anything by Walt Morey. Summer of the Monkeys. The Cay. By Secret Railway by Enid Lamont Meadowcraft. Daniel Manus Pinkwater's Fat Men From Outer Space and The Snarkout Boys and The Avocado of Death. The Bradford Family Adventures, christian boys novels written by Jerry B. Jenkins of later Left Behind fame.

oh, and Beverly Cleary lived in Portland, and much of Ramona's world is NE Portland. I'll show you Klickitat Street if you ever come to town. And we can visit the Beverly Cleary Children's Library.

I honestly only have sporadic memories pre-3rd grade but one that I specifically remember is reading my first book. I don't know if it was really just repeating what my parents had read to me thousands of times or not but it just came to me that night. It was a Berenstain Bears book. Another good memory is Encyclopedia Brown books being read by my parents on the way to church Sunday mornings.

When tiny, I loved Richard Scarry (and of course Dr Seusse).

My absolute fondest early book memories, though, are from my very tween years. My mother introduced me to Jules Verne and Isaak Asimov. Subsequently, Sci-Fi has been my absolute favorite genre for as long as I have been reading to myself.

I went through a Hardy Boys phase (isn't that obligatory?) and who can forget the Choose Your Own Adventure books? I also remember reading the Fank E. Peretti books -- kind of Hardy Boys meets Goosebumps for Christian youth or something. I even read the works of Judy Blume. I was introduced to her work by the Fudge/Super Fudge series -- I had no idea what I was getting into when I read her girly coming of age (getting periods!) books. That was the end of her, for me. Back to Science Fiction!

My favorite author of that age very likely was William Sleator. It was accessible, a bit absurd, sometimes fun but always with an underlying darkness intensity. The My Teacher is An Alien series eventually lead me to read the more thought provoking Singularity, a book I still feel haunted/moved by on some level. His book Interstellar Pig, which stands still today as one of my all-time favorite works, enjoyed many re-readings. Desite it being a work for the young, the premise and universe are just so clever, so unique. I've only just this year discovered there was a sequel to it and read it; I grinned like a loon the whole time. I want to go back and read the original again. Unlike Judy Blume or the Hardy Boys, I think it would still be a fun book even in my adulthood.

I remember Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume. I read all of the Peter and Fudge books and one of my early favorite books was The Mouse and the Motorcycle!

Loved The Cay. Loved Encyclopedia Brown and Choose Your Own Adventure, of course. I just remembered that my first exposure to Cleary was actually when my second grade teacher read us The Mouse and the Motorcycle in class. I loved that book. One of my other favorite Cleary books was probably Dear Mr. Henshaw. It was pretty different and more serious than her other stuff. I actually read it again in college and it held up pretty well.

Cleary
Silverstein
Roald Dahl
The Bearenstein Bears (very young years)
Choose Your Own Adventure (I only had like 2)
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs
Nancy Drew
Mrs. Piggle Wiggle
The Mandie series by Leppard (for girls)
Highlights Magazine
The Narnia Series
The Hooples Horrible Holiday
A Cricket in Times Square
The Apple Street Church Kids series

I also read all of my mom's Grace Livingston Hill (Christian romance) books and the Jeanette Oke Love Comes Softly series too, since my mom mostly kept just Christian books around the house.

It wasn't until I was about 12 that I started branching out with more secular stuff.

Well, if we're talking about picture books, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs rules all, followed closely by The Giving Tree. I grew up on Dr. Seuss and The Berenstein Bears though, for sure. In fact, the first book I actually read was a Dr. Seuss dictionary. I read it so much it fell apart and my parents had to buy me another copy. Also, Maurice Sendak and Steven Kellogg were the tops as far as illustrators go.