Writer's Block: Timeless tales

[nebroadwe]

[Error: unknown template qotd]

Let's see -- I went through a Nancy Drew phase and a Black Stallion phase in series books, but the stories that stuck with me tended to be Newbery medalists, with their lovely characterization and he-do-the-police-in-different-voices-quality dialogue. I loved Elizabeth Enright's Melendy Family series. I read Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles to death. I was a huge fan of Susan Cooper's Dark Is Rising sequence. I got my introduction to Latin from Graham Dunstan Martin's Giftwish and Catchfire. After I encountered Power of Three by Diana Wynne Jones, she was snatch-on-sight reading. Then, of course, there's The Lord of the Rings, to which I was introduced by my sixth-grade reading teacher, God bless her. That was a life-changing experience: a great book that introduced me to the joys of literary criticism and philology. Whee!

Comments

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Oops, I forgot l'Engle's Time Quartet in my list, too. :D I didn't start reading Diana Wynne Jones 'til college or later.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

I read L'engle early (grade school, I think), but she never grabbed me by the lapels the way some of these other writers did. Hmm. Except maybe for the brief period when I really liked A Swiftly Tilting Planet for all the secret history.

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

I've only read the Time Quartet and And Both Were Young by l'Engle, but I loved those books.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

man I totally forgot about the Prydain Chronicles. I did love those

[rudbekia.livejournal.com]

A series that got me at a young age not mentioned here was Maud Hart Lovelace's Betsy-Tacy series. I adored those books, and still read them from time to time. For me, they fill a similar spot as the Melendy Family books.