Old books

[afuna]

We're cleaning up the library downstairs, throwing out the trash, and going through the big plastic boxes of old books trying to figure out which ones are donatable. The books on the shelves are mostly fiction and reference. Children's books, old magazines, and textbooks were packed into plastic bins a couple of years back -- these are the ones we're going through now.

We're planning to donate them to AHON, which is trying to raise a million books to donate to public schools throughout the country. It makes me a bit sad to have to part with them, as many of these books were part of my childhood, and I read and reread them endlessly, but I don't read them these days. Hopefully the kids who end up getting these books will enjoy them as much as I used to!

Lots of Bobbsey Twins, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Choose Your Own Adventure books, Sweet Valley Twins/High/University (I wasn't an obsessive fan: something about them being episodic made me feel as though they were disposable. I could skip a book without having to worry about it affecting my experience of the next one, so there wasn't any motivation for me to go out and buy them. However, I gladly read whatever was given to me. The Sweet Valley High and University ones were passed down to me by a cousin who outgrew them. The detective and CYA ones were bought by my brother).

Sweet Valley Twins were my sisters', and I read those as a kid. Got bored quickly because seriously, grrr. But okay. The one thing I really remember from those was that there was someone named Aaron. Two A's! I couldn't pronounce it, and it bugged me.

Sweet Valley High books I read quite late, some time in my early teens. I remember that I felt so guilty about reading them because theey sucked so much, but I couldn't stay away because they were there, in the home library, an entire box of books I had never read. So I'd grab a few at a time, zoom through each, and sneak them back in. I knew they would suck, and they did, but it took so little time to read each book (less than an hour), that I ended up using that to justify myself ;)

Other than the Sweet Valley books, I think my cousin also passed down something about Pee Wee Scouts, and Birthday Girls and, umm, a couple of kiddy books (New Kids in School? something like that) about kids which were... nice, but too kiddy for me, even back when I first got them. I do remember that one of them mentioned candy corn, which is where I learned about that treat (though I don't remember ever eating it *g*).

I hated CYA books. I always felt the need to know each and every branch, and it was annoying to have to backtrack after finishing one branch in order to go down the other branch. Things got worse when there were three choices. (CYA makes me think of recursive function calls. Or maybe recursive function calls make me think of CYA?)

By the way, does Ellen Kushner sound familiar? She wrote an Outlaws of Sherwood CYA, and the author name sounds very familiar, but I can't quite place her.

Other old favorites, individual books or short series that probably no one has heard of: Jacob Two-two and the Dinosaur, Richard and the Vratch, The Pink Pig, some Encyclopedia Brown (I want to reread these to be honest!), Space Brat (by Bruce Coville), The Janice Project, someone something at Follyfoot. A bunch of the other covers and titles sparked memories, but I didn't remember reading them until now.

I remember always planning to read A Fine White Dust, which we had two copies of for no reason that I can remember, but I always put it off because the illustration spooked me a bit. Really pale kid, and the blurb talked about a Preacher (yes, capitalized) and it just freaked me out.

There are also some children's books that were my younger brother's for school -- and I used to be sooo envious of him because they actually read entire books at his school, not just short stories or summaries. Never had that in my school (not even when we took up Shakespeare; now that was a bit of a joke >_>).

Anyway, I am pretty sure that we have at least a couple of hundred ready to be donated. Mostly fiction, but there are a couple of textbooks in the mix as well :)

Comments

[lacey]

Did you ever read any of the Babysitter's Club books? I loved those when I was younger.

[afuna]

I have read one, I think, but I don't really remember much about it other than that it had a silver cover *g*

[lacey]

I loved them.

[afuna]

*snuggles*

[lacey]

*huggles*

[cyrnelle.livejournal.com]

We used to throw tantrums each time my father said he was going to sell/give away our old books. We eventually parted with them *sniff* and hopefully they went to kids who would enjoy them.

Re: Ellen Kushner -- she wrote the Swordpoint series. Not sure if it's the same Kushner who wrote your book, though. (It probably is?) Her latest book in the series, Privilege of the Sword, from what I've seen, keeps getting critical reviews, so maybe that's why she sounds familiar. Haven't read any of her books myself, though.

[afuna]

We've never given away any of our books before. Never. This is a first for us, which is one reason we have so many *g*

Ellen Kushner -- she wrote the Swordpoint series.
Aha! That explains it. I knew she'd written something in fantasy, but I could not place what and I was beginning to think that I'd confused the "Kushner" with "Kushiel" (of the Kushiel's Dart series)

I think I'll go pick up one of her books when I have time. I vaguely remember that they look interesting.

[pne.livejournal.com]

Ah, that brings back memory of when I was at school.

I checked out lots of Tom Swift (by Victor Appleton III, IIRC, which makes it the second TS series?), Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and Three Investigators from my Junior School library. I suppose I was in fifth grade or so given that I used the junior school library.

I still read them - especially Tom Swift - occasionally even later, even though you weren't "supposed" to use the junior school library once you were in fifth grade.

Then when I was 16 or so, I read the first 25 or so books of Sweet Valley High, which were in the Middle School section which the school had started up a couple of years earlier (before, there was just a big Secondary School section covering both Middle and Senior School -- roughly, US Junior High and High School, respectively -- with little specifically geared towards grades 6–8). I remember the librarian asking me to stop reading those books once when he saw me checking out another book because it was just "wrong" for someone my age to be reading them :)

I read them more for the ironic value. But then, I tend to like my reading entertaining, not mind-searching, so they fit that bill well enough, too.

Did you ever read any -- as I've seen it called -- "Nancy Blyton kiddietrash"? Famous Five, Secret Seven, Mallory Towers, St. Clare's, etc.? I had a few Famous Five books when I was a kid, and one about a William who kept getting into mischief (not by Enid Blyton though), and similar books.

[afuna]

Hm. I think the Tom Swift ones we have are also the second series (the second book was about a Cyborg Kickboxer. I don't know why I remember that; I hardly remember anything else about the books).

My school didn't have a very good library (it jumped from Enid Blyton and horse-books to crime&suspense&thrillers, none of which I was really interested in, though I'd read them if there was nothing else you understand, and there was nothing else so yes I did read some Enid Blyton *g*). Besides the quality of the books, however, was access. There was only one library from elementary to high school (sort of a small school), but when I was in lower elementary, they actually had the library entirely closed off to non-highschool students so you couldn't browse through the books; you had to have a library card (which they wouldn't give you until upper elementary), and anything you wanted to borrow, you had to request from the librarian through a tiny window (and there was only one window, and only one librarian IIRC -- I never actually borrowed from there. I wasn't old enough to have access to a library card when they still had that system).

When I was in upper-elementary, I think the year before I would have been old enough for a library card, they erected a new building, and set aside a big room for the books (previously it had all been in a cramped room, which explains why students weren't really allowed/encouraged to browse through it before, but I wish they'd given out the library cards earlier). And because the books were more accessible, they gave out the library cards earlier I think... but the library was now on the second floor, in a different building from the classrooms, and my classroom was on the fourth floor (The old library had been on the fourth floor, also in a different from the classrooms, but a closer one -- you just had to cross the bridge between buildings to get there). To get to the new library, you had to cross the bridge, and then head down a long hallway (it'll probably seem short to me now but it seemed so long back then!)

To make things worse, school was from 7:30 to 4:30, and the library was open at the following times:
* early morning (6:30? 7:00? to 7:20) -- but I was rarely early enough to reach this, and sometimes even when I did go that early, they wouldn't actually open the library until almost time for the morning bell
* a few minutes after morning recess started, but it'd close five minutes before the bell (so a bit after 9:00 to just around 9:10)
* lunch time! (students at my grade level only had 40-minute lunch breaks, not a full hour, plus they still closed a bit earlier so less than the full forty minutes, and some of that time I had to eat lunch, and it took like five minutes either way to walk up and down the stairs)
* afternoon recess (3:00 - 3:15, but with the same restrictions as morning recess)

and it was closed during dismissal! I still sometimes tried the trek, but the books weren't in the genre I really liked, and given everything I've said above, I didn't have much time to browse. Basically a visit to the library, most of the time, meant running down with my library card, swiping a couple of books from the shelves (or maybe it was only one? I remember we were limited to one or two), standing in line to borrow the books, and then running across to the other building and back up several flights of stairs.

Sorry *grin* I just had to rant because I really wanted to get those books, but so many things stood in the way, it was absolutely ridiculous.

[pne.livejournal.com]

Wow, that were pretty harsh hours.

I think our library was opened something like 8:30 till 15:30, with school going until 15:00, so you had all recesses and a bit of time after school.

I also remember being limited to one book per week in first grade and two books per week in second grade, which I found rather limiting as I tended to go through them fairly quickly even back then. (In those grades, we had a "Library" class once a week, which basically consisted of storytime I think, and afterwards we were allowed to check out a book. So even if I brought back my book the next day, I would have had to wait until next week's Library class to check out another one.)

And while in Junior School, I think the Secondary School library was off-limits to us, which was also a bit annoying when I was in grade four or five.

[afuna]

What I ended up doing was asking my older brother, who studied in a different school, to borrow books for me from his library. They had better books, and a better schedule (the library was actually open past dismissal :O fancy that!). One year, he borrowed so many books, that he actually won an award for being the most prolific borrower (it was either money or a book, I forgot, hah). He borrowed a lot of Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew and umm. I remember something about a Nurse Cherry. He also borrowed lots of non-kiddy books, mostly fantasy and science fiction, which was fine by me (I'd occasionally ask him to borrow books he had borrowed before so that I could reread them.)

I don't think I've ever read any Three Investigators, and hmm. Not any of the kiddietrash you mentioned, not as a kid anyway. However, I recently bought some used books in a booksale, and I know that it contained some Mallory Towers books and some St. Claire's books, which I'm planning on reading eventually :-)

(Hit the comment limit with my ranting. Oops!)

[pne.livejournal.com]

The funny thing about Mallory Towers is that I read them in German -- where there are more books than in English!

IIRC, the English version has six books, with Darrell's life in school till graduation.

The German translation calls her Dolly, and continues on past graduation to have her come back for a kind of graduate study, then later to become a teacher. They're still issued under the "Enid Blyton" name but they aren't translations of any book she wrote, instead being written by ghostwriters.

I guess the series was more popular in Germany than in England? No idea how that worked.

At any rate, I read both those and some of the St. Claire's books ("Hanni und Nanni" in German) since my sister had them. Also a horse book or two of hers :) and some Trixie Belden books (which I think aren't a translation of an English series -- still targeted towards girls rather than boys, though).

[aveleh]

My sister was the Sweet Valley reader, and I tended to read them too for the same reasons as you: how could you not read something that was *there*?

I've definitely read Jacob Two-two; that's iconic Canadian lit :) I used to read Encyclopedia Brown to my daycare kids; it meant I had a good collection of shorts for getting the older ones to think and the younger ones to giggle. Some of the others in that set look familiar, but I can't place them.

[afuna]

I know! I mean I did put it off a bit because there were so many other interesting things that were *there*, but I got around to it eventually!

*grins at Jacob Two-two* I actually had no idea that it was Canadian, and I don't think I ever knew that there was more than one book about that kid. Encylopedia Brown... I wonder if there are any resources online to reread them? I feel a wave of nostalgia coming along.

[keilexandra]

Eee, Ellen Kushner! She's written several novels, including THOMAS THE RHYMER and her acclaimed SWORDSPOINT, plus sequels THE FALL OF THE KINGS (with Delia Sherman) and THE PRIVILEGE OF THE SWORD. I heart her.

[atomic-clay.livejournal.com]

A couple hundred? Woah. @_@

But then again, I don't have of those CYA books (1 or two, I think - I mostly have the Goosebumps versions haha) and my sister didn't really have that many SV titles. XD

And I read most of the Hardy Boys stuff in the school libraries in GS. XD

OMG I remember the travesty that was the HS English "curriculum." It was pretty easy for me though (and for you too, I'd bet, seeing as we were classmates in M02 haha). XD That really makes me consider whether to send my future kids, if any, to St. Jude, because man, I hate it when people talk about books they read in HS, and all I remember actually reading for school was Harry Potter. O_O

[afuna]

Mostly thin books! And a lot of series kasi :) That's just my estimate, though. We didn't actually count, though now I'm really tempted just because I'm curious...

Konti lang ang Hardy Boys stuff sa library ata eh :( By the way, tama pa ang pagkaalala ko sa library ng school natin? Nag-rant kasi ako upthread, hehe. Pero baka mali ang memories ko :-)

Also, also. Sobraaaang laki ng galit ko sa English classes natin. Sobrang walang kwenta, lalo na yung Shakespeare??? Biro mo, mga kapatid ko sa Xavier, grade school pa lang nagbabasa na ng mga libro. Tayo never. As in literally puros short stories lang ever. Napikon nga ako nang nagka-abridged version tayo ng Rip Van Winkle noong third year high school. Kasi kasi... di man lang pinabasa ang buo. Short story na nga, pambata na nga, abridged pa!!! Bastossssss, hehehehheheh.

(Did we read Harry Potter for school? Parang di ko maalala yun O_o) Naalala ko pala may book report tayo noong grade six, but that was any book naman eh...

[afuna]

OMG naalala ko bigla. Mayroon tayong isang libro, yung kay Chinua Achebe (Things Fall Apart) pero yung book report na pinaghirapan natin, ginawa na lang seatwork diba, tapos di rin naman natin nadiscuss ang book sa class, so wala ring kuwenta? hehehe :)

[atomic-clay.livejournal.com]

Haha and I got OC in every CYA-style book I read. Used my fingers and/or a lot of bookmarks to get all the branches though. XD

This is why I take so long to finish RPGs too. Haha.

[afuna]

Used my fingers ... to get all the branches though. XD

Ganyan exactly yung style ko :DD

Di ko magawa sa mga RPGs, though. Diba most of the newer ones, you can only follow one branch? Do you actually back track and redo the game play from a save point? The most I've ever done in RPGs, I think, is to go through all the possible branches of conversation sXD

[atomic-clay.livejournal.com]

Haha!

Depends though. For some, I tend to create new characters, and try out totally different paths. But for the older ones, use save points to try out the results of different actions/conversations. :) Or read walk-throughs to save you the trouble. XD

Richard and the Vratch

[(Anonymous)]

Hi afuna,
I'm Beatrice Gormley, author of Richard and the Vratch and many other books for kids and YA. I liked your description of how you read as a kid--basically whatever was on hand, whether you especially enjoyed it or not. That's also the way I read growing up, even covering some of the same territory (Nancy Drew, the Bobbsey Twins).
Richard has been out of print for some years, but now I'm republishing it as an ebook. If you have fond memories of reading Richard and the Vratch, maybe you'd be willing to give me a blurb for the ebook?
In any case, it's nice to think of your copy of Richard and the Vratch (the pages must be brown by now) going to AHON!

Re: Richard and the Vratch

[afuna]

I wish I could -- I really do! But while I retain a fond impression of the book, it's been so long since I read it, I don't remember any specifics.

Would you mind if I made a new post, asking whether any of my readers are interested? I know a bunch of them love YA, so there might be some better luck there. I ask to make sure it's not too public, etc; it might be too presumptuous for me to make the information public before the actual publication of the ebook.

PS. Yes the pages are very very brown *grin* I really hope that whoever gets the donated copy enjoys it as much as I did.