Meme: Top Ten Books I Wish I'd Read as a Kid

The Top Ten Tuesdays meme is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Show your appreciation by clicking on this link and checking out some more book lists on the other participating blogs.

This is a tough one, since I didn’t really read English at any kind of proficiency until my teens, so I really should list Icelandic books. However, few if any of my readers will have heard of any of them, so instead I will list books in English I wish I could have read as a kid. Some were available in translation, so theoretically I could have read them, while others were not.

(Later I may draw up a list of children’s books written after I grew up which I would love to have read as a child).

• Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. Such a wonderful children’s book. I hope it gets translated so Icelandic kids can enjoy it.
• Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce. I loved the movie and liked the book and would have liked to have discovered it as a child.
• A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I loved The Secret Garden, which I did read as a child, but I was an adult when I read this one and I found the little princess just too much of a goody two-shoes to like her. I would love to have been able to form an opinion of it as a child.
• At least one Nancy Drew book. They were available in Icelandic translations, but somehow I came to think they were about some wussy, fuzzy girl and never read them. Still haven’t, but maybe I should sample one.
• The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. Read it as a teenager, liked it then, would in all likelihood have loved it as much as The Hobbit had I read it earlier.
• Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren. I didn’t like Pippi when I read the books as a teenager, but I loved everything I read by Lindgren as a child. Ergo, I probably would have loved Pippi as well.
• A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle. It is a very good introduction to science fiction and just overall a good book.
• Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume. I think I was agnostic from the time I could think rationally, but I didn’t dare admit it until I was an adult. This book might have helped me see it was okay to say it out loud.
• Anything by Roald Dahl, especially Matilda and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I still haven’t read Matilda, but love the movie, and the other I liked when I read it not many years ago, but I would really have loved it as a child.
• I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. This is a good read for older kids, especially girls. I loved it as an adult but it would probably have become as much of a treasure to me as Anne of Green Gables did had I read it when I was younger.