Lists: Books I Have Long Outgrown BUT Still Miss

Sometimes I go to bookstores and I go to the kids section and just walk around looking for the books I read as a young Alexis.  It makes me smile and it brings back so many memories.  I think I look to make sure those books are still on shelves and make sure kids still get to read them.  The covers have changed so...  So here is my short and sweet list:


1.  The Babysitter's Club by Ann M. Martin

This was my all-time favorite series.  I almost bought a couple the other day (true story).  In this series a couple of middle school girls start a club where they essentially start a babysitting business.  The series centers around their babysitting endeavors and the everyday issues that young girls go through.

Looking back:

I didn't think about it at the time, but I think middle school is too early to babysit. Right?

At the beginning of each chapter there are journal entries.  I used to get really excited because towards the back of the book, at least one journal entry would be in cursive and I could read it.  I thought I was something special :)

2.  The Nancy Drew Series by Carolyn Keen

I started reading this series because my mom recommended it to me.  So you already know that this is a pretty old series, but it is still really good.  There aren't any strange views of women or anything like that and the series was revisited in the 80s to get rid of racial stereotypes.  Nancy Drew is a girl detective who stopped at nothing to find the truth.  She often found herself in dangerous situations and enlisted the help of her friends Bess Marvin and George Fayne. I loved how smart she was.

Looking Back:

This was probably my first introduction to a strong intelligent adventurous woman.  Whoohoo!  I also read Nancy Drew Files.

I think it pays to research this series because it was first introduced in the 30s (like really?) but it doesn't read like that.