Meme instructions:
Don’t take too long to think about it: Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you.
First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.
1. Ender’s game by Orson Scott Card – story just struck me as a good one, the whole series is thought provoking.
2. Go Jump in the Pool by Gordon Korman. Back in grade 7, my teacher, who I didn’t like that much, suggested I try Korman’s Bruno and Boots series. I didn’t then, but in grade 8, a kid did a book report on another one of his books, which I did wind up reading, and eventually read almost all of them. That teacher I didn’t really like was right after all.
3. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon – escapism at its finest. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve read it.
4. Gravity by Tess Gerritsen – my copy has a sticker on it “soon to be a motion picture” but it never got done. Good story anyway. You can see my “stick with” list isn’t very educational. heh.
5. A Doll for Francis by ?? — Liked this one because Francis was ingenious with her creativity and wound up making a doll that was very unusual. Maybe she couldn’t afford a real one? It’s been a while.
6. Magic Elizabeth by Norma Kassirer — found it in grade 3 or so, in our classroom book carousel and read it several times. Lost track of it for years, even forgot the title after a while. All I could remember was a clavichord, a doll, and beaded curtains. But, one flea market I walked by a box and there it was, same scholastic cover and everything. Still a great story about a girl who finds an old doll, has a “back-in-time-dream-or-is-it” experience that winds up in her better understanding her great aunt.
7. Jane-Emily by ?? — grade 7 book selection. Have always wanted to find a copy of this. Something supernatural goes on, focused on a glass garden ball. Was completely mesmerized by it as a kid.
8. The Forgotten Door by Alexander Key – Boy from another dimension drops into ours, figures out a mystery before he can be punished for something he didn’t do. Fabulous story, though. Read it bunches of times.
9. Mine for Keeps by Jean Little – a physically disabled girl goes to normal school for the very first time and although she’s nervous about it, she makes friends and winds up getting a dog that she can care for and raise by herself, which helps her gain confidence about what she’s capable of. Good one.
10. House of Stairs by William Sleator — could pick anything by him actually. In this one, a group of kids wind up taken for a strange behavioural experiment, Skinner, Pavlov style.. a couple kids start to fight whatever weird ass programming the people running this thing want and eventually all of them get rescued, but nobody’s really the way they were anymore.
11. The Root Cellar by Janet Lunn — girl winds up going back in time to the days of the Civil War, makes a few friends, tries to get home somehow. Should read that one again, actually.
12. Tunnel through Time by Lester Del Rey — boy finds out his father and a fellow scientist have figured out how to go back in time but the scientist gets lost when they first try it. The boy and his dad wind up going after him. A rollicking adventure in 160 pages.
13. Stardancers by Spider and Jeanne Robinson — a dancer dreams of taking her skill to the stars, as zero-G is the only way she’ll make her statement. Just so happens that while she’s learning how to express herself that way, an alien entity is also getting interested in her progress and she finds a way to communicate with them that eventually changes everything for humanity.
14. The Boy who Reversed Himself by William Sleator – girl finds out classmate can get to another dimension above ours. Insists on learning how to do it herself, drags the boy she likes into a fourth dimensional horror story that only the original classmate can get her out of. Guess who she winds up with.
15. Singularity by William Sleator – twin boys who don’t get along that well find out about a cabin where time kind of acts weird, and something might be trying to get through from another dimension, or the other side of a black hole. The twin who gets picked on the most decides he’d be better off if he was the older one and stays in the cabin overnight – a year in cabin time – just because his brother threatened to do it and wanted to do it first. Bizarre, but intriguing.
Okay, that’s 15 and I think it took longer than 15 minutes. Ah well.
I’m supposed to tag 14 friends or something but instead, if you read this and want to try it, link back to me. Thanks.
