This inspired me to go through my box of "kid books" in the garage as well as some that are in the house so here are the ones that I have kept over the years-
Roald Dahl - The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, The Witches, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, The Magic Finger, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Esio Trot, The Phantom Tollbooth, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Dirty Beasts, The Enormous Crocodile, The Twits, the Vicar of Nibbleswick, The Giraffe the Pelly and Me
Anansi the Spider- Most of the books I got there didn't make the trip back from Kenya, but I did keep this one. Really wish I'd held onto more of those.
EB White - Stuart Little, The Trumpet of the Swan, Charlotte's Web
The Cricket in Times Square
Bunnicula
Brian Jacques- Redwall, the Bellmaker, Mossflower, The Long Patrol, Mattimeo, Salamandastron, Mariel of Redwall, Martin the Warrior
William Steig- Abel's Island, Dr De Soto, Dominic
Beatrix Potter- I am way to lazy to list all of these.
Asterix comics (I got into these when I lived in Europe and Africa)- Uh, I still have about 20 of these so not typing them out
How Come? by Kathy Wollard, looks like this has a newer edition which is cool.
Explorabook- holy crap I'm amazed this is intact.
Garfield books- I had a lot of these! Only a couple are still with me.
Charles Dickens- We'd read these as a family, my dad was an actor and always did spectacular character voices. Oliver Twist is probably the one I remember the most fondly. Bonus: I wanted to do a book report on Great Expectations in fourth grade and my teacher tried to prevent me because it was "too advanced" and she "didn't want me to keep reading". I don't know exactly what happened in that parent-teacher meeting but pretty sure my mom ripped her apart. I got to write about it.
Eloise- this book made me desperately want to live in a hotel and cause chaos
I have vague memories of several others but can't remember titles or details now. Darn.
Westside School is Falling Down
Do you mean the Wayside school book? That's the one where the school was built sideways. I liked this but had forgotten about it until now, thank you for the reminder!
As a topic starter let me start off by dropping a giant nostalgia bomb - Scholastic Book Fairs. Anyone remember those? (Or is it just me?)
This was my introduction to the concept of borrowing ahead on my allowance.
Grandma and Grandpa had a big collection of Berenstain Bears books, but I mostly remember Grandpa reading those to me and my cousins. He’d ad lib parts as he went it was the best. (“And then Brother Bear went downstairs for a beer.” “He did not.” yelled Grandma from the other room.)
Ooh yeah I forgot about these! And that's an amazing childhood memory.