Omg someone needs to do a real statistic study on this because I had a horse thing too in elementary, especially if our main girl was like a orphan or abandoned, it was a thing for me in elementary especially if it had fairytale gardens or plants 😅
I so appreciate your stance on Children's Literature and children being able to read darker things and how important it is for them to have a place to explore that. Not every kid has a safe and happy and un-traumatic childhood (unfortunately), it's important for them to have a place to process that, it can also help give other kids understanding and compassion for their peers who may be dealing with deaths in the family, the loss of a parent etc.
Seconded! My family didn't let me read ASOUE after I explained the plot to them because "it was too dark and scary for kids". This was after me reading all the available Potter books and many unfortunate events happening in my own family life, but sure the books about kids persevering through a tough life was too dark.🙄 Kids can absolutely handle dark things aimed at their age group, you're exactly right.
Yes! I had great parents and a relatively comfy childhood… and I still struggled with my absolutely horrible mental health as a VERY young child all the way through being a a young adult. Reading books that dealt with difficult topics, starting with a book my mom bought me about a child who was getting sibling and felt neglected (that amazingly the early 1990s depicted a mixed race family) was how I was able to understand myself and my feelings. I also had so many friends who did not have wonderful parents or nice childhoods and I can say with certainty that the books I read were a lot more helpful in feeling prepared to be a good and supportive friend to them than any of the adults we had around to turn to (I did my teen years in a very conservative town)!
You don't need a traumatic childhood to enjoy darker stuff. I loved more serious and adult content when I was young and my childhood was pretty much idealic until I hit my mid teens. On another note, I had to spend a couple of days in the hospital when I was 13. Nothing serious, pretty routine operation but dad brought me a book to help pass the time. Dad was retired Navy and loved naval fiction so he brought me a novel about a sub mission during the cold war. I don't think he realized that book contained a VERY explicit and detailed sex scene in a Thai brothel. That was quite the eye opener.
Came here to comment this because yeah it was really important for me as a kid that I had books that dealt with darker themes when I was going through some dark things. It made me feel not alone and I don't know what I would've done without some of those books!
I remember when I studied children's literature at uni, we talked about why the orphan trope is so common - with child protagonists, you want the children to have agency and make consequential decisions. but for a child to have the kind of agency that is interesting to read about in fiction, the adults often need to be off the page, because in many cases a responsible reaction would be for the adult to step in. and there's a very complicated relationship between writers/publishers and parents, where both need to trust the other not to fully undermine them in order for children to even get a book to read. so a lot of the time instead of having super negligent parents, or constantly portraying what in real life would be reasonable boundaries as unfairly restrictive, it's easier to just write them out of the picture altogether
Exactly. The author needs to find some plausible reason for the children/teens in the book to have the freedom to do all the crazy things they need to do for the story. Easiest way to do that is just get rid of the parents. This is also one of the reasons romance characters tend to be either independently wealthy or have very flexible and remote jobs like writers. It's not just because women find that attractive, it's also because they have the freedom and ability to do all the spontaneous and romantic things. A trauma surgeon working 60 hours a week throughout the night is a lot harder to write a good story about outside of his work.
The thing with A Series of Unfortunate Events is that it’s actually pretty humorous. Lots of little jokes (both conceptual and visual) written into the text. The humor is definitely a bit dark at times, but I think that’s why they were popular. They were just so different from other children’s series available at the time.
“the asylum that raised us” is accurate 😭 ‘93 baby here!! the Georgia Nicholson books/the clique books/ASOUE/etc are still in my goodreads and goodreads favorites!! I have so many good memories of loving these books so much and they meant so much to my younger self!
walking around with a book titled "On the Bright Side I'm Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God" really was a test of my self confidence as a teen and I am thankful for it hahaha
@@caricanread PLEASE that just brought up a memory: I got caught once reading one of the books in a class and my teacher read aloud the definition of “nunga nungas” to the whole class 😭 we are braver than most, Cari.
I remember always wanting to read the American Girl books, but they were basically never on the shelves at my local library bc they were constantly checked out or on hold. I think by the time the popularity had died down enough I was past the age to be interested in them. I do still see them at every garage sale and thrift store I go to, and I'm always tempted to pick one up. But for now I fulfill my childhood fascination with them by watching that 6 hour video on the Kirsten books and dolls lol.
I gotta say I feel like I blinked and now all of a sudden every youtuber is 22 years old so I really appreciate that we’re the same age (well, i’m 29 but close enough!) there’s a kinship between our early-90s generation that makes me feel v warm and understood. that being said: we grew up reading the EXACT same books omg ly girl
His Dark Materials in middle school. I think the idea of a companion that was always around and had a good idea of what I experienced and how I thought really appealed to me.
As a German girl, I was obsessed with Kerstin Gier, especially the Ruby Red series and honestly, they still hold up. I reread them whenever I'm sich because they are easy, so funny and you can read them in a day. + It has time travel
I'm Moroccan but I reread this trilogy so often as a kid, I thought it was peak litterature, and the movies were also amazing to me, such a big part of middle school for me. I rarely see anyone talk about it on the book community, definitely deserves more hype!
'95 baby here, how did i forget about Magic Tree House?! I read Twilight after a friend introduced my sister and I (twins) to the books and said they are making a movie of this next year. After that we were hooked, and would re-read over and over to the point our mom practically begged us to read something else. It helped that we started highschool in 2009 so had a better school library to pick from, but still would go back from time to time
hi cari!! my first fandom was percy jackson and i feel like you’d have loved it!! i still reread it at least once a year since i was 10 (i’m 25) and it never gets old 😭🥹🩵 (sorry if my english is weird, much love from brasil 🇧🇷)
Haven't watched the video yet but just seeing The Clique in the thumbnail unlocked some deep deep memories. That cover was kind of iconic. I used to be sooo jealous that my school wasn't anything like theirs lol
94 here! My first book I read in one sitting was a Junie B Jones. My mom thought I was still asleep, but I’d gotten up and read it in my room by myself in one morning. I was devastated when she became a first grader but I kept reading them.
98 here! Junie B was the first books I obsessedddd over and I still have my childhood collection of them all! I reread them so many times that I could probably still tell you stuff that happens in most of them lmao
I had all of The Little House on the Prairie books the were passed down to me from my mom! They were literally falling apart because we both loved them so much.
95 baby here and I LOOOOVEEEED the Little House books - my library even had the spinoffs centred around Laura's mother, grandma and great-grandma as girls and I ate them tf up!! Probably the grounding for me working in history today :")
Born in 1994 and growing up in South Africa, I can say L.J. Smith had us in a CHOKEHOLD. I remember watching The Vampire Diaries on my Blackberry Curve over and over again on the bus. So much nostalgia.
Omg the box car children made me want to make a “natural refrigerator” from a waterfall sooooooo badd!!! Like a core memory is reading the section where they make the box car their home.
I read a lot of Enid Blyton growing up in the Commonwealth and those kids found caves behind waterfalls to store their tinned food all the goddamn time. It made the English countryside seem like this magical place next to my boring inland small town 😂
For elementary school it was Junie B. Jones, Magic Tree House, Hank the Cowdog (I tore UP those books!), Boxcar Children, Little House on the Prairie (my moms favorite so of course she had it at the house), Judy Moody, the Fudge books by Judy Blume, Pippi Longstockings, A Series of Unfortunate Events and my all time favorite, Warrior Cats. There’s way too many books in that series, and at this point they don’t feel the same and I wish they would end. And then classics like Alice in Wonderland and Peter Rabbit. For middle school it was Maximum Ride (the BEST series, I couldn’t stop reading them over and over again. Reading them now as an adult I just cringe at how bad they were), and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. For high school it was Percy Jackson, Hunger Games, Shadow and Bone (I remember reading that as it came out, before the Leigh Bardugo online worship), Hush Hush, Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Divergent, and The Raven Boys. I’m so glad I grew up in the era I did with a mom who loved reading and the Scholastic Book Fair. I miss those times.
As a ‘95 baby growing up in the UK the chokehold that Jacqueline Wilson books had on us😭 some of the situations in her books included: mentally ill parents, death, a baby being abandoned in a bin, the foster care system, grooming, body issues, step parents, bullying and many more and we all ATE that up I also got to meet and interview Darren Shan and it was one of the coolest childhood memories that I have. He was so nice
Please, I am actually on my knees begging you, do the Cirque Du Freak video. I was OBSESSED with that series growing up and would love a place to share the obsession!
I was born in January '96 and so enjoyed this trip down literary memory lane. The Scholastic Book Fairs were one of the best parts of elementary school. Grew up with series like the Boxcar Children, Narnia, Junie B. Jones, and Magic Tree House (also loved classics like the Little House books & Anne of Green Gables series). LOVED the Royal Diaries books -- definitely helped shape my ongoing love of history, as well as all the America Girl stories. Devoured the Chicken Soup books. Read Twilight in middle school and Hunger Games in high school, as well as the Mortal Instruments (before there were 30 of them). I was also late to the Harry Potter & Percy Jackson train; I read them all near the end of high school and loved them both. I'm so grateful to have had a pre-social media/smartphone childhood.
I was a 98s baby. My elementary favorites where all the diary books (June B. Jones, dear dumb diary, dork diaries). The biggest middle school ones for me were Pretty Little Liars, Twilight and Hunger games. I remember enjoying Hush Hush and Beautiful Creatures as well
@@oliviamatarese6556 I 100% agree. It was such I pivotal part of my childhood. I remember the excitement of getting the latest book in the series and devouring it in one sitting
So true about kids being morbid and also latching onto the tragedy of the Titanic is so real😂 in elementary school me and my best friend would literally play in her pool for hours, in long dress up skirts, pretending that we were passengers on the Titanic when it was going down 💀💀 unhinged behavior. But also that’s why I love a Series of Unfortunate Events because I really feel like Daniel Handler respected the way that kids can be morbid in the way he wrote about dark things and tragedy while also being funny! It never felt like he was talking down to his readers, which is really empowering as a kid!!
The series of unfortunate events was everything to me in elementary school! Now, I am an elementary school teacher and after seeing them in the school library for weeks, I finally decided to check out the first one and read it. I had a blast!
I was born in 1984 in the Soviet block 😬. In my teens I read on repeat: Tolkien, Narnia, Alan Garner (love his books, no one knows them 😭). Also endless detective stories by Enid Blyton 😅
I ADORE cirque du freak with my whole heart!!!! it is so exciting to hear someone else mention it, I feel like it’s never spoken about!!!! addition after rewatching: I read these leaving elementary school/entering middle school (born in 2000) and I *also* remembered it vividly and clearly (I reread the series in 2022)
Shadowhunters made me fall in love with reading too. Simon my boy. I remember I cried very hard during That scene in City of Ashes, and at the end of City of Heavenly Fire.
Since I grew up in Czechia and I'm a '97 baby , it took a while to get the books translated and published here. So it's so cool that we grew up reading the same books!😁😁
I loved Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging as a preteen!! This was right before the Gossip Girl era 🤩 I still can’t believe I was able to get my mom to buy me this series 🤣
I'm 24 and distinctly remember how quickly I devoured the Harry Potter series in 5th grade. I read it during class, after school, at restaurants with my parents, etc. I SOBBED when I finished it and sworeee nothing would ever top it and then the very next book I picked up was The Hunger Games. Which for me, topped Harry Potter lol. I miss those days where I could just read and read for hours on end and get completely immersed in the story.
I have a distinct memory of staying up all night reading goblet of fire and sobbing when Cedric died! I remember being legit scared and thinking to myself oh shit things are getting dark! I think that was the first book I read in real time on the day of release so I was so LOCKED IN! Like Cari says.. what a time to be alive ☺️
Late 70s baby here, my elementary school books were mysteries (Nancy Drew), horses (The Black Stallion and Black Beauty), and comics (Archie and Garfield). In middle school was Babysitters Club and Megan the Klutz and some Tad Williams fantasy books. High school and undergraduate college was everything I could get my hands on; the classics for school and anything and everything else but mostly romance novels (some my mothers Danielle Steele books and some just trashy beach reads) and LOTS of fantasy (Mercedes Lackey) and science fiction. My (future) husband and I read Harry Potter out loud to one another when they came out. Twilight came out when I was heavy pregnant with my first son, and I remember reading them at night while little man didn’t sleep. I read and owned (maybe still own somewhere) The Uglies series and lots of early smut romance (Christine Feehan) and I read almost all my husband’s fantasy books (Robert Jordan, George RR Martin, Elizabeth Moon)… ah memories…
I'm a 93 baby but for so many years, if I wasn't reading a book I was reading an Archie comics! I had such a huge collection as a kid, I wish I still had them.
YES!!! It's time to paint my toenails and finger nails, and I wasn't actively reading in the early 2000s AT ALL, so I'm SO EXCITED for this!!! Maybe even pick one up at a second hand bookstore or at the library 😊
Omg, "A Series of Unfortunate Events" was my absolute favorite growing up! As a Turkish kid, I also remember reading "Pippi Longstocking" and "The Little Match Girl"-that one really traumatized me hard, lol It's so interesting to see that even though we grew up in different parts of the world, we ended up reading the same books!
omg I think of the box car children every time I see someone making houses from shipping containers 😂😂 I would love a cirque du freak video! I vividly remember reading it, but nothing of the actual book.
Does anyone have a recommedation for youtubers who do 40+ min wrap ups? Most i found only do like ~25 min and i really want to hear more about the books than there is time for then:[
tbh, I was born in 2006 (I'm 17 now and about to be a senior in high school) and I'm so surprised watching this because I grew up reading most of these too. obviously not in the same way, since most of them were already published by the time I was really into reading in elementary school around like 2012-2013, but seriously, the amount of titles in this video that continue to be staples of what kids read growing up is truly a testament to their genres and to what kids continue to enjoy reading about also, I'm from Seattle!! hope you enjoyed your hike, hopefully the weather cooperated for you lol :)
i wasnt allowed to read harry potter until i felt too old to care about them because witchcraft, yet i was allowed to read the clique which influenced me to be a brand obsessed mean girl and series of unfortunate events which was hell on my anxiety lol.
I didn’t read A Series of Unfortunate Events as a child, but I highly recommend revisiting it (and the Netflix series!) as an adult! It really is an excellent series, I read it right after my grandmother passed away and I was deep in grief and depression and didn’t want to read anything with a happy ending, so this series was perfect and super cathartic for me.
‘93 baby here, I loved so many of these growing up, but my OBSESSION was the Redwall series! I could not get enough of those books for whatever reason. And no one to talk about them with - broke my little heart!
emily windsnap was a staple and if you’re a tsc fan the narrator for the last hours also narrated the emily windsnap books the real ones know the rainbow magic books
I was an ‘84 baby and while I read a lot, the books that stuck with me the most were the Babysitters Club “Little Sister” books and, my all time fave, the Bunnicula series. I still have my childhood copies which is kind of impressive as I moved around a lot from 12-18.
I would have to say my very first fandom was the American Girl series back in elementary school; I absolutely adored Samantha and had to get all six of her books, her doll, and some more random stuff like a cookbook (all of which are still on my shelves today 😊).
I'm also a 90s kid and so many memories have just been unlocked lol. Omg I was (still am) absolutely OBSESSED with the Cirque du Freak series!!! Always thought I was alone on that one. Was also really big into Harry Potter, the Hunger Games, Uglies, Percy Jackson, and the Daughters of the Moon series!
yes, both the clique and angus things and full frontal snogging were a private experience but I had a sister to share the latter with at least. georgia was a great character
I was born in 98 and I was obsessed with twilight, the pretty little liars books, and fablehaven in middle school. maze runner, hunger games and John green books too omg so many
Tamora Pierce - Immortals/Circle of Magic! Brian Jacques - Redwall! R. L. Stine - Goosebumps/Fear Street! Katherine Applegate - Animorphs! Christopher Pike! Francine Pascal - Sweet Valley (Twins: Nightmare Mansion tetralogy was my obsession for a little while)! Susan Cooper - The Dark Is Rising! Stephen King! Dean Koontz! Mercedes Lackey - Valdemar! Anne McCaffrey - Crystal Singer/Pern/Acorna! Franklin W. Dixon - Hardy Boys! V.C. Andrews - Flowers in the Attic (look, don't judge, my gramma had it and i just read it ok)! And so many other books, my mother had a good shelf-full of books, then when i was 8 or 9 (so like '95) i got a library card and free access to the whole library and just. Read it all.
Omg THE THIEF LORD. Still to this day a favourite in of mine. And of course the Inkspell series. Cornelia Funke really had me in her pocket. 😂 Most of the books that I read as a late-elementary school kid were SO heavy. The Giver, Holes, Number the Stars, Bud not Buddy, Shiloh, Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, The Skin I’m In, Willow and Twig… Kids face hard stuff and also KNOW people who face hard stuff. I genuinely think people shielding kids from difficult subject matter are doing them a huge disservice, both by denying them knowledge of the world and by stunting their ability to be empathetic and supportive of others who have less charmed lives.
Absolutely loved the video! I was born in the early 90s in Russia and I also read "The Chronicles of Narnia", "A series of unfortunate events", of course, Harry Potter 😍, and many other books you talked about in the video (somehow I also missed Percy Jackson). Goosebumps were huge, I read most of them! Another series I loved and was a fan of is W.I.T.C.H. (books, comic books, and the series). I liked "From the Files of Madison Finn" series, which was a light silly read. I also read a bunch of Russian fantasy and sci fi books for kids and a lot of detective stories, which,I don't think were translated into any other languages.
Zimbabwean. 2000 baby. Read twilight, read hunger games series, tried fallen. Lived through vampire diaries and mortal instruments movie craze. Read angus, thongs and snogs and can't remember anything but a 13 year old kissing someone who is 19.... Read Artemis Fowl, Bridge to Terabithia, Silver sword in english class. Then read that Philip Pullman series with daemons
Hi Cari, I'm 46 born in 1978 and have been watching you since your basement living days. I always watch your videos religiously and love every one of them. Love and hugs from England x Edit: I grew up with 'The famous five' books and the 'Secret Seven' All about kids running off and exploring around beaches and coves and stuff, I loved them. As I got older I was reading Virginia Andrews and then I got into Stephen King for some reason. Not sure why now, so long ago lol, maybe because that's what the guys were reading lol I was always at the library though and would take home the maximum of 10 books at a time. I need to take a look at the Boxcar Children, I'm sure I would love them 😀x Another Edit: I may make you hate me now but please look more deeply/closely into what was said by JK. She wasn't at all trying to be offensive. She just wants to protect natural born woman, surely people can understand that? I agree with the dark things reading for kids, maybe that's why I gravitated towards Stephen King - you have so much insight.
Okay, but why did I forget like so many of these books and yet they were SO important for me! Boxcar children was my elementary age, Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging was my middle school, and Gossip Girl/It Girl series was my early high school. I'm also a '91 baby! Also, idk how but I also missed Percy Jackson tho I also missed the Twilight and Hunger Games books because I didn't want to be like other girls 😅
I agree about the dark fiction for young readers. The books I read around 10-13 years old were not the most uplifting, but they are the ones that made lasting impressions and taught me the most about the world. Also, born 2000. Cirque du Freak is my favourite series to this day lol, the Silverwing series is a close second. Harry Potter was ofc one of my first and most beloved series but also Percy Jackson was the first series I owned, and they were coming out as I was in school so you literally missed it. Also also, Divergent was better than Hunger Games but the movie was ass.
canadian 1992 baby who was obsessed with angus thongs and full frontal snogging. i remember reading those and just cackling Angus the cat was my favourite thing and the movie was perfect and had a killer sound track!
I was never really a twilight girl, but I did become obsessed with The Host by Stephanie Meyer. Not even the movie, but the book which even people that liked twilight always put down. I think I would still read a sequel if she ever put one out, I'd probably pirate it but still haha
spanish here. there's zero population in the fandoms of the fantasy series that raised me bc they're mostly spanish so. here i am with my memories and luckily one other friend who read them with me. well, there is one australian series called The Named but i have never in my life seen anyone talking about it online. kinda lonely having no fanart or fanfics or tumblr posts about them
oh my goodness the EMOTIONS i felt at hearing "boxcar children". i would literally SPRINT to that shelf in my library at school to get there first lmao
Omfg I wrote so much Chronicles of Narnia fanfiction bc I was in love with the actor who played Peter in the movies. Which is so valid bc he's just as fine now frfr
I'm a '94 baby and our asylums are nearly identical, lol! I missed out on the clique and instead read The Gallagher Girls, a series about a boarding school for teenaged spies. I also vividly remember my friend introducing me to Libba Bray's Gemma Doyle series which was a nice follow up to my middle school obsession with W.I.T.C.H. I wanted magic powers SO BADLY 😂
Born in ‘89 in Budapest, Hungary. I wasn’t really reading on my own until the first HP book came out here in 1999 and my mom got it for me, when it was fully unknown here. I became a reader thanks to it, and more than anything that series raised me. 😌 It must have helped the local publisher to gain some momentum, and translations also took some time, so your elementary readings aren’t mine, but we have a lot of overlap afterwards. I loved loved loved Cirque du Freak and Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. I also liked The Giver, Number the Stars, and Artemis Fowl, but could never get into A Series of Unfortunate Events (these all came out later, after the first HP here). His Dark Materials was also an early series for me that I see mentioned in other comments a lot. I also had a big Meg Cabot phase that started but definitely didn’t end with The Princess Diaries. I was really enjoying Twilight when it came out, but it lost me relatively quickly. By the time the Hunger Games came out, I was just graduating high school, but I was deep in my utopia phase afterwards, even when I was mostly out of the target age range by the time we got to The Divergent and The Maze Runner. Others like The Clique, Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging, or Percy Jackson didn’t come out until I was waaaay too old for them. Overall we also had a lot of series that just didn’t seem to gather enough interest for publishers to translate all the books in a given series after the first one or two, which often lead to heartbreak until I could confidently read in English.
Yes to everything you mentioned in elementary school and I also remember the Wayside School Series and Scary Stories to Read in the Dark being popular. Did anyone else read the Alanna books by Tamora Pierce in middle school? Never read the Angus, Thongs books but saw the movie and thoroughly enjoyed it even though I was a bit older than the intended age demographic by that point. Those songs slapped. I remember really enjoying the Delirium books in high school.
I have read most of Tamara Pierce’s books, not while growing up, but later in my return to reading phase, in my 20’s, and oh my, am I glad I did. I love love her world of Tortall, and the characters 🧑🍳💋
Mine were goosebumps, harry potter, percy jackson, gallagher girls, the mortal instruments back when they were 3 books, twilight, vampire academy, succubus blues, narnia, the picture of dorian gray. I remember not having access to a lot of book series you mentioned because i’m not from the USA. Gallagher girls, i ran into that series on accident when i went to visit my aunt in florida during winter vacation/christmas vacation, i was HOOKED but could only read the first two books because the third one was about to be published and it never made it to colombia (i ended up finding a pirated copy in some random blogspot). My relationship with 🏴☠️ started really early lol Edit: i also remember this vamps series, the author straight up said she didn’t want to write more Books. There are three, and it was like vampires meet gossip girl, and the main character was like half vampire half witch and also the half sister of the mean girl (who was promised to marriage for some dude but was hooking up with the ugly brother), and the main charcter started dating the leader of some gang at the end of the third book (the inly name i remember is his, lucky madeleto? I think? I can’t even remeber the name of the author, i just know I haven’t gotten over her giving up on the story, it was fun) Also. The perfect chemistry books
one of my favourite stories my mom tells me (fyi: the only person that even enjoys books in my fam) is that before i could read i would always be pretending that i could read 😭 like she would catch me all the time with a book pretending that i know what it's about 😭😭
Thank you for this!!! I’m actually a littler younger than you I was born in 98 but I was still into all of the same things. The MCR phase/Twilight phase wasn’t a phase. I still gravitate to everything dark, vampy and “emo”. My husband forces me out of my shell surprisingly
First let me set the context: I’m a late 90’s baby (1999, just 25 as of yesterday) was born and raised in Brazil, never left the country, was not rich so did not travel at the time, and i was from a small town of a very small state here with no access to internet growing up up until 10 years old (got my first touchscreen phone at 15). All that to say I was a late bloomer! If it happened to the world, it would happen to me 5 years later. That being said, for the first 10 years of my life I read mostly Brazilian Children’s literature which was top notch, but everything changed when I got into Middle School. In just one year, I was introduced to Narnia, Percy Jackson, AND Twilight all at once. So I binged all of those and they became my personality. But see, that was 2011-2012 already, so I was very late to the hype. I didnt read Harry Potter as a child, nor watched the movies. In 7th and 8th grade I feel like I possibly read every single vampire/angel book series out there thanks to Twilight: anyone recognize Fallen, Hush Hush, house of night (ughhh I remember these being so good but I’m sure my mind is tricking me hahahha), and of course The Vampire Diaries. Which led me to the TV show, which was the starting point for me to learn English. Suddenly i’m 14, I have a laptop and internet, and I am binging every teen show out there. And that’s how I discovered the Pretty Little Liars book series that I never see anyone talking about but was so big for me. Of course, in High School i’m still hung up on everything Rick Riordan puts out, and the dystopian worlds. I guess we really can’t run away from them no matter where we are)…
Lol yes the orphans thing. One of the main ones I remember was The BFG. Several Roald Dahl books tbh. But also a few dutch children's classics such as Kruimeltje, which is about a 10yo homeless boy looking for his dad.
99 baby here, I remember reading all of the Judy Moody books (as well as captain underpants). At the time i remember there were so many diary style series like Dear Dumb Diary and Diary of a Whimpy Kid. Then I fell into the Percy Jackson rabbit hole and never managed to get out (the new disney plus series is so good!)
I really like how you mentioned that kids can read much darker subject matter than adults make think. And they often want to in fact. My dad owned a book store growing up and my parents did not put any limit on what I read so I definitely read “adult” level novels staring in elementary and they would contain dark themes. I know my mom would say that she didn’t want my curiosity to be stifled. I will say though that they were always good about being available to discuss any topic I maybe did not quite grasp at the time and not all children may have that available to them.
Loved the Cirque de freak books ❤❤❤ def a comfort read in middle school. Also love the hungers games I have read them so many times, those are books I read when I am in a reading slump ❤❤
i think that i've never needed anything more than to watch you read the clique series and heal our collective trauma....or start it over again. either way, yes.
Yes to the dark things in elementary. I read every single lurlene McDaniel (?) book. They were all kids with cancer falling in love. Very The Fault Within our Stars but a little younger.
ahhh I LOVED Angus, thongs and full frontal snogging. I recently reread Coraline and I was amazed how much I remembered even after 15+ years since reading it. This was a nice trip down memory lane. ❤❤
Did everyone else our age also go through the Mercy Thomson and Cat/Bones paranormal romance series phase in high school too? When we matured to more adult versions of twilight.
shame on me for forgetting to mention a wrinkle in time :')
i undoubtably forgot a TON but that's what the comment section is for hehe pls unearth deep memories from my brain!!
Omg someone needs to do a real statistic study on this because I had a horse thing too in elementary, especially if our main girl was like a orphan or abandoned, it was a thing for me in elementary especially if it had fairytale gardens or plants 😅
Loved that book so much!!
We need part 2 !!
Princess diaries book series were huge for me in middle school
I so appreciate your stance on Children's Literature and children being able to read darker things and how important it is for them to have a place to explore that. Not every kid has a safe and happy and un-traumatic childhood (unfortunately), it's important for them to have a place to process that, it can also help give other kids understanding and compassion for their peers who may be dealing with deaths in the family, the loss of a parent etc.
Seconded! My family didn't let me read ASOUE after I explained the plot to them because "it was too dark and scary for kids". This was after me reading all the available Potter books and many unfortunate events happening in my own family life, but sure the books about kids persevering through a tough life was too dark.🙄 Kids can absolutely handle dark things aimed at their age group, you're exactly right.
Yes! I had great parents and a relatively comfy childhood… and I still struggled with my absolutely horrible mental health as a VERY young child all the way through being a a young adult. Reading books that dealt with difficult topics, starting with a book my mom bought me about a child who was getting sibling and felt neglected (that amazingly the early 1990s depicted a mixed race family) was how I was able to understand myself and my feelings.
I also had so many friends who did not have wonderful parents or nice childhoods and I can say with certainty that the books I read were a lot more helpful in feeling prepared to be a good and supportive friend to them than any of the adults we had around to turn to (I did my teen years in a very conservative town)!
You don't need a traumatic childhood to enjoy darker stuff. I loved more serious and adult content when I was young and my childhood was pretty much idealic until I hit my mid teens.
On another note, I had to spend a couple of days in the hospital when I was 13. Nothing serious, pretty routine operation but dad brought me a book to help pass the time. Dad was retired Navy and loved naval fiction so he brought me a novel about a sub mission during the cold war. I don't think he realized that book contained a VERY explicit and detailed sex scene in a Thai brothel. That was quite the eye opener.
Agreed. If something could happen to a child, then we should be able to find age appropriate ways to have conversations about it.
Came here to comment this because yeah it was really important for me as a kid that I had books that dealt with darker themes when I was going through some dark things. It made me feel not alone and I don't know what I would've done without some of those books!
I remember when I studied children's literature at uni, we talked about why the orphan trope is so common - with child protagonists, you want the children to have agency and make consequential decisions. but for a child to have the kind of agency that is interesting to read about in fiction, the adults often need to be off the page, because in many cases a responsible reaction would be for the adult to step in. and there's a very complicated relationship between writers/publishers and parents, where both need to trust the other not to fully undermine them in order for children to even get a book to read. so a lot of the time instead of having super negligent parents, or constantly portraying what in real life would be reasonable boundaries as unfairly restrictive, it's easier to just write them out of the picture altogether
Exactly. The author needs to find some plausible reason for the children/teens in the book to have the freedom to do all the crazy things they need to do for the story. Easiest way to do that is just get rid of the parents. This is also one of the reasons romance characters tend to be either independently wealthy or have very flexible and remote jobs like writers. It's not just because women find that attractive, it's also because they have the freedom and ability to do all the spontaneous and romantic things. A trauma surgeon working 60 hours a week throughout the night is a lot harder to write a good story about outside of his work.
The thing with A Series of Unfortunate Events is that it’s actually pretty humorous. Lots of little jokes (both conceptual and visual) written into the text. The humor is definitely a bit dark at times, but I think that’s why they were popular. They were just so different from other children’s series available at the time.
Those books also took children (both the readers and the Baudelaires) seriously, especially about darker topics. I found that refreshing as a kid.
Agreed - and that series is still so close to my heart for that reason.
“the asylum that raised us” is accurate 😭 ‘93 baby here!! the Georgia Nicholson books/the clique books/ASOUE/etc are still in my goodreads and goodreads favorites!! I have so many good memories of loving these books so much and they meant so much to my younger self!
walking around with a book titled "On the Bright Side I'm Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God" really was a test of my self confidence as a teen and I am thankful for it hahaha
@@caricanread PLEASE that just brought up a memory: I got caught once reading one of the books in a class and my teacher read aloud the definition of “nunga nungas” to the whole class 😭 we are braver than most, Cari.
The American girl doll books made a major cultural impact on me.
josefina my giiiirl!
I remember always wanting to read the American Girl books, but they were basically never on the shelves at my local library bc they were constantly checked out or on hold. I think by the time the popularity had died down enough I was past the age to be interested in them. I do still see them at every garage sale and thrift store I go to, and I'm always tempted to pick one up. But for now I fulfill my childhood fascination with them by watching that 6 hour video on the Kirsten books and dolls lol.
I loved the Felicity and Samantha books, and of course I had the dolls.
The boxcar children just unlocked such a deep memory for me!!
the illustrations!!!
I want to store my milk in a running stream!!
god, meg cabot was my everything as a kid. and her books were thick! her writing definitely formed the majority of my personality lol
so fr 🤭
Same!
I gotta say I feel like I blinked and now all of a sudden every youtuber is 22 years old so I really appreciate that we’re the same age (well, i’m 29 but close enough!) there’s a kinship between our early-90s generation that makes me feel v warm and understood. that being said: we grew up reading the EXACT same books omg ly girl
His Dark Materials in middle school. I think the idea of a companion that was always around and had a good idea of what I experienced and how I thought really appealed to me.
Yess the idea of a daemon stuck with me so much, I still find myself thinking about the kinship between Lyra and her companion so often
As a German girl, I was obsessed with Kerstin Gier, especially the Ruby Red series and honestly, they still hold up. I reread them whenever I'm sich because they are easy, so funny and you can read them in a day. + It has time travel
A German (ex)-girlfriend recommended these to me when we were together last year, so it's fun to see someone else mention them!
I'm Moroccan but I reread this trilogy so often as a kid, I thought it was peak litterature, and the movies were also amazing to me, such a big part of middle school for me. I rarely see anyone talk about it on the book community, definitely deserves more hype!
'95 baby here, how did i forget about Magic Tree House?!
I read Twilight after a friend introduced my sister and I (twins) to the books and said they are making a movie of this next year. After that we were hooked, and would re-read over and over to the point our mom practically begged us to read something else. It helped that we started highschool in 2009 so had a better school library to pick from, but still would go back from time to time
hi cari!! my first fandom was percy jackson and i feel like you’d have loved it!! i still reread it at least once a year since i was 10 (i’m 25) and it never gets old 😭🥹🩵 (sorry if my english is weird, much love from brasil 🇧🇷)
Haven't watched the video yet but just seeing The Clique in the thumbnail unlocked some deep deep memories. That cover was kind of iconic. I used to be sooo jealous that my school wasn't anything like theirs lol
94 here! My first book I read in one sitting was a Junie B Jones. My mom thought I was still asleep, but I’d gotten up and read it in my room by myself in one morning. I was devastated when she became a first grader but I kept reading them.
Junnie B!!!
98 here! Junie B was the first books I obsessedddd over and I still have my childhood collection of them all! I reread them so many times that I could probably still tell you stuff that happens in most of them lmao
I had all of The Little House on the Prairie books the were passed down to me from my mom! They were literally falling apart because we both loved them so much.
Yes I love those books! My mom read them to me and my 4 siblings as children. Such great memories❤
95 baby here and I LOOOOVEEEED the Little House books - my library even had the spinoffs centred around Laura's mother, grandma and great-grandma as girls and I ate them tf up!! Probably the grounding for me working in history today :")
30s in. already my favourite video. about to giggle and feel nostalgic watching it 🤭
😂😂😂
Born in 1994 and growing up in South Africa, I can say L.J. Smith had us in a CHOKEHOLD. I remember watching The Vampire Diaries on my Blackberry Curve over and over again on the bus. So much nostalgia.
Growing up in the 2000s was best. We had it good. I have so many good memories of going to the scholastic book fair at school ❤
i know its easy to romanticize the past but MAN was growing up pre-social media a blessing :'''')
@@caricanreadYessss. I mean we had MySpace and Facebook in the late 2000s but it wasn't as harsh as social media today.
Omg the box car children made me want to make a “natural refrigerator” from a waterfall sooooooo badd!!! Like a core memory is reading the section where they make the box car their home.
OMG THE WATERFALL/CAVE!
I read so many wilderness survival type books and 7yo me would be so disappointed to know I am not some sort of lumberjack, homesteader off-grid.
I read a lot of Enid Blyton growing up in the Commonwealth and those kids found caves behind waterfalls to store their tinned food all the goddamn time. It made the English countryside seem like this magical place next to my boring inland small town 😂
Omg. You unlocked a hidden memory with the Dear America books. Obsessed was an understatement!!!!! (I am a ‘95 kid)
YES!!
These and the American Girl books omg
Me too!!!
Same!!!
For elementary school it was Junie B. Jones, Magic Tree House, Hank the Cowdog (I tore UP those books!), Boxcar Children, Little House on the Prairie (my moms favorite so of course she had it at the house), Judy Moody, the Fudge books by Judy Blume, Pippi Longstockings, A Series of Unfortunate Events and my all time favorite, Warrior Cats. There’s way too many books in that series, and at this point they don’t feel the same and I wish they would end. And then classics like Alice in Wonderland and Peter Rabbit.
For middle school it was Maximum Ride (the BEST series, I couldn’t stop reading them over and over again. Reading them now as an adult I just cringe at how bad they were), and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.
For high school it was Percy Jackson, Hunger Games, Shadow and Bone (I remember reading that as it came out, before the Leigh Bardugo online worship), Hush Hush, Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Divergent, and The Raven Boys.
I’m so glad I grew up in the era I did with a mom who loved reading and the Scholastic Book Fair. I miss those times.
As a ‘95 baby growing up in the UK the chokehold that Jacqueline Wilson books had on us😭 some of the situations in her books included: mentally ill parents, death, a baby being abandoned in a bin, the foster care system, grooming, body issues, step parents, bullying and many more and we all ATE that up
I also got to meet and interview Darren Shan and it was one of the coolest childhood memories that I have. He was so nice
Omg yes, you unlocked some real memories there 🤣
Oh my god The Boxcar Children. You just unlocked a memory I didn’t realize I had.
yessss!
Please, I am actually on my knees begging you, do the Cirque Du Freak video. I was OBSESSED with that series growing up and would love a place to share the obsession!
I was born in January '96 and so enjoyed this trip down literary memory lane. The Scholastic Book Fairs were one of the best parts of elementary school. Grew up with series like the Boxcar Children, Narnia, Junie B. Jones, and Magic Tree House (also loved classics like the Little House books & Anne of Green Gables series). LOVED the Royal Diaries books -- definitely helped shape my ongoing love of history, as well as all the America Girl stories. Devoured the Chicken Soup books. Read Twilight in middle school and Hunger Games in high school, as well as the Mortal Instruments (before there were 30 of them). I was also late to the Harry Potter & Percy Jackson train; I read them all near the end of high school and loved them both. I'm so grateful to have had a pre-social media/smartphone childhood.
I was a 98s baby. My elementary favorites where all the diary books (June B. Jones, dear dumb diary, dork diaries).
The biggest middle school ones for me were Pretty Little Liars, Twilight and Hunger games. I remember enjoying Hush Hush and Beautiful Creatures as well
No one I know remembers Junie B Jones and it is so crazy to me bc that series formed my personality from the ages of like 8-12
@@oliviamatarese6556 I 100% agree. It was such I pivotal part of my childhood. I remember the excitement of getting the latest book in the series and devouring it in one sitting
Omg Junie B Jones!!!
So true about kids being morbid and also latching onto the tragedy of the Titanic is so real😂 in elementary school me and my best friend would literally play in her pool for hours, in long dress up skirts, pretending that we were passengers on the Titanic when it was going down 💀💀 unhinged behavior.
But also that’s why I love a Series of Unfortunate Events because I really feel like Daniel Handler respected the way that kids can be morbid in the way he wrote about dark things and tragedy while also being funny! It never felt like he was talking down to his readers, which is really empowering as a kid!!
7th grade brain chemistry was permanently altered after stumbling upon looking for alaska
The series of unfortunate events was everything to me in elementary school! Now, I am an elementary school teacher and after seeing them in the school library for weeks, I finally decided to check out the first one and read it. I had a blast!
I was born in 1984 in the Soviet block 😬.
In my teens I read on repeat: Tolkien, Narnia, Alan Garner (love his books, no one knows them 😭).
Also endless detective stories by Enid Blyton 😅
love that narnia is such a shared experience haha and ohh i will look up garner and blyton!
I ADORE cirque du freak with my whole heart!!!! it is so exciting to hear someone else mention it, I feel like it’s never spoken about!!!!
addition after rewatching: I read these leaving elementary school/entering middle school (born in 2000) and I *also* remembered it vividly and clearly (I reread the series in 2022)
Cirque Du Freak was such a big one for me!! I dressed up as one of those types of vampires for a middle school Halloween Dance
Shadowhunters made me fall in love with reading too. Simon my boy. I remember I cried very hard during That scene in City of Ashes, and at the end of City of Heavenly Fire.
Since I grew up in Czechia and I'm a '97 baby , it took a while to get the books translated and published here. So it's so cool that we grew up reading the same books!😁😁
I loved Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging as a preteen!! This was right before the Gossip Girl era 🤩 I still can’t believe I was able to get my mom to buy me this series 🤣
The Clique books! I'm gonna film an entire re-reading vlog of my reaction to those books.
ohhoooo good luck!!!
I'm 24 and distinctly remember how quickly I devoured the Harry Potter series in 5th grade. I read it during class, after school, at restaurants with my parents, etc. I SOBBED when I finished it and sworeee nothing would ever top it and then the very next book I picked up was The Hunger Games. Which for me, topped Harry Potter lol. I miss those days where I could just read and read for hours on end and get completely immersed in the story.
I have a distinct memory of staying up all night reading goblet of fire and sobbing when Cedric died! I remember being legit scared and thinking to myself oh shit things are getting dark! I think that was the first book I read in real time on the day of release so I was so LOCKED IN! Like Cari says.. what a time to be alive ☺️
Late 70s baby here, my elementary school books were mysteries (Nancy Drew), horses (The Black Stallion and Black Beauty), and comics (Archie and Garfield). In middle school was Babysitters Club and Megan the Klutz and some Tad Williams fantasy books. High school and undergraduate college was everything I could get my hands on; the classics for school and anything and everything else but mostly romance novels (some my mothers Danielle Steele books and some just trashy beach reads) and LOTS of fantasy (Mercedes Lackey) and science fiction. My (future) husband and I read Harry Potter out loud to one another when they came out. Twilight came out when I was heavy pregnant with my first son, and I remember reading them at night while little man didn’t sleep. I read and owned (maybe still own somewhere) The Uglies series and lots of early smut romance (Christine Feehan) and I read almost all my husband’s fantasy books (Robert Jordan, George RR Martin, Elizabeth Moon)… ah memories…
I'm a 93 baby but for so many years, if I wasn't reading a book I was reading an Archie comics! I had such a huge collection as a kid, I wish I still had them.
ANGUS THONGS AND FULL FRONTAL SNOGGING YES.
YES!!! It's time to paint my toenails and finger nails, and I wasn't actively reading in the early 2000s AT ALL, so I'm SO EXCITED for this!!! Maybe even pick one up at a second hand bookstore or at the library 😊
omg yesss join us hhahhaa
I really hope there isn’t any twilight slander 😭😭 🍎 🩸
:''''')
Omg, "A Series of Unfortunate Events" was my absolute favorite growing up! As a Turkish kid, I also remember reading "Pippi Longstocking" and "The Little Match Girl"-that one really traumatized me hard, lol It's so interesting to see that even though we grew up in different parts of the world, we ended up reading the same books!
omg I think of the box car children every time I see someone making houses from shipping containers 😂😂
I would love a cirque du freak video! I vividly remember reading it, but nothing of the actual book.
Does anyone have a recommedation for youtubers who do 40+ min wrap ups? Most i found only do like ~25 min and i really want to hear more about the books than there is time for then:[
tbh, I was born in 2006 (I'm 17 now and about to be a senior in high school) and I'm so surprised watching this because I grew up reading most of these too. obviously not in the same way, since most of them were already published by the time I was really into reading in elementary school around like 2012-2013, but seriously, the amount of titles in this video that continue to be staples of what kids read growing up is truly a testament to their genres and to what kids continue to enjoy reading about
also, I'm from Seattle!! hope you enjoyed your hike, hopefully the weather cooperated for you lol :)
i wasnt allowed to read harry potter until i felt too old to care about them because witchcraft, yet i was allowed to read the clique which influenced me to be a brand obsessed mean girl and series of unfortunate events which was hell on my anxiety lol.
as a fellow 90s baby this is everything i didnt know i needed!
I didn’t read A Series of Unfortunate Events as a child, but I highly recommend revisiting it (and the Netflix series!) as an adult! It really is an excellent series, I read it right after my grandmother passed away and I was deep in grief and depression and didn’t want to read anything with a happy ending, so this series was perfect and super cathartic for me.
‘93 baby here, I loved so many of these growing up, but my OBSESSION was the Redwall series! I could not get enough of those books for whatever reason. And no one to talk about them with - broke my little heart!
I loved them too!
I have a vivid memory of listening to the first book on TAPE on one of my family’s summer road trips
emily windsnap was a staple and if you’re a tsc fan the narrator for the last hours also narrated the emily windsnap books the real ones know the rainbow magic books
I was an ‘84 baby and while I read a lot, the books that stuck with me the most were the Babysitters Club “Little Sister” books and, my all time fave, the Bunnicula series. I still have my childhood copies which is kind of impressive as I moved around a lot from 12-18.
omg! bunnicula! such a strange time
I remember that Bunnicula actually scared me.
@@skippergin2695 same!
I would have to say my very first fandom was the American Girl series back in elementary school; I absolutely adored Samantha and had to get all six of her books, her doll, and some more random stuff like a cookbook (all of which are still on my shelves today 😊).
I had all these too! I loved how little girls all picked their favorite doll and historical era and we made them our personalities
I could only get the books at the library. I remember going to someone's house and they had many of the dolls, and I was so jealous. I liked Molly.
I'm also a 90s kid and so many memories have just been unlocked lol. Omg I was (still am) absolutely OBSESSED with the Cirque du Freak series!!! Always thought I was alone on that one. Was also really big into Harry Potter, the Hunger Games, Uglies, Percy Jackson, and the Daughters of the Moon series!
I was OBSESSED with the clique, I read it like four summers in a row on family camping trips in my tween years 😭 PLEASE reread for the hilarity!!!
yes, both the clique and angus things and full frontal snogging were a private experience but I had a sister to share the latter with at least. georgia was a great character
I was born in 98 and I was obsessed with twilight, the pretty little liars books, and fablehaven in middle school. maze runner, hunger games and John green books too omg so many
seeing warriors just unlocked a memory omg i was obsessed with that series & the one about dogs - i think it was called survivors??
Tamora Pierce - Immortals/Circle of Magic! Brian Jacques - Redwall! R. L. Stine - Goosebumps/Fear Street! Katherine Applegate - Animorphs! Christopher Pike! Francine Pascal - Sweet Valley (Twins: Nightmare Mansion tetralogy was my obsession for a little while)! Susan Cooper - The Dark Is Rising! Stephen King! Dean Koontz! Mercedes Lackey - Valdemar! Anne McCaffrey - Crystal Singer/Pern/Acorna! Franklin W. Dixon - Hardy Boys! V.C. Andrews - Flowers in the Attic (look, don't judge, my gramma had it and i just read it ok)! And so many other books, my mother had a good shelf-full of books, then when i was 8 or 9 (so like '95) i got a library card and free access to the whole library and just. Read it all.
Omg THE THIEF LORD. Still to this day a favourite in of mine. And of course the Inkspell series. Cornelia Funke really had me in her pocket. 😂
Most of the books that I read as a late-elementary school kid were SO heavy. The Giver, Holes, Number the Stars, Bud not Buddy, Shiloh, Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, The Skin I’m In, Willow and Twig… Kids face hard stuff and also KNOW people who face hard stuff. I genuinely think people shielding kids from difficult subject matter are doing them a huge disservice, both by denying them knowledge of the world and by stunting their ability to be empathetic and supportive of others who have less charmed lives.
Absolutely loved the video!
I was born in the early 90s in Russia and I also read "The Chronicles of Narnia", "A series of unfortunate events", of course, Harry Potter 😍, and many other books you talked about in the video (somehow I also missed Percy Jackson).
Goosebumps were huge, I read most of them! Another series I loved and was a fan of is W.I.T.C.H. (books, comic books, and the series). I liked "From the Files of Madison Finn" series, which was a light silly read.
I also read a bunch of Russian fantasy and sci fi books for kids and a lot of detective stories, which,I don't think were translated into any other languages.
Zimbabwean. 2000 baby. Read twilight, read hunger games series, tried fallen. Lived through vampire diaries and mortal instruments movie craze. Read angus, thongs and snogs and can't remember anything but a 13 year old kissing someone who is 19.... Read Artemis Fowl, Bridge to Terabithia, Silver sword in english class.
Then read that Philip Pullman series with daemons
Hi Cari, I'm 46 born in 1978 and have been watching you since your basement living days. I always watch your videos religiously and love every one of them. Love and hugs from England x
Edit: I grew up with 'The famous five' books and the 'Secret Seven' All about kids running off and exploring around beaches and coves and stuff, I loved them. As I got older I was reading Virginia Andrews and then I got into Stephen King for some reason. Not sure why now, so long ago lol, maybe because that's what the guys were reading lol I was always at the library though and would take home the maximum of 10 books at a time.
I need to take a look at the Boxcar Children, I'm sure I would love them 😀x
Another Edit: I may make you hate me now but please look more deeply/closely into what was said by JK. She wasn't at all trying to be offensive. She just wants to protect natural born woman, surely people can understand that?
I agree with the dark things reading for kids, maybe that's why I gravitated towards Stephen King - you have so much insight.
Okay, but why did I forget like so many of these books and yet they were SO important for me!
Boxcar children was my elementary age, Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging was my middle school, and Gossip Girl/It Girl series was my early high school. I'm also a '91 baby!
Also, idk how but I also missed Percy Jackson tho I also missed the Twilight and Hunger Games books because I didn't want to be like other girls 😅
I agree about the dark fiction for young readers. The books I read around 10-13 years old were not the most uplifting, but they are the ones that made lasting impressions and taught me the most about the world.
Also, born 2000. Cirque du Freak is my favourite series to this day lol, the Silverwing series is a close second. Harry Potter was ofc one of my first and most beloved series but also Percy Jackson was the first series I owned, and they were coming out as I was in school so you literally missed it.
Also also, Divergent was better than Hunger Games but the movie was ass.
canadian 1992 baby who was obsessed with angus thongs and full frontal snogging. i remember reading those and just cackling Angus the cat was my favourite thing and the movie was perfect and had a killer sound track!
I was never really a twilight girl, but I did become obsessed with The Host by Stephanie Meyer. Not even the movie, but the book which even people that liked twilight always put down. I think I would still read a sequel if she ever put one out, I'd probably pirate it but still haha
I was never this early, not even to my mother’s funeral.
:'''')
I’m only 15, but you mentioned cirque du freak and IMMEDIATELY unlocked a core memory omds
i grew up with the shadowhunter books and it‘s crazy how there are still new books being published! :,)
I swear we had the same childhood, every single book you brought up made me gasp
spanish here. there's zero population in the fandoms of the fantasy series that raised me bc they're mostly spanish so. here i am with my memories and luckily one other friend who read them with me. well, there is one australian series called The Named but i have never in my life seen anyone talking about it online. kinda lonely having no fanart or fanfics or tumblr posts about them
Does anyone remember Mates, Dates and Inflatable Bras and that whole series?
You have uncovered a hidden memory. Loved those!
Does anyone remember the Amelia’s Notebook books?? I was so obsessed with them 😭🖤
oh my goodness the EMOTIONS i felt at hearing "boxcar children". i would literally SPRINT to that shelf in my library at school to get there first lmao
Omfg I wrote so much Chronicles of Narnia fanfiction bc I was in love with the actor who played Peter in the movies. Which is so valid bc he's just as fine now frfr
I'm a '94 baby and our asylums are nearly identical, lol! I missed out on the clique and instead read The Gallagher Girls, a series about a boarding school for teenaged spies. I also vividly remember my friend introducing me to Libba Bray's Gemma Doyle series which was a nice follow up to my middle school obsession with W.I.T.C.H. I wanted magic powers SO BADLY 😂
omg i forgot about that spy series i dont think i finished the whole series but definitely remember it!!!
My childhood books were Ramona Quimby and lots of classics, Fear Street and everything RL Stine, then Harry Potter in my late teens into adulthood
Born in ‘89 in Budapest, Hungary. I wasn’t really reading on my own until the first HP book came out here in 1999 and my mom got it for me, when it was fully unknown here. I became a reader thanks to it, and more than anything that series raised me. 😌 It must have helped the local publisher to gain some momentum, and translations also took some time, so your elementary readings aren’t mine, but we have a lot of overlap afterwards.
I loved loved loved Cirque du Freak and Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. I also liked The Giver, Number the Stars, and Artemis Fowl, but could never get into A Series of Unfortunate Events (these all came out later, after the first HP here). His Dark Materials was also an early series for me that I see mentioned in other comments a lot. I also had a big Meg Cabot phase that started but definitely didn’t end with The Princess Diaries. I was really enjoying Twilight when it came out, but it lost me relatively quickly. By the time the Hunger Games came out, I was just graduating high school, but I was deep in my utopia phase afterwards, even when I was mostly out of the target age range by the time we got to The Divergent and The Maze Runner. Others like The Clique, Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging, or Percy Jackson didn’t come out until I was waaaay too old for them.
Overall we also had a lot of series that just didn’t seem to gather enough interest for publishers to translate all the books in a given series after the first one or two, which often lead to heartbreak until I could confidently read in English.
Yes to everything you mentioned in elementary school and I also remember the Wayside School Series and Scary Stories to Read in the Dark being popular. Did anyone else read the Alanna books by Tamora Pierce in middle school? Never read the Angus, Thongs books but saw the movie and thoroughly enjoyed it even though I was a bit older than the intended age demographic by that point. Those songs slapped. I remember really enjoying the Delirium books in high school.
I have read most of Tamara Pierce’s books, not while growing up, but later in my return to reading phase, in my 20’s, and oh my, am I glad I did. I love love her world of Tortall, and the characters 🧑🍳💋
Mine were goosebumps, harry potter, percy jackson, gallagher girls, the mortal instruments back when they were 3 books, twilight, vampire academy, succubus blues, narnia, the picture of dorian gray.
I remember not having access to a lot of book series you mentioned because i’m not from the USA. Gallagher girls, i ran into that series on accident when i went to visit my aunt in florida during winter vacation/christmas vacation, i was HOOKED but could only read the first two books because the third one was about to be published and it never made it to colombia (i ended up finding a pirated copy in some random blogspot). My relationship with 🏴☠️ started really early lol
Edit: i also remember this vamps series, the author straight up said she didn’t want to write more Books. There are three, and it was like vampires meet gossip girl, and the main character was like half vampire half witch and also the half sister of the mean girl (who was promised to marriage for some dude but was hooking up with the ugly brother), and the main charcter started dating the leader of some gang at the end of the third book (the inly name i remember is his, lucky madeleto? I think? I can’t even remeber the name of the author, i just know I haven’t gotten over her giving up on the story, it was fun)
Also. The perfect chemistry books
one of my favourite stories my mom tells me (fyi: the only person that even enjoys books in my fam) is that before i could read i would always be pretending that i could read 😭 like she would catch me all the time with a book pretending that i know what it's about 😭😭
Thank you for this!!! I’m actually a littler younger than you I was born in 98 but I was still into all of the same things. The MCR phase/Twilight phase wasn’t a phase. I still gravitate to everything dark, vampy and “emo”. My husband forces me out of my shell surprisingly
First let me set the context: I’m a late 90’s baby (1999, just 25 as of yesterday) was born and raised in Brazil, never left the country, was not rich so did not travel at the time, and i was from a small town of a very small state here with no access to internet growing up up until 10 years old (got my first touchscreen phone at 15). All that to say I was a late bloomer! If it happened to the world, it would happen to me 5 years later.
That being said, for the first 10 years of my life I read mostly Brazilian Children’s literature which was top notch, but everything changed when I got into Middle School. In just one year, I was introduced to Narnia, Percy Jackson, AND Twilight all at once. So I binged all of those and they became my personality. But see, that was 2011-2012 already, so I was very late to the hype. I didnt read Harry Potter as a child, nor watched the movies. In 7th and 8th grade I feel like I possibly read every single vampire/angel book series out there thanks to Twilight: anyone recognize Fallen, Hush Hush, house of night (ughhh I remember these being so good but I’m sure my mind is tricking me hahahha), and of course The Vampire Diaries. Which led me to the TV show, which was the starting point for me to learn English. Suddenly i’m 14, I have a laptop and internet, and I am binging every teen show out there. And that’s how I discovered the Pretty Little Liars book series that I never see anyone talking about but was so big for me. Of course, in High School i’m still hung up on everything Rick Riordan puts out, and the dystopian worlds. I guess we really can’t run away from them no matter where we are)…
Lol yes the orphans thing. One of the main ones I remember was The BFG. Several Roald Dahl books tbh. But also a few dutch children's classics such as Kruimeltje, which is about a 10yo homeless boy looking for his dad.
99 baby here, I remember reading all of the Judy Moody books (as well as captain underpants). At the time i remember there were so many diary style series like Dear Dumb Diary and Diary of a Whimpy Kid. Then I fell into the Percy Jackson rabbit hole and never managed to get out (the new disney plus series is so good!)
I really like how you mentioned that kids can read much darker subject matter than adults make think. And they often want to in fact. My dad owned a book store growing up and my parents did not put any limit on what I read so I definitely read “adult” level novels staring in elementary and they would contain dark themes. I know my mom would say that she didn’t want my curiosity to be stifled. I will say though that they were always good about being available to discuss any topic I maybe did not quite grasp at the time and not all children may have that available to them.
Loved the Cirque de freak books ❤❤❤ def a comfort read in middle school. Also love the hungers games I have read them so many times, those are books I read when I am in a reading slump ❤❤
Im a few years older than you, so it was sweet valley high for me, not the click. 100 books 😂
Omg sweet valley high made me think of the babysitters club too
i think that i've never needed anything more than to watch you read the clique series and heal our collective trauma....or start it over again.
either way, yes.
Yes to the dark things in elementary. I read every single lurlene McDaniel (?) book. They were all kids with cancer falling in love. Very The Fault Within our Stars but a little younger.
ahhh I LOVED Angus, thongs and full frontal snogging. I recently reread Coraline and I was amazed how much I remembered even after 15+ years since reading it. This was a nice trip down memory lane. ❤❤
at 5:00 I really thought you were about to say 'I'm very lucky and I was raised by parents who were also alive'
such a missed opportunity
for me it was The Fault in Our Stars! that book rewired my brain chemistry in a way nothing else has/can
only halfway thru but ultraviolet from angus thongs is still on my spotify playlists 😭😭
🤘🤘🤘
Oh my god A Horse Called Wonder flashing on the screen just brought back SO many memories, I was absolutely OBSESSED with those books!
so good :'''')
Oh my god, I remember re-reading Cirque Du Freak MULTIPLE times when I was younger. You just awoke a core memory of mine.
'02 baby here, but I can relate to most of these having a sister born in the mid 90s! The outfit changes actually made me so happy lol
Did everyone else our age also go through the Mercy Thomson and Cat/Bones paranormal romance series phase in high school too? When we matured to more adult versions of twilight.
the way I was morbidly obsessed with the “Dear America” book about the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire 😭