Meme from ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ignipes: List ten books that have stayed with you in some way. Don’t take but a few minutes, and don’t think too hard — they don’t have to be the "right" or "great" works, just the ones that have touched you.
Like Kali, most of these are from childhood:
Dinotopia by James Gurney: I wanted to live in Dinotopia SO MUCH as a child, I wrote a poem about it in my diary. Literally. And to this day, I love the imagination and adventure and camaraderie of it, the way the island is not really a utopia but actually pretty complex and constantly negotiating old ways and new faces, how science is valued by the protagonists, and the stunning art.
Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren: Who doesn't want to be Pippi when they don't grow up? Funny, bold, adventurous, and most of all kind, as loyal to her friends as they are to her, even when it involves sailing to the middle of nowhere and fighting off pirates with coconut projectiles.
Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli: I'm still kind of heartstuck on how this book was partly epic and mythologizing, but also quietly realistic about poverty and racism and homelessness and loneliness.
Bridge to Terebithia by Katherine Paterson: Well, this one scarred me for life. I remember being SO MAD at my older sister for giving it to me, because it made me cry so much.
Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers: Still my favorite romance ever, even if it is ostensibly a detective novel. Also makes me want to learn and read and create, which is the highest compliment I can give anything, IMO.
Dealing With Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede: Formative feminist fairytale remix, plus funny as hell. We literally read our copies until they fell apart, and I still have the taped-up remnants.
Sheepfarmer's Daughter by Elizabeth Moon: So the end of this trilogy got bafflingly Christ-image-y, but the first two were solid gold in terms of women being flawed yet pragmatically kickass as a career, plus surviving trauma and related h/c.
The Truce at Bakura by Kathy Tyers: Really this is a stand-in for the whole Star Wars Expanded Universe, but it was my first exposure to the idea that the story doesn't have to stop at the end of the movie. Also, there were soul-stealing lizard aliens. Who doesn't like soul-stealing lizard aliens?
The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss: Another book I literally read to pieces as a child, ridiculous ecology and all. Honorable mention to Island of the Blue Dolphins and Hatchet in the category of novels about surviving in the wilderness in isolation -- but I will want a treehouse to live in until the day I die, so SFR won.
The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley: Nngh, yes, flawed awesome ladies and their destined but hard-won badassery and their equally kickass and conflicted love interests who can't stop with the hearteyes. These are things I like. Also, magical swords and nearly-magical highly-trained horses. Yes.
ignipes: List ten books that have stayed with you in some way. Don’t take but a few minutes, and don’t think too hard — they don’t have to be the "right" or "great" works, just the ones that have touched you.Like Kali, most of these are from childhood:
Dinotopia by James Gurney: I wanted to live in Dinotopia SO MUCH as a child, I wrote a poem about it in my diary. Literally. And to this day, I love the imagination and adventure and camaraderie of it, the way the island is not really a utopia but actually pretty complex and constantly negotiating old ways and new faces, how science is valued by the protagonists, and the stunning art.
Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren: Who doesn't want to be Pippi when they don't grow up? Funny, bold, adventurous, and most of all kind, as loyal to her friends as they are to her, even when it involves sailing to the middle of nowhere and fighting off pirates with coconut projectiles.
Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli: I'm still kind of heartstuck on how this book was partly epic and mythologizing, but also quietly realistic about poverty and racism and homelessness and loneliness.
Bridge to Terebithia by Katherine Paterson: Well, this one scarred me for life. I remember being SO MAD at my older sister for giving it to me, because it made me cry so much.
Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers: Still my favorite romance ever, even if it is ostensibly a detective novel. Also makes me want to learn and read and create, which is the highest compliment I can give anything, IMO.
Dealing With Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede: Formative feminist fairytale remix, plus funny as hell. We literally read our copies until they fell apart, and I still have the taped-up remnants.
Sheepfarmer's Daughter by Elizabeth Moon: So the end of this trilogy got bafflingly Christ-image-y, but the first two were solid gold in terms of women being flawed yet pragmatically kickass as a career, plus surviving trauma and related h/c.
The Truce at Bakura by Kathy Tyers: Really this is a stand-in for the whole Star Wars Expanded Universe, but it was my first exposure to the idea that the story doesn't have to stop at the end of the movie. Also, there were soul-stealing lizard aliens. Who doesn't like soul-stealing lizard aliens?
The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss: Another book I literally read to pieces as a child, ridiculous ecology and all. Honorable mention to Island of the Blue Dolphins and Hatchet in the category of novels about surviving in the wilderness in isolation -- but I will want a treehouse to live in until the day I die, so SFR won.
The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley: Nngh, yes, flawed awesome ladies and their destined but hard-won badassery and their equally kickass and conflicted love interests who can't stop with the hearteyes. These are things I like. Also, magical swords and nearly-magical highly-trained horses. Yes.
