Glens Falls (NY) Online Book Discussion Group discussion

What was the first fairly long book you remember enjoying as a youth (beyond books for very young children)? Mine was one of the following (I can't be sure which it was):

_Little Lord Fauntleroy_ by Frances Hodgson Burnett


or
_The Prince and the Pauper_ by Mark Twain


Reading that book made me realize how enjoyable reading could be.

I read a lot of mysteries for young boys:

Hardy Boys
The Three Detectives

I know there were other series but I don't remember them.

The detectives in the Three Detectives had a hideout in a junk yard. Me and my friends thought that was pretty cool, and we'd pretend like we were detectives ourselves.

Hi Andy,
I never read any of those mysteries for young people. I wish I had. Another series I remember hearing about was the one about Nancy Drew.

There's a very entertaining book about a young girl who fancied herself a detective. The name of the book was _Harriet the Spy_. I read it as an adult and enjoyed Harriet's commentary on the people she spied on. She talked about people who always invited company after they bought new furniture. (lol)

Below is a link to that book:

For me the first book I read without any pictures (except for a frontispiece) was Hardy Boys # 27, "The Secret of Skull Mountain." I'd been enthralled by the Hardy Boys' serialized live-action adventures on "The Mickey Mouse Club," but was unaware that they characters came from books until I received this book from my mother for my 7th birthday. I became addicted, added many of the Hardy Boys sagas to my bookshelf (they cost $1.00 each, plus 4 cents sales tax in California in those days).
I was astonished to learn that in that unenlightened age, the Hardy Boys were banned from the library because they were not written by a real person, but rather by a group of authors who all used the name Franklin W. Dixon; but this was also a good thing for me. My mother worked as a library assistant in the Glendale library system, and when patrons donated Hardy Boys books to the library, she was ab;le to bring them home to me because they's otherwise be thrown away.

That's an interesting bit of information, about the Hardy Boys books being written by a group of authors all using the same name. I never read the Hardy Boys books. I wonder if young children today would be interested in them. I'm tempted to read a sample to see what they were like.

Answer: Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott

*
I enjoyed many Hardy Boys books, owned by a male family member, when I was young.

Hi Ilyn,
I have to confess that I've never read Sir Walter Scott's _Ivanhoe_ I probably should have, since it's such a classic. I have so many gaps to fill in. (g) One of these days maybe I'll catch up, but I doubt it. There's just too much to keep up with.

However, thank goodness for Wikipedia.com. I'm going to refresh my knowledge of Ivanhoe by referring to the following link (g):

---------------------------------
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanhoe
---------------------------------

Below is an interesting excerpt from the above webpage:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The legendary Robin Hood, initially under the name of Locksley, is also a character in the story, as are his 'merry men,' including Friar Tuck [...:] The character that Scott gave to Robin Hood in _Ivanhoe_ helped shape the modern notion of this figure as a cheery noble outlaw."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Hardy Boys, just like Nancy Drew, have undergone a facelift in recent years. All the stories have been rewritten to make them more contemporary. I reread one of my Hardy Boys books a few years ago and I have to say that the memory was better than the revisiting.

Hi Robert - Yes, that's true of many things, isn't it. (referring to your words: "the memory was better than the revisiting".)

One of my favorite quotes expresses similar thoughts:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Don't you ever try to go there-
It's to dream of, not to find.
Lovely things like that is always
Mostly in your mind."
-John Van Alstyn Weaver (1893-1938)
_Familiar Quotations_, John Bartlett, 1956
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~