My Top 10 Favorite Books From Childhood

Today, I'm linking up with this cool book blog to show you my Top 10 Favorite Books from Childhood.  I love reading and I'm very nostalgic, so this will be fun.  I'm categorizing 'child' as any book I read before 8th grade, because after that is when I started reading young adult books.  Ok, here we go.

1.  Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech
This book is probably the best book I read as a child.  I read it in fifth grade and it's the first book that really made me feel connected to a character in a way I had never experienced before.  It's about a girl who goes on a journey to find out about her mom.  The ending really shocked me and stuck with me for days after.  It had a lot of really great themes about friendship and family.  I loved it so much I even got my mom to read it and she always references this one quote from it about not letting the birds of sorrow nest in your head.  Powerful for a children's book.  After reading this book, I really started to become a more active and engaged reader.

2. Emily by Michael Bedard
This is a picture book about the poet Emily Dickinson and I think my uncle got it for me for Christmas one year.  I loved the imagery and the way Bedard described Emily.  He talked about her in an adult tone that was still easy for children to understand.  He made Emily's isolation strange yet intriguing.  I kept this book for many years.

3. Lives of the Presidents
This book had such a fun cover.  Hot air balloons! Conga lines! The biographies of the Presidents were quirky and fun.  I was obsessed with learning about the Presidents in elementary school and this book was probably the catalyst for that.

4.  Kate on the Coast by Pat Brisson
This was a book I found at library and it was awesome because the girl wrote letters and postcards to her friend as she traveled around the country with her parents.  I remember thinking she had such a cool life.

5.  Holes by Louis Sachar
If you didn't read this book as a child, then I feel bad for you.  It was so good!  What I loved about it was how complex it was.  There were so many multi-layered stories within the book and it was suspenseful up until the end.

6.  Say Goodnight, Gracie by Julie Reece Deaver
I randomly picked this book off the shelf at my middle school library in either sixth or seventh grade and it really hit me hard because I remember crying at the end.  I'm surprised it's not more well-known because I remember thinking it was amazing after I finished it.  It was such a sad story but it was written so well.  I even looked up the author's e-mail online and e-mailed her to tell her how much I loved the book.  I need to re-read this sometime and see if it still holds up.

7.  Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by JK Rowling
This is so obvious so I'm going to keep it short.  An awesome beginning to a fantastic series.

8.  The Anastasia Series by Lois Lowry
I loved this series because I thought Anastasia was like me, only sassier and more bold.  She was always getting into some kind of trouble but she always pulled herself out of it in a charming way and I really admired that.

9.  The School Story by Andrew Clements
Okay, Andrew Clements had a lot of success with Frindle, but this book was way better in my opinion.  It's about a 12 year old girl who fools a literary agent into publishing her book without letting on that she is only just a kid.  It was so entertaining to read.

10.  The Giver by Lois Lowry
This book was a game changer for me.  Dystopian children's literature at its finest.  I always thought the man on the cover was creepy, but the story inside was so unique that it inspired me to read other dystopian books when I entered middle and high school.

That wraps up my list!  Are any of your favorite childhood books on here?  I'd love to know.