Favorite Chapter Books

I really liked to read as a kid, maybe only because I didn't grow up with a GameBoy for a hand, but I'm sure I'm not the only one. Any book that had a big shiny Newbery Medal embossed on the cover had to be legit, and that was good for me, because how would I have known if a book was good or not without it? When it comes to Newbery medals, there were books like Hatchet. I remember picking up Gary Paulsen's Hatchet in the 4th grade and regarding it like "high literature," like the kind of thing "adults read." Here I was thoguh, I didn't even know what a "hatchet" was (even long into reading the story), but I knew at least that the cover had a howling wolf and teen guy, a giant ax, and a plane. It looked like it was shaping up to be a great outdoors adventure story, so of course I dove into it. "I can read," I figured.

Like most kids, I loved adventure books and had grown up on really obscure book series like The Ladd Family Adventures and Adventures in Odyssey, and so this book really was right up my alley and even looked so much more "mature" about it's adventure, so I knew I had to give it a look. In fact, it may have been the first so-called "adult book" I ever attempted. And I really mean "attempted," because the first time around I never finished it. My un-diagnosed dyslexia that I don't have (I think) was causing me to call the main character "Brain" rather than Brian, and I just remember thinking what a weird name "Brain" was for a guy. Whether Brain or Brian, this book really was a good adventure story of a youth going down in a plane crash and having to survive in the wilderness completely alone and with nothing but his trusty hatchet (which I only later figured out was an ax, since the cover didn't clue me in). I enjoyed it so much that I still find myself calling any weird berry I see in the woods "gut-cherries." Remember kids, red and sweet.

There was another book a teacher read to us about a young graffiti artist's daily romp for survival and his mad dashes to avoid the cops that I just drooled over, but for some reason I can't find any record of this story's existence and don't remember any details about it (even the title or anything) other than a thrilling shopping mall chase scene where he skillfully paints his insignia and manages to avoid security. He goes on to become a famous graffiti artist in the process. Now despite vanishing from existence itself, that story about the besieged graffiti artist may have been the first time I said "I want to WRITE one like that!" in response to a book, and that inspiration has never left. But then there definitely was yet another book that definitely does exist that I didn't so much read but had read to me (the teacher during story time in the 4th grade), but it has come down through the years as one of my all-time favorites and one that I still tell people had a major influence on me wanting to be a novelist and what kinds of novels I wanted to write. This was Dear Mr. Henshaw, by Beverly Cleary. 

I had read Cleary's Ralph S. Mouse books, or maybe had them read to me in story time, throughout the 2nd grade, but when it came to Dear Mr. Henshaw, I just remember being so captivated (even as a kid) by the drama and realism of that book. The story is a compilation of letters written by a boy over the course of several years to an author "Mr. Henshaw" who had visited his class when he was just a tyke. The first letter the kid writes is a class assignment and reads like a small child wrote it, but then for some reason this kid just keeps writing letters to this same author over the course of his life and that's where we get to see him grow up, we get to hear about all the turbulence in his family, his obvious need for a role model, his mood swings, the ups and downs, and his letters even start becoming long and detailed as he gets older. The book was all about growing up at an age when I thought I'd be 9 years old forever. I mean, this was pretty heavy stuff for a kids book, like LMN-heavy stuff, but it was the realism about life that got me, and that's why I said "I want to write books like that." 

If the Dinosaurs Came Back

Kids aren't as stupid as they look, or at least I wasn't. Eh.. okay, maybe not us boys, but girls at least are not as stupid as they look. Either way, I never let the fact that if the dinosaurs actually came back we'd all be screwed undermine the enjoyment I took from If the Dinosaurs Came Back by Bernard Most, a book I read upwards of a thousand times in those early years. I don't ever remember thinking that if the dinosaurs came back, they'd be plowing our fields, transporting us over traffic, giving us water rides at the beach, or putting out fires in tall buildings, but hey... whether they're helping us or eating us... wouldn't it be so cool?

And I certainly disputed the idea that T-Rexes would be more interested in chomping down trees rather than chomping down lumberjacks. I still think it's plausible they could be used to scare away robbers though, "scare" being an understatement. But none of that mattered to me much, for all the reasons that make kids dumb: there were funny pictures.

But what was this book about? It was about a little boy who dares to dream, as most of us do. To dream that if the dinosaurs came back, they would be our friends and let us use their long necks as bridges and their teeth as lawn mowers. In other words, he dared to be pretty dumb about dinosaurs. But why did I enjoy this book? There were funny illustrations of dinosaurs, with all the little details that you only notice when you can't really read the words, like how the lumberjack is holing up a giant log with one hand, or how the swimmer is struggling to get out of the way of the giant dinosaur at the beach, or how one of the skiers looks like he's about to fly right off the dinosaur's snow-covered back! Whoa!

Funny illustrations were all I needed. Even funnier were my own illustrations, where I too dared to dream, about the dinosaurs terrorizing humanity and giving us a lot of dino-fertilizer (like in Jurassic Park). I was either a brilliant satirist, or really was as dumb as I looked. But maybe that was the point. This book made kids think hypothetically at a time when all we were thinking was "dinosaurs!"

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

Here's how a song book from the 90s about the alphabet sent all us boys to Jupiter! If you don't know, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom was probably the first book most 90s kids learned to read. The whole thing was one big song about the alphabet letters climbing a coconut tree, falling down, and then climbing it again. Not Pulitzer material but it was catchy. What made it even more fun was that it often came with a cassette with narrations of the book by Ray Charles and the author on one side, and then a second side of all songs by the author. As much as I liked to read (I know, odd), I enjoyed reading more when it was read for me on tape in cutesy song form, complete with steel drums and goofy flutes.

"But chicka chicka boom boom, look there's a full moon..." read by Ray Charles is probably the funniest line in any audiobook ever.

Funnier was side two of the tape, where the author says that he came up with the idea based on the following children's chant, which I have memorized to this day: 

"Chigga chigga whole potatah, 

half-passed alligator, 

bim bam boligator, 

give three cheers for the dippy dappy happy sappy readers!

Are we happy? Well I guess.

Readers! Readers! Yes Yes Yes!" 

Chanting nonsense has got to be the best way to get kids to read. It taught us how rhythm can change what the story sounds like in our heads, whether we slow it down or speed it up, make it happy or sad, even if the words all stay the same. That's what makes it a great book. But then on side two of the tape came this chant that also taught me something about the sexes:

"My mother, your mother, live across the street,
18, 19 Mulberry Street.
When they get to talking, this is what they say:
Boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider!
Girls go to college to get more knowledge!"

Awesome! I thought. I get to go to Jupiter! 

The Truck that Drove All Night

This is probably more for the six-year-old me, but I came across this book one night (on one of my all-nighter web wanderings) and the memory of it was so vivid I knew I had to post it. Having said that, I don't remember at all what this book was about besides what can be gleaned from the cover: a muffineer and his living truck drive all night, and thus we have, The Truck That Drove All Night.

I guess they didn't want to make anything about the night look scary, because nothing ever goes awry in a story about muffins, even if it's also about a late-night trucker burning the midnight oil. I remember the headlights shining out the "eyes" of the truck and the cozy little interior, and that shiny grill. "Just drop those off at my house!" This book made me want a muffin. This book makes me want a muffin.

When I was a kid, staying up all night was some mystical thing. It's almost like you weren't sure day and night were connected, because you'd fall asleep and suddenly it's be day again. What happens if you don't fall asleep? Does night go on forever? Do night people live in the house at night while everyone's asleep? How can you be sure? Well, books like these made the night seem mystical and oddly well lit, but seeing as I've grown into a night owl, I've had plenty experience staying up all night and something about the magic is lost.

Now I can only imagine what mornings look like.

Flash, Crash, Rumble and Roll

If you need something to read while you ride out these April showers and scary thunderboomies (the ones I hear as I write this), the 8-year-old me provides you from his warped bookshelf Flash, Crash, Rumble and Roll. This was a book I must have read a hundred times before bed, whether it was raining or not, and it was one that taught me everything I know about thunderstorms and why they're too funny to be afraid of. Well, this, and the scientific fact that thunder is just the sky farting ("flash, crash, rumble, and roll"). That's just science.

Look at that cover (the old one I remember). Every page told a funny little story like that. Mom waits at the door of their 20-square-foot abode (attached to a lighthouse!) for blondie and pop who're racing in from a fishing trip gone wrong (everyone gets caught off guard in this book... no Weather Channel apps in those days). Clouds are always these menacing BLACK (not grey... BLACK) lumpy toasted marshmallows, and usually a dog or cat factors in somewhere too. The illustrations always told a story because there wasn't one (other than a storm blowing in, people running from it, and then going out). It was one of those 'educational books' about thunderstorms, as it taught you what to do and especially, what not to do, during one.

Did you know that lightning bolts can be over a mile long? Or that they may come from clouds that are ten miles high? Storms can be scary, but not if you know what causes them. Before the next thunderstorm, grab this book by veteran science team Franklyn Branley and True Kelley and learn what causes the flash, crash, rumble, and roll of thunderstorms!

Let's see, what did I learn? Lesson one, don't take a shower in a thunderstorm, lest you absorb any of those little lightning bolts on the medal shower head and handles. Lesson two, don't sit under a tree, lest lightning strikes it and sends it crashing down on top of you. Pretty dark right? Lesson three, cars are the safest place to be (it's not because of the rubber tires by the way). Lesson four, if you're on a bus coming back from camp during a storm, sing "Found a Peanut." Most importantly though, and I can't stress this enough, after you see a lightning flash, count the seconds until you hear the thunder (to find out how far away it is)... and if there is no time between flash and BOOM, then don't sit near the window and look for flashes!

Magic Eye

These were so 'in' in the 90's. I stared cross-eyed into so many of these Magic Eye books when I was a kid, my nose pressed into the pages, it's no wonder I ended up needing glasses. These things made my eyes hurt--which, save for sticking something in them, is a rare occurrence.  And even if I saw the hidden image, I could never figure out what it was.

Remember, blur your eyes, look "through" the picture...or something.