ALWAYS A READER: My Childhood Book List

Betsy-Tacy by Maud Hart Lovelace, a favorite book of my childhood.

When I was growing up I never imagined that I would be a writer. But I always loved to read. I recently discovered a list I made in third grade of all the books I read that year—47 of them!  I actually made the list twice—first in the order that I read them, neatly printed, and then in alphabetical order by title, carefully written in cursive. 

Most of the books on my list are fiction and all of them were checked out from the Minneapolis Public Library. (Although our family had a few Golden Books, and I occasionally got a book as a gift, we rarely bought books.) Most of the books on my list now seem terribly old-fashioned, but a few are classics, like Make Way for Ducklings and To Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street.

The cover of my booklet where I made my lists is a finger painting.

In my booklet I also recorded a list of the magazines I had read—mostly Jack and Jill, but also a few issues of Child Life and Highlights. And in the same little booklet with my lists I copied a poem by Annie Fellows Johnston called "Book Houses", which likens a book to a door to someone’s house. The third stanza reads:

And when I find a house that’s dull,

I do not often stay,

But when I find one full of friends

I’m apt to spend the day.

I recall many a day spent happily reading. Here’s my third grade list. How many of these titles to you remember reading as a child?

Books I have Read  (Third Grade)

1. Betsy and the Boys by Carolyn Haywood

2. Two is a Team, Heim

3. The Cocoa Dancer

4. The Great Quillow

5. Tag-a-long Tooloo

6.  Joan Wanted a Kitty

7. Make Way for Ducklings

8. Henner’s Lydia

9. A Pony for Linda—Anderson

10. Sonny the Bunny

11. Cow Concert

12.  Little Stone House

13.  Wishing Well

14.  Pogo’s House—Jo and Ernest Norling

15. Joey and Patches

16.  Cowboy Tommy-Sanford Tousy

17.  How the Indians Lived – Dearborn

18.  Little Pear – Eleanor Frances Lattimore

19.  Two and Two are Four – Carolyn Haywood

20  Kintu

21.  Randy and the Queen – Margaret s. Johnson

22.  Dog that Came True

23.  Double Birthday Present – Mabel Leigh Hunt

24.  Don’t Count Your Chicks

25.  Jack-o-Lantern for Judy Jo

26.  Holiday Roundup

27.  Snipp, Snapp, Snurr and the Buttered Bread – Mag Lindman

28.  Scratchy by John Parke

29.  Coconut the Wonder Tree

30.  Book of Jokes and Funny Things – Frances N. Chrystie

31.  Dr. Trotter and his Big Gold Watch – Helen Earle Gilbert

32.  A Kitten’s Tale – Audrey Chalmers

33.  Blueberries for Sal – Robert McCloskey

34.  Through Golden Windows

35. Our Little Friends of Norway

36.  Little Lost Sioux – Martha Raabe

37. Nils – Ingri and Edgar Parin d’Aulaire

38.  United States and Youth – Eleanor Roosevelt

39.  Black Beauty – Anna Sewell

40.  And to Think that I saw it on Mulberry Street – Dr. Seuss

41.  Betsy-Tacy

42.  Hide and Go Seek

43. The Most Wonderful Doll

44.  The Young Aunts

45.  North on the Great River – by Margaret G. O’Farrell

46.  Penny Goes to Camp – Carolyn Haywood

47.  Boy of the Desert – Eunice Tietjens