Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books I Read Before I Was a Blogger

This is a weekly meme hosted by the girls over at The Broke and the Bookish

Top Ten Books I Read Before I Was a Blogger

1) The Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling-No, I am not one of those people who Harry Potter made a reader (though HP is wonderful for that). I actually was a reader long before HP came out. But at the time it became huge I was in what you would call a reading slump and had sort of let go of reading. It was partly because of me. I was in middle school at the time and so busy and had just moved from the East Coast to the Midwest and was going through so many transitions that I sort of let reading go. It was also because at that time the YA fantasy section was small, and I'd pretty much read everything good that the section had to offer, and was moving onto adult books but having trouble finding adult fantasy books that appealed to me as well (adult fantasy was also tiny compared to what it is now and certainly not geared towards teen girls or women in general) so I was reading sparingly. Then I found HP and as a consequence of HP YA started getting bigger (I still say Twilight wouldn't have gotten published if HP hadn't created need for more YA for growing up HP fans) and you could say HP really just jump started my reading habit again.

2) The Circle of Magic series by Tamora Pierce-Also the Tortall series but we can only have so many books on this list and I love the Circle of Magic more then I do Tortall (even though I really like Tortall as well). These books are basically what hooked me onto fantasy in the first place.

3) The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi-This was my favorite Newberry book as a kid. I really wish more people knew about it. Alas, it's never become a huge thing. Word on the street is there is a film in the works but it's been some time since I've heard news so I'm afraid it's not likely to happen. Probably just as well since I have a feeling Hollywood would destroy it because I've noticed they don't seem to know what to do with books that don't have a big epic love story in it or bittersweet endings like this one does. This one is largely responsible for my addiction to historical fiction.

4) His Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillup Pullman-I will always love this series. Haters gonna hate.

5) The Princess Diaries series by Meg Cabot-Really I was addicted to all Cabot's stuff (Mediator and 1-800-WHERE-R-U in particular) but I will always be fond of this series, it was my first Cabot series as well as my introduction to YA contemporary. Sadly at the time this started, YA contemporary was also not quite as it was now so I didn't get into that genre as much because you didn't have authors like Maureen Johnson or John Green (they came later). Basically the good contemporaries were Cabot, Perks of Being a Wallflower, and Judy Blume and that was pretty much it aside from sappy romance formula books. Times really have changed the YA section and I think it's great. I always have to stop myself from going all grandmother and telling teens nowadays how good they have it with reading options nowadays.

6) Young Wizards series by Diane Duane-Young Wizards was a great blend of science fiction/fantasy that sadly also never made it as big as say His Dark Materials. I loved it though. The humor was great. I'm sad that we will never get movies/tv shows from it because it would seriously make a great movie or TV show.

7) To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee-Once upon a time, I was like many people and didn't think classics were for me/was also intimidated by them. It didn't help that my English teachers constantly chose the boring stuff that didn't appeal to me. My Grandmother (former English teacher) was not having this and basically started pushing classics into my hand whenever I visited her and To Kill a Mockingbird was one of those classics. Now I tend to read one classic every other month or so (I don't review them here because I figure I'd just be repeating everything that has already been said about classics and you guys probably already know if you want to read said classics or not).

8) Beauty by Robin McKinley-AKA the book that got me into fairytale retellings.

9) Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones-AKA the book that helped me discover Jones as well as British fantasy.

10) The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede-If you have a tween who is into dragons/fantasy/princesses seriously give her these books. I swear she'll love them.

Runners up seriously considered for this list: The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien, The Diary of Anne Frank, Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander, Chronicles of Narnia, Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, The Mediator series, 1-800-WHERE-R-U series, Tortall series, The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle.