And you know that it's just a sonata away/ And you play/ And you play/ And Everything else goes away

I read many great books as a child: The Betsy series, The Austin Family series, The Chronicles of Prydain, The Enchanted Forest series, Little Women, Secret Garden, Jane Eyre, Diamond in the Window, Song of the Lioness Quartet, Princess and the Goblins, the Narnia books, Lord of the Rings, virtually everything by E. Nesbit, Anne of Green Gables, Little House series, Sherlock Holmes, Baby Island, the Oz books, Wise Child and Juniper, Catherine Called Birdie, Tattooed Potato, etc., etc., etc. We were an intensely book family.

I also read a number of not so good books. Most of these were mass-produced series and extremely formulaic. I can recognize now (and to some extent I did then, too) how bad these really are, but I still remember them with a bit of nostalgia.

Saddle Club: truly epic. This is the story of three privileged friends who live in Virginia and ride horses. They eventually come to own their own horses in most cases, they travel to exotic horse-related places, ride competitively, outsmart kidnappers, save horses from a forest fire (maybe? my memory is not great), and hand out a lot of soda. Lisa, or "Mary Sue" gets movie stars, handsome Italian men,"bad boy" ranch hands, and almost anything with a pulse to crush on her (she is like 11 or 12). Sarah and I still play a game where we try to name as many of these in order as we can; there were like 100 of them.

Nancy Drew: I didn't even really get into the original books, but I did read a lot of the later era ones, like one where Nancy and co. go to Arizona or New Mexico or something to solve a crime or where they have to join the Renaissance Festival as performers to ferret out something or other (these were really memorable). Later in my life I read this amazing book that analyzes Nancy Drew from a Jungian perspective; it is beyond description and I will gladly loan it to anyone.

Boxcar Children: So, I stand by the first few in this series when they were actually written by Gertrude Chandler Warner; they weren't so formulaic. But later they started to be extremely formulaic, and also much shorter. Basically Henry, Jess, Violet, and Benny solve some mystery, usually while traveling. You can see why I loved these books, since traveling and mysteries were/are two of my favorite things. Still, you can never get back the hours you spent reading these.

Happy Hollisters: I have such a fondness for these books. My father had them all growing up, and we read from his collection of these books, each one crimson with a black silhouette of Hollister children (let's see if I can remember them: Pete, Pam, Holly, Ricky, and Sue; man the brain space). These were also mystery books. My absolute favorite was the cuckoo clock one where they go to Germany; we lived in Germany for a bit when I was young, and we read this book many times while in Germany. I'm sure reading these outloud got old for my parents, though; they are a very, very, very happy family.

I could keep going (Girlhood Journeys, Magic Attic, Dear America, Sweet Valley Twins, Cam Jansen, etc.), but I think tat I'll stop.