Ask Lemmy

The one that really struck me was "Starstreak: Stories from space!" It was a collection of short sci-fi stories including The Haunted Spacesuit and Who Goes There.

Turned me into a lifelong SF reader.

The Book Thief

As a small child: The Very Hungry Caterpillar

As a teen: Lightning by Dean R. Koontz

As a high-schooler: Island by Aldous Huxley

I read most of Dan Brown's books as a child and I really liked The Digital Fortress, Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code, but the one that marked me the most in my prepubescent years was probably Veronika Decides to Die by Paulo Coelho.

The first one I remember really being moved by was Earth Abides by George R. Stewart. But the first one I truly loved was Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny.

So you want to be a wizard by Diane Duane.

Kingdom of Shadow by R.A. Knaak.

I played lots of Diablo 2 back then and a friend once went into this small nook with books in a local games shop and showed me they have Diablo books. I wasn't much of a reader. I read some books that I enjoyed, but moat of them I was made to read.

I wanted to know more about the world of Diablo so I bought it. I mever expected it to grab me as it did. When I came home, I was like "let me read a chapter and go to actually play after". The boom jumped right into action with the first sentence and the PC was not turned on for 3 days (unheard of until then) as I used every free moment to read the book.

I bought other books in the series right after and then started to branch out to other fantasy series. This is the book that made me a reader. And I can thank a videogame for that.

My earliest remembered favorite is The Little Red Car by Bernice Orawski. Cute little kids book with lovely illustrations about a car having the worst day of its life.

I think mine would probably have to be the Darren Shan saga, starting with Cirque du Freak. I think I was 10 when I picked up the first book in the series at a random bookstore in Seoul, and I can't have been older than 12 when I finished the last one. I think that ending was the first time I cried at a piece of media.

Where the Red Fern Grows

I was a very sad child and that book gave me lots of excuses to be crying all the time xD

There was one early teen book series that my school library has where it was a town with weird things happening and kids investigate. Twice aliens came to get help from the kids. I can't remember the name of the series though.

The Green Odyssey by Phillip José Farmer

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Green_Odyssey

Watership Down

Idk about "loved," but I'll put "I can fly" since I remember reading it a lot.

In case others don't know it, it goes a little something like this (each line is a page):

"I can fly

Up, up, up

Down, down, down

Up, up, up

Down, down, down

Up, up, up

Down, down, down

I can fly"

Soup & Me

Star wars bane books and Kevin Mitnik's ghost in the wires. I couldn't put them down.

Can't remember which came first, but it was either The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley or The Castle of Llyr by Lloyd Alexander.

The Phantom Toll Booth!

Weren't they making a live action movie of that? I swear I saw a teaser trailer for it like almost a whole decade ago but don't remember the movie ever actually coming out.

Maniac Magee. I read it again recently and it really holds up well.

It’s basically a book about racism. This orphan kid doesn’t understand why this town is segregated, so he keeps going on the black side of town even though he’s white. He makes friends with all the kids and eventually the adults start to understand they’re not so different. The ending isn’t unrealistic, like the town immediately desegregating or something, but it’s very charming. It’s the little impact that one kid can have on the town that leaves a lasting impression.

I legitimately cried as an adult at one point in the book, because it has a way of getting you so invested in the characters, and I won’t spoil it but something happens to one of the characters. It hits hard.

It.

Old Man and the Sea, the first reading assignment I actually enjoyed. Sure it took 5 years after being weaned off of picture books to seriously get into reading, but hey I'm thankful because there's no adventure quite like the kind that comes from a good book.

The 1982 version of "The Amazing Adventures of Hercules". They re-released it in I think 2004, but butchered it.

The Hounds of the Morrigan by Pat O Shea. Pure Irish fantasy set in real locations I know in Ireland.

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (because it was read to me)

Pirate's Promise (first full book I read on my own)

The King, by Dick Bruna. I can still recite it by heart 53 years later.

The wizard of the Emerald City by Alexander Volkov

It's a toss up between Crispin and House of the Scorpion.. I read them back to back and they defined everything I liked going forward

I see many of my favorites, so I’ll throw down the first book I really remember loving as a kid because it is so touching:

The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein

The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

I was 11 when the book came out, so I was the perfect demographic for it. That book played such a pivotal role in my life at that age. I remember being excited for the next books and waiting for their releases.

I’m 41 now and I still will pick up any book by Pullman and read it. He is my very first favorite author.

Schott's Original Miscellany. I was a strange third grader, and I'm happy to report that I have grown stranger since.

Inkheart was the book that got me to love reading.And the ironic part is, the audio book book is not available anymore (think its because each chapter starts with an experpt from another book, so rights issues come into play) so now Im searching everywhere for real life Inkheart similar to the characters looking for fictional Inkheart.

Something by Robert Munsch