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Harry Potter. My mom had to read the first one to me every night, two chapters a night. Then I learned to read just before the second one came out. I still love the books. I own all of the series so far.

What I remember most from them is the first thing that happened. Voldemort killed Harry's parents, and couldn't kill Harry. Harry got a scar, Voldemort lost his body.

Red Scarf Girl was a favorite of mine. I loved the book, but back then I was small and uneducated and I had no clue what "proleteriat" or "rightist" meant. Now I do. And the book still kicks a**.

Hm, there was another book about children who flew in bathtubs to grow tulip whales. It made sense at the time. Dr. Seuss was a favorite too. I used to have nightmares about the Lorax, even though I loved him. gonk

I know! The Lorax was scary, but I couldn't help but feel sorry for him.

I had a book called "Small Pig" about a small pig who likes dirty places. One day, the farmer's wife cleans the pigpen. Small Pig got angry, and that night he runs away . . .
I loved it so much. I still have it. I think I could probably remember the entire thing, page for page. heart

My dad also read to me from three books. They were all in a series. If I remember correctly, the titles were "Tell Me Again Stories," "Just One More Stories," and . . . something else. My favorite was the story of the Sun King and the Rain King. Good times. smile

Then, when I was a little older and could read for myself, I found Miss Rumphius. Now there is a classic.

Anne of Green Gables was a favorite book of mine.
So were Boxcar Children and Babysitters Club

However, I was always reading. Beverly Cleary, the Paddington series, Borrowers, Littles, 5 Little Peppers, Avonlea series, all of the classic childrens literature
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One of the only children's books I ever really liked was The Lorax by Dr. Seuss. I always got mad at those bastards who cut down all the trees. ._.

Other books I liked a lot as a child were Rifles for Watie by Harold Keith and Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. x) I had that 10-page essay done in about two hours my Freshman year. Miss Havisham just needed a little love, man.

As a very young child, I liked 'The Dream of the Red Chamber' (I'm just translating from memory, mind). It's a Chinese classic, and as my professor father was working on some articles on it at the time, he thought he might as well kill two birds with one stone and read it outloud to his then-four-year-old daughter as a bedtime story.

Needless to say, we read about a paragraph per day, because every other sentence, he would stop to translate it from English to little-kid-English, my mom would pop in to give me the Chinese version, and both parents would collaborate to give me a short list of all the symbology and political impact behind the last paragraph. Not to mention the feng shui. xd

The really depressing thing is, more than eight years later, my dad is still working on articles about that book. (My mom, too, although she only recently started.) I guess it's just one of those fantasies that my dad will never fulfill, like magically becoming French overnight.

So, back to the questions. What made this book stand out to me? Well, as mentioned, my parents spent a great deal of time telling me about all the symbology, which, unfortunately, I don't remember all that much of. As a result, at five, I had had a more comprehensive understanding of that book than most of the students that my dad teachers. xd Although I definitely don't retain all that info now. But anyway, with all that background information proffered me by my parents, what could I not like about it? The characters seemed like older siblings to me, by the time we were done with the whole thing. I swear, I cried when it was over.

As for what I remember most from them--I remember not so much the individual plots as the actual reading-outloud. I remember my room, my parents bending over the book, the tones in which my dad portrayed the main characters. I remember a few of the traits of each character (there are a LOT of characters, though) and I remember the basic outline of the story. But more than that, I remember the little notes my mom made about all the random happenings. Especially her feng shui notes, since she continued to bring them up in years to come. I can still walk down the hall and just say 'feng shui; red tower' and she'll start on a ramble that goes something like, "hey, you know how that girl is always sick, and she has this servant, yah? Well, look at that servant's name, that's the name of a bird. And what was she in the last life, yah? HAH! It's all interconnected, yune, see how much detail!" Etc, etc.

And finally, do I still have this book. xd Yes. In fact, I have a lot of versions. We have the original chinese version (the text is original, obviously, not the paper), several abridged chinese versions with traditional characters, several abridged with simplified, a LOT of English translations, all my dad's consolidated essays (and his colleague's), and even a picture book. (Why couldn't they have bought that eight years ago? XD It'd have been so much more useful to me then!) And for my birthday they decided to get me a pocket version. Heh.

Obsessive parents. But I luff them anyways.

I can completely visualize that! I think someone got me a book of poems by Shel Silverstein a few years ago for my birthday, but my brother snatched it away before I could read more than the title. Methinks I should go dig that up again...