readers advisory for all discussion

There's always that book when you're little or a teenager that's "your book." It's the one you reread every year, the book you will never part with and will probably run through flames to save, the book that knows exactly where your thumbs were on the pages the last ten readings.
I guess I'm asking all of you to tell the story of your favorite story and how it came to be.
I have three, well, a top three. Weetzie Bat by Francesca Lia Block, The Animal Family which is out of print, What My Mother Doesn't Know by Sonya Sones. And okay,
one more: Eyes Like Stars by Lisa Mantchev.

My book is not a children's or teen book. It's sci-fi, and it's out of print. Hellspark is about an intergalactic trader who is called to a newly discovered planet where the survey team is in turmoil. There is a top tier species on the planet that some think is sentient and others don't, and the decision is crucial because a planet with a native sentient species cannot be exploited for development. In addition, one of the survey team has been killed and our heroine must determine who did it.

So, it's about the definitions of sentience and language. And it's a murder mystery. And it's my goto book when I need a lift. I'm not even sure why it always lifts my spirits, except it's full of ideas that inspire me and action that thrills me.

I got it through the old Science Fiction Book Club in the 80s, so thankfully it's a hardback and has survived 30 years of frequent reads.

Hellspark sounds awesome! I'm going to have to check inter library loan for it. I have out-of-print sci fi that I'll never part with. In the none sci fi realm, I have the sequel to Where the Lilies Bloom, Trial Valley.

I reread Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers every few years. It takes me back to when I was around 13 and realized reading could in fact be fun and not boring and structured around terrible works of fiction from the past that were required reading in school.

Timothy, I can relate. I will never know if I like Hoot or Hatchet among several other books because I was forced to read them for school.

I rarely reread, so that either makes this tougher or easier. I guess I'll go with The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure. I've read that a few times. Probably once every 10 or 20 years.

Lexxi Kitty wrote: "I rarely reread, so that either makes this tougher or easier. I guess I'll go with The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure. I've read that a..."

I'm a huge fantasy reader, but still have not read this classic. I'm also a fan of children's illustration like Paul O Zelinsky. I want to own the newest Princess Bride that is the anniversary edition with color illustrations. I have C. S. Lewis, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and a few others like that first introduced to me when I was very young. My mom read me The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in kindergarten and The Odyssey, The Iliad when I was four. I also was famously known to explain the end of Hitler at this age by saying, "Then he went in the bunker and died." Kind of went off topic a little; please forgive me.

oh, man - great topic! for me, it was probably Tailchaser's Song and Island of the Blue Dolphins.

Island of the Blue Dolphins came first and i must have read it a dozen times. it totally shaped my love for survival stories which continues to this day. plus, the character's name is karana, which is so very close to karen. how i wanted to be on that island, all alone, with a whalebone fence and only my wild dog for a friend, spearing fish and being awesome. actually, i still want that.

Tailchaser's Song is a book i borrowed from my older cousin when i was twelve and then just never returned. oops. badass cat adventures in a cat underworld? secret cat language? yes, please! i remember reading Watership Down later in my youth and thinking "pfft - cats are way cooler." love that book. love.

I loved Watership Down, but I couldn't get into Tailchaser's Song, even though I'm a devoted cat lover.

Carson wrote: "Hellspark sounds awesome! I'm going to have to check inter library loan for it."

If you can't find it at the library, there are sometimes used copies available on Amazon.

Betsy wrote: "Carson wrote: "Hellspark sounds awesome! I'm going to have to check inter library loan for it."

If you can't find it at the library, there are sometimes used copies available on Amazon."

Thanks, Betsy. I think Amazon should know me by name by now for all the out of print books I've ordered off their site. Hi everyone, my name is Carson. -Hi Carson- And I'm a book addict.

i also like abe.com for out of print. you can find things super-cheap there!

karen wrote: "oh, man - great topic! for me, it was probably Tailchaser's Song and Island of the Blue Dolphins.

Island of the Blue Dolphins came first and i must have re..."

It's been forever since I read Island of the Blue Dolphins or any Scott O'Dell but I loved this book as well. It's one of those books where you can remember exactly where you were at each part of the story. I think I mainly stopped reading survival stories when Hatchet was forced upon me for school and they'd ask you something totally random that was mentioned once. Not to mention the fact that I was done reading the book the first day it was assigned. I loved it then. See people? School-makes children hate reading! ;)

karen wrote: "oh, man - great topic! for me, it was probably Tailchaser's Song and Island of the Blue Dolphins.

Island of the Blue Dolphins came first and i must have re..."
Also, did you ever read Mrs. Frisby and the rats of Nimh? Totally not like Secret of Nimh if you've seen that. My mother's favorite book.

i didn't read hatchet until grad school, and i LOVED it! and i was actually mad that i didn't get to read it when i was little. or maybe it didn't exist when i was little - i don't even want to check and remind myself of my age.

i read the nimh book but so so long ago. i remember loving it, but i also really loved the film. i had mad crushes both on justin and nicodemus. because apparently i am attracted to rats. awesome.

I have yet more books I feel are mine. Where the Lilies Bloom and A Day No Pigs Would Die are two often overlooked classics. I feel like the Magic Attic Club series is my series because it was my first introduction into time travel and it's what made me give Doctor Who a chance. I now have a cardboard cutout of David Tennant.
There's one more, Ingo, that I loved so much. It is about mermaids but is better than Aquamarine or any other mermaid story except Midnight Pearls. Ingo now has sequels to it but I can't get into them. Maybe it's been too long since Ingo or I think there shouldn't be a sequel.

karen wrote: "i didn't read hatchet until grad school, and i LOVED it! and i was actually mad that i didn't get to read it when i was little. or maybe it didn't exist when i was little - i don't even want to che..."

I had a crush on Sebastian from The Little Mermaid. Because I apparently don't want to live out of these waters.
I was also unaware that Donnie Osmond was the voice of the guy from Mulan when he sings. I've been in love with that character my entire life!

i loved any and all animal stories. The Incredible Journey was a favorite, but there were some i feel like i may have been the only one to ever read, which i guess makes them "mine":

Junket
Champion Dog: Prince Tom
Rama, the Gypsy Cat

karen wrote: "i loved any and all animal stories. The Incredible Journey was a favorite, but there were some i feel like i may have been the only one to ever read, which i guess makes them "mine":
..."

You may be right because I've heard of none of those. I'm just the girl who loved Tale of Desperaux before it was a terrible movie and still is trying to read Greek mythology to my five dogs. I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who read the Little Fur series and Ingo and all of the Magic Attic Club series, Girlhood Journey various series, Every Day the day that gay marriage was legalized in all 50 states. I'm also pretty sure I'm the only 18 year old who still has their Gene Kelly, Bad Sandy, Jo March, and Neela from Girls of Many Lands dolls out in the open in their room, which is still classic Pooh.

i only understood about every other word of that! (:

karen wrote: "i only understood about every other word of that! (:"

That's how my conversations are with people... I recommend something and an hour and a half later, I'm still talking. I get it from my mom who doesn't need to breathe. It's her special superpower and it embarrasses me every day. When your mom starts to know about your cashier's entire life, you know it's bad.

Used to talk to a guy about comics and books. He found me pleasant to be around and then he was weird and I was crazy and we never spoke again. Btw, love of my life.

I'm very strange.

we're all very strange - you are in good company!

I believe I will nominate Old Surehand by Karl May for that early teenage infatuation story. Part of the Winnetou series, it is the first book I remember reading repeatedly, until it came apart at the seams. Atenuating circumstances are that it was a cheap, popular print and that I share the blame with my twin brother, who used to fight me over who gets dibs on reading it first.

A similar thing would have happened to several Jules Verne novels, like Mysterious Island or 20000 Leagues Under the Sea, but my father had wisely invested in hard covers.

Now that I think back to regular books turned into serialized stories by pulling them apart, Paul Feval is also in the top with the Pardaillan series (Les Pardaillan), a hugely popular title in Romania.

Speaking of my home, another record is the first book that I started re-reading immediately after reading the last page of book five in a teenage adventure epic : Cireşarii by Constantin Chirita.

Thanks for sharing your own stories. Great topic.

Algernon wrote: "I believe I will nominate Old Surehand by Karl May for that early teenage infatuation story. Part of the Winnetou series, it is the first book I remember reading repeatedly, until it..."

A lot of dedication goes into completely ruining the spine and stitching of a book! I only have one book like that. The Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang, which is held together with a rubber band. Thank you for sharing your story. Your background brings a whole new perspective to this topic.

The Dragon's Quest by Rosemary Manning. Funny, subversive novel about a civilized dragon in King Arthur's court.

The book I refused to return to the BookMobile. (Yeah, my love of reading led me into a life of crime!)

Adrian, I've gotten my library card taken away for about two years because of fifty dollars in fines. Just got it back. My rebellious side over books.

I feel like Eleanor & Park is my book, even more so now, because I've looked to the quote from Watchmen they quote to each other, "Nothing ever ends." My friend is in boot camp right now and he is amazing. He thinks I'm beautiful without makeup. He's protective of me. We haven't been able to talk at all since June but I keep "Nothing ever ends." in my head knowing he'll be home on my 19th birthday.

The difficulty is to pick ONE. I could do this 20 times and still not be done. But there is one quirky book that I recently rediscovered while working on a blog post about "running away with the circus" books: It's called A Stranger at Wildings, by Madeleine Brent. It's about a fat, unhappy, bratty little girl who discovers when her father dies that he wasn't really her father and that she has no claim on his estate or place to go, and in desperation attaches herself to a kind family of trapeze artists in a roving circus that happens to be in her town at that moment. She grows up with them and becomes a trapeze artist herself, but her past eventually comes seeking her out.

I also read Jane Eyre about 16 times between the ages of 12 and 16, and then didn't pick it up again for about 40 years. When I reread it in later adulthood, I couldn't fathom what made me so obsessed with the book!