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encyclopedia brown

nate

ooops. i may have led us astray. lol it says for ages 3-6. i dont think i was reading encyclopedia brown at 6 years old. lol maybe 6-10 years old. my bad.

nate

No- I loved Tootle!!  He got off the tracks and chased butterflies, and they all told him trains have to stay on the tracks, but he was having fun. . .

You know, looking back- first of all I think a story about a train that chases things off the tracks is really rather frightening.  Secondly, it's conformist propaganda, isn't it?  Well, I didn't think so at the time.

Oh yeah, my favorite book at about 5 or 6 was the Doctor Doolittle series, I think.  Also Chronicles of Narnia- except my parents wouldn't let me read the last two books until I was eight or nine, cause Silver Chair scared me.

Everything is in Wikipedia, now.  Well, almost.

frog and toad were awesome. lol loved those books. i was trying to remember the name of that book but i couldnt. thats why i panicked and said encyclopedia brown. i was never a dr seuss fan. many on here are and we have had that discussion before.

nate

me and my girlfriend just went to see a play of the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe. it was pretty cool. never read the books as a child though. anyone ever read stories called "Nate The Great"? im not making that up lol he was a kid detective. similar to encyclopedia brown, but for even younger readers. they were good, i remember reading them and wanting to be a detective because of them.

nate

not seen it yet. kinda want to though. never been big on king.

nate

it's not got the lovecraftian influence of the story, but cusack's performance is quite good.

hold on i thought stephen king did horror?

Oh, he's so much better than most horror writers.  Perhaps I'll write more about that elsewhere.

Eyes of the Dragon is a fantasy/fairytale that came from a bedtime story he told his kids.  A lot of people who became SK fans at a young age started with that book. 

Also, the Dark Tower series is more of a fantasy than straight horror.  Although that one is aimed for adults.

I think you could just tell that the first set were written apart from one another, but then the later ones were written together.  We won't even discuss the ending. . .  Anyway, the brilliant thing to me is how the Dark Tower permeates King's work as a whole.  I think a lot of writers have an interconnected internal story-telling system, but King actually mythologizes it and draws attention to it in his works.

(Side note-  I was pissed when I found out Martin was Flagg, cause I had two totally different mental pics of them. . . I guess I should have realized it from Eyes of the Dragon, though.)

eyes of the dragon WAS good.

march

What about Bag of Bones?  That's pretty recent and quite good. 

I liked Lisey's Story much better than Cell.  Hated the ending of Cell and found the resolution of Alice to be without purpose.

In my opinion, good horror has to be character driven.  It isn't scary if you don't care about the characters.  The best horror should have a compelling plot in place even before the creepy stuff happens.

 (t's a definitive stylistic tactic of King's, the italicized internal monologuing of his characters.  Also, I would say that he uses foreshadowing much more than flashbacks.)

(This should go get it's own thread, practically.  I didn't read any King when I was 6.  See above comment regarding Chronicles of Narnia being too scary for me. . .)

I have trouble remembering back then :) Why do I feel so old?

I think I had a collection of picture story books, with tapes that you listened to, that read the story to you while you read the pages, and told you when to turn the page. They had music, special sound effects, and actor's voices for the dialogue. I remember ones for The Dark Crystal, Tron, Droid World (star wars spin-off) and Raiders of the Lost Arc.

little critter was pretty fun for that age range, 3-6. anyone remember them?

nate

i remember magic school bus.

http://books.google.com/books?id=BMTxGawoy1YC&dq=little+critter+books&pg=PT9&ots=-muwHkqgnK&sig=MzYWhPzW7K7IKSX8Q0gWSzKIcrc&prev=http://www.google.com/search%3Fhl%3Den%26q%3Dlittle%2Bcritter%2Bbooks&sa=X&oi=print&ct=result&cd=1

above is an image of little critter. someone has gotta remember them. lol hopefully...

nate

also, corduroy bear was a good one. me and my girlfriend were just talking about that one a few weeks ago.

nate