures.  The series is over 30 books long, and I never quite finished it.  I didn't read the last book because I didn't want it to be over!  Every book was so exciting and there wasn't a single character I didn't love!

2.  The Sisters Grimm by Michael Buckley
This series is a great cause of pain for me.  I first got into the series about two sisters who discover a town of fairytale creatures (think Once Upon a Time) when I was in late primary school.  The problem?  The series is nine books long.  I kept up with the series until 2010.  With a book or two released each year, it wasn't too hard to remember what was going on.  Then there was an approximately two year wait for the final book of the series.  I'd grown up a lot in that time, and when I tried restarting, I struggled to relate to the characters who hadn't aged a bit over the series.  My interest fizzled out.  I feel mad that I was so invested in this series but never finished the final book!  I never got to find out what happened!  I have been fooling myself for a couple years now that I am "currently rereading" the series - ie. I have a bookmark stuck halfway through the second book.

*sigh*


3.  Clarice Bean by Lauren Child
Clarice Bean is the funniest literary kid that I know.  The books follow her in her everyday life with her extraordinarily realistic family, making me laugh and even cry.  I'd love to go back to these books one day.

4.  The Mermaid Secret by Vicki Blum
To be honest, I don't remember that much about this book except that I compulsively reread it over and over (which makes it more surprising that I don't remember much...) and that it's about some girls who find out they are mermaids.  At a mere 104 pages (with large type and several pictures), I have no excuse not to revisit this.

5.  Girl Undercover - Secrets by Christine Harris

A book about an orphan girl turned spy - another riveting read for little me.  I can't remember if I ever finished the series, but I know I only own the first book.  I do remember a fair bit about the plot of that one though, so that's one point to my memory!

6.  The Tail of Emily Windsnap by Liz Kessler

This book is about a girl who finds out she is a mermaid.

7.  Ingo by Helen Dunmore

This is also a book about a girl who finds out she is a mermaid.

8.  Once There Were Mermaids

This girl did not find out she was a mermaid.  I was slightly disappointed, but it was an adorable story overall.

9.  W.I.T.C.H by Elizabeth Lenhard (mostly)
This was another super long series that I never finished.  I wonder if it ever ended...
I think it was based off a TV show?  It follows a few girls who get some elemental powers one day for some reason and there's this whole other fantasy world outside their own.  I think there are some random portals to it spread throughout Earth.  Anyway, it was intriguing if a little complicated, so I'd love to read them again and remember what actually happened.

10.  Lucky Star by Cathy Cassidy
I discovered Cathy Cassidy a bit later than I would have liked in my life.  I have adored every book I have read by her though; Lucky Star and Driftwood being the most memorable ones.  Rereading them would be a treat.


So that's this week's top ten!  I get a sense that I have mentioned about half of these before... in a tag perhaps?  As usual, be sure to link to your top ten in the comments!