Books that Changed My Life 03

Continuation of Books That Changed My Life 02


4. Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman - Ok, first off, the illustrations in this book are amazing. I love the colors and I remember them being so vivid when I was a child. I also love the story line, a little boy who loves pancakes and these tigers come to eat the pancakes but decide to eat him instead. He gives the tigers his beautiful cloths, and purple shoes to pacify them and everything is fine until they start to fight each other and then run around and around until they turn to butter. Just great!! What concept, and in the end our little Sambo is the winner all around. He gets his cloths back AND butter for his pancakes!!




5. The Twits by Roald Dahl- I loved this book because it was funny to see them be awful to each other. Who thinks to write a book about a terrible couple who hates everyone including each other! It was a deliciously disgusting book and my five year old thought it was the greatest!!! I know exactly what he sees in it because it was just as fun reading it to him as it was when my mom read it to me. And I will never look at a man with a beard the same way again!


These are just a few of the books, like I said I can remember hundreds of books my mom read to us. Maybe some day I will post all the books that I read when I was growing up, just for the fun of seeing the list myself.

What are some books that you remember from growing up and how have they affected you? Please comment below with some of your favorites.

Books That Changed My Life 02

Continuation of Books That Changed My Life

2. Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell - I am a sucker for books with a strong female lead. Something about how she has to fend for herself and then uses her resources to make friends with the wild dog and the strength she needed to bury her little brother. I don't know what I loved so much about this book when mom first read it to me, but this book struck a resounding tone with me. It is one book I was anxious to share with my ten year old daughter.








3. Summer of the Monkeys by Wilson Rawls - I liked this book so much because it was kind of a happy version of Where the Red Fern Grows. A story about a boy who gets an idea and sees it though. I also love how much I connected with the monkeys. They were so human at times that I wasn't sure who to root for. Then when he chooses to use his reward money to help his sister is just priceless!! Oh, and he gets his pony. I'd love to get a pony. : ]











Details for 2 more books are HERE!

Books That Changed my Life

This post is inspired by the Time Flies Friday blog hop, hosted by Passion for Novels

The Rules :)

• Follow Passion for Novels as host of the meme
• Please add the blog hop button so everyone else can enjoy their childhood books again!!
• Post about your book and why you love it so much!
• Add a link to my blog at the top of your post (http://passionfornovels.blogspot.com/)
• Add a link to your blog on the linky at the bottom of the page
• Make sure you visit all the other blogs!!!

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Books That Changed My Life

Today I want to talk about some books that changed the way I viewed the world. When I was young, my mom read to us seemingly every night. We would pile into her bed and she would read us chapter after chapter until we fell asleep, then dad would carry us to bed. We LOVED it when she read to us. There were old classics, Little Black Sambo, Where the Wild Things Are, The Box Car Children, Island of the Blue Dolphins, Summer of the Monkeys, The BFG, The Twits, just to name a few. As we got older, she picked other books; one I remember vividly was Mary Higgins Clark's book, While my Pretty One Sleeps.

It wasn't until I was taking a college writing class that my mom told me that she read to us because she struggled with reading and a college instructor told her to read out-loud to someone. I will be eternally grateful she choose to read to us. Having had her instill such a love of reading in us, I went on to devour books myself. I loved old and new. When we got reading assignments in AP English I read the books over and over again. I think I was the only kid in my class to finish and re-read The Scarlet Letter. I have read that book about 6 times now, always finding new depth and meaning. My husband thought I had lost my mind when I brought home the unabridged version of The Count of Monte Cristo.

I know that this exercise is to narrow down these books to my very favorite so I will try my best to keep the list under one hundred. :)

1. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Dendak - Where do I start! I LOVE this book because it is imagination at its best. You can feel his frustration toward his mother and how she doesn't get that he just wants to be a wild thing. I have those day still as a mother that I really want to be a wild thing and just dance my wild dances and howl to the moon while I swing from the trees. This book taught me that imagination was endless, and there was always someone at the end of the day that loved me even though I was just a little wild.

Details for 4 more books are HERE!