Top Ten Tuesday|Books From My Childhood I’d Like to Revisit

Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish

This weeks top ten is “Top Ten Books From My Childhood I’d Like to Revisit”

*I don’t put my Top Tens in any order. 🙂

I. Chasing Redbird by Sharon Creech

II. Escape Under the Forever Sky by Eve Yohalem

Loosely based on real-life events, this suspenseful story, by a debut novelist, is also funny and touching and will have readers riveted from start to finish. Lucy’s mother is the U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia, so Lucy’s life must be one big adventure, right? Wrong. Lucy’s worrywart mother keeps her locked up inside the ambassador’s residence. All Lucy can do is read about the exotic and exciting world that lies beyond the compound walls and imagine what it would be like to be a part of it. That is, until one day Lucy decides she has had enough and she and a friend sneak off for some fun. But to their horror, Lucy gets kidnapped! With only herself to rely upon, Lucy must use her knowledge of African animals, inventiveness, will, and courage to escape, and in the process embarks on an adventure beyond her wildest imagination.

III. So B. It by Sarah Weeks

You couldn′t really tell about Mama′s brain just from looking at her, but it was obvious as soon as she spoke. She had a high voice, like a little girl′s, and she only knew 23 words. I know this for a fact, because we kept a list of the things Mama said tacked to the inside of the kitchen cabinet. Most of the words were common ones, like good and more and hot, but there was one word only my mother said: soof.

Although she lives an unconventional lifestyle with her mentally disabled mother and their doting neighbour, Bernadette, Heidi has a lucky streak that has a way of pointing her in the right direction. When a mysterious word in her mother′s vocabulary begins to haunt her, Heidi′s thirst for the truth leads her on a cross-country journey in search of the secrets of her past.

IV. Confessions From the Principals Chair by Anna Meyers

In Denver, Robin (a.ka. Bird) is in with the cool clique. They wear the same clothes, talk the same way, and pick on the same girls. But when her Mom hears about a cruel prank against a less popular girl, she isn’t going to tolerate the Queen Bee behavior.  Within 24 hours, she pulls up stakes and moves them both to Prairie Dog, Oklahoma. Bird is positively furious, and she’s going get revenge on her hippy artist mother. In fact, revenge is the only thing keeping her going in the remote town.  How she’s going to get it, though, she’s not sure yet. 
When she goes to register at the local middle school, she’s mistaken for the interim school principal.  Who is Bird to correct the mistake when a prank like this will really get payback on her mom?  Though she won’t be able to pull this off forever, Bird’s determined to make her mark on the middle school before she’s found out.  But life in the principal’s chair is going to give her quite an unexpected change in perspective.

V. Regarding the Fountain: A Tale in Letters, of Liars and Leaks by Kate Klise

The Dry Creek Middle School drinking fountain has sprung a leak, so principal Walter Russ dashes off a request to Flowing Waters Fountains, Etc.
…We need a new drinking fountain. Please send a catalog.
Designer Flo Waters responds:
“I’d be delighted…but please understand that all of my fountains are custom-made.”
Soon the fountain project takes on a life of its own, one chronicled in letters, postcards, memos, transcripts, and official documents. The school board president is up in arms. So is Dee Eel, of the water-supply company. A scandal is brewing, and Mr. Sam N.’s fifth grade class is turning up a host of hilarious secrets buried deep beneath the fountain.

VI. The Garden of Eve by K. L. Going

Evie reluctantly moves with her widowed father to Beaumont, New York, where he has bought an apple orchard, dismissing rumors that the town is cursed and the trees haven’t borne fruit in decades. Evie doesn’t believe in things like curses and fairy tales anymore–if fairy tales were real, her mom would still be alive. But odd things happen in Beaumont. Evie meets a boy who claims to be dead and receives a mysterious seed as an eleventh-birthday gift. Once planted, the seed grows into a tree overnight, but only Evie and the dead boy can see it–or go where it leads.

VII. Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar

There was a terrible mistake – Wayside School was built with one classroom on top of another, thirty stories high (The builder said he was sorry.) Maybe that’s why all kinds of funny things happened at Wayside-especially on the thirteenth floor.

VIII. Boy: Tales of Childhood by Roald Dahl

In Boy, Roald Dahl recounts his days as a child growing up in England. From his years as a prankster at boarding school to his envious position as a chocolate tester for Cadbury’s, Roald Dahl’s boyhood was as full of excitement and the unexpected as are his world-famous, best-selling books. Packed with anecdotes — some funny, some painful, all interesting — this is a book that’s sure to please.

IX. Everything On a Waffle by Polly Horvath

In the small Canadian town of Coal Harbour, in a quaint restaurant called The Girl on the Red Swing, everything comes on a waffle–lasagna, fish, you name it. Even waffles! Eleven-year-old Primrose Squarp loves this homey place, especially its owner, Kate Bowzer, who takes her under her wing, teaches her how to cook, and doesn t patronize or chastise her, even when she puts her guinea pig too close to the oven and it catches fire. Primrose can use a little extra attention. Her parents were lost at sea, and everyone but her thinks they are dead. Her Uncle Jack, who kindly takes her in, is perfectly nice, but doesn t have much time on his hands. Miss Perfidy, her paid babysitter-guardian, smells like mothballs and really doesn t like children, and her school guidance counselor, Miss Honeycut, an uppity British woman of the world, is too caught up in her own long-winded stories to be any kind of confidante. Nobody knows what exactly to think of young Primrose, and Primrose doesn t quite know what to make of her small community, either.

X. Pictures of Hollis Woods by Patricia Reilly Giff

Pictures of Hollis Woods In this Newbery Honor Book, a troublesome 12-year-old orphan, staying with an elderly artist who needs her, remembers the only other time she was happy in a foster home, with a family that truly seemed to care about her.