As many of you surely know, the good ol’ internet is just chockablock with great blogs and great blog subsets. Not surprisingly, I read an awful lot of writer ones. Okay, I read exclusively writer ones. I’m simple. What can I say? One of the better ones is The Lipstick Chronicles by three female mystery writers. One of whom, Harley Jane Kozak, is my editor for the upcoming anthology I’m participating in. (Shameless plug.)

A week or so ago, they discussed what books were most influential to them. With a few exceptions, most talked about books they read when they were younger, which got me thinking about the books I read when I was young. Those Lipstick chicks are right. Those books were, by far, the most influential – particularly for us slightly awkward bookish folks, many of whom later grew up to attend Star Trek conferences. But I digress.

The whole darn thing just makes me want to go buy a Judy Blume book. I was enchanted by her books and so many others. These were the days before most people had cable and nobody had VCRs or computers and the Super Mario Brothers were infants. The five TV channels we got didn’t have much to offer a kid other than Saturday morning cartoons, so the other six and a half days a week, I had to find my escapism elsewhere.

ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT’S ME, MARGARET. Remember that one? I loved that book. I read it over and over until the cover got ragged. I had no idea as a preteen devouring every morsel – training bras, periods and God – that it had been written in 1970, nine years before I was born. It seemed so real and immediate to me. Like Ms. Blume was living right next door and banging out pages just at the moment I was reading them.

Oh, and remember THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA? If only I could’ve found the magic wardrobe cupboard in my house, I was sure I could have gone to Narnia, too, to rid the land of the evil witch.

And then we traveled through space and time in A WRINKLE IN TIME. Still every bit as good as the day it was published in 1963.

And then there were the Mrs. Piggle Wiggle books, the Super Fudge books, HOW TO EAT FRIED WORMS, anything with the words “Sweet Valley High” in the title (it was the ‘80s), WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS, CHARLOTTE’S WEB, THE MOUSE AND THE MOTORCYCLE (God, I loved that one), every single solitary Encyclopedia Brown book...

My mom would take me to the public library once a week, the teacher would take us to the school library once a week and at the beginning of the month there were those book fliers the teachers would hand out. Does anyone remember those? They were maybe four pages long, made of newspaper and sold dozens of books that you could have delivered to your classroom. I’m inclined to say this was a Scholastic thing, but I could be wrong. I loved those things. (Although as an adult the marketing to kids while in school seems a bit disturbing...) Nonetheless, I’d take it home, spread it out and very thoughtfully and carefully circle the books that I wanted. Then I’d give it to Mom and hope she’d cave on one or two.

In hindsight, it’s amazing I stopped reading long enough to eat as kid...

If there are any others out there with fond memories of their childhood reading, feel free to post your favorites in the comments section. It’s never to late to catch up on the classics you missed. Heck, I read HARRIET THE SPY in college. (Yes, really. And it was good, too. Tons better than the assigned economics reading...)