The 10 Books meme

[heidi]

But a little different...

All the books here are from the selection I've just moved from my shelves into Cate's room, even though she won't actually read any of them for a few years...

1. Once on a dark winter's day, when the yellow fog hung so thick and heavy in the streets of London that the lamps were lighted and the shop windows blaxed with gas as they do at night, an odd-looking little girl sat in a cab with her father and was driven rather slowly through the big thoroughfares.

2. One saturday morning early in September, Shelley Latham sat at the breakfast table with her mother and father.

3. No curtain.
No scenery.
The audience, arriving, sees an empty stage in half-light.

4. (Not the first line, but from the first para...)
The worst books, the ones that I do not even bother to take home from the library, all seem to have the very same sappy story on the inside of the cover; the story is: "How Tomboy Mindy, who loves to play baseball and climb trees with the boys, meets handsome Michael and discovers that growing up gracefully to be a young lady can be even more exciting."

5. One evening at supper, Pa asked, "How would you like to work in town, Laura?"

6. A flock of nuns crossed the road, their crisp wimples fluttering about their heads like the wings of large sea birds.

7. Meg was ten minutes early. It was her mother's opinion that three minutes were more than sufficient but Meg liked to play it safe.

8. "This is the school block, so the house can't be on this one," Ella said.

9. Margaret Lowell shook eherself like a dog and nudged open the back door.

10. For almost a year, I was the best-kept secret at Lincoln High.

And a bonus for anyone who can guess the year without looking:
'Felicity! Look - there's Mallory Towers at last!' cried Darrell.

Comments

[curia-regis.livejournal.com]

*ponders*

I swear that's one of the Mallory Tower books I own. So that kind of narrows it down to either Third Year or Upper Fourth. I think it's Upper Fourth. I could be completely off track though.

I used to adore those books.

[magic-at-mungos.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure it's Upper Fourth because wasn't it the first time the Rivers sisters went together?

[aquila1nz.livejournal.com]

I think i's third or fifth, because I don't currently own Fourth.

[anjaliesque.livejournal.com]

It's definitely "In The Fifth," because that's the only one I ever owned and I read it till it fell apart.

[magic-at-mungos.livejournal.com]

Aargh. That's going to annoy me now until I find out. I don't have time to go the library at lunchtime.

[musikologie.livejournal.com]

1 is A Little Princess.

3... the opening stage directions to Our Town?

5 is one of the Little House books, but I don't remember which one, and 7 and 8 sound awfully familiar, too.

This is so much more fun that writing papers.

[aome.livejournal.com]

#5 is Little Town on the Prairie

[skg.livejournal.com]

1. A Little Princess (Burnett)
2. The Luckiest Girl (Cleary)
5. Little Town on the Prairie (Ingalls)
7. The President's Daughter or White House Autumn (White)
8. All of a Kind Family?


Love this!

[slytherincesss.livejournal.com]

2. The book with Shelley who rejects the flowered, velveteen-trimmed raincoat with matching hat in lieu of a plain, yellow slicker, and stuffs her mom's roses down the disposal. This egregious act of teen rebellion gets her sent off to California for her senior (?) year of high school. <333 this book, but forget the name.

8. I'm guessing "One of a Kind Family"?

And I recognize a Little House book, but can't be more specific.

Any book with "Meg" or "Margaret" makes me thing "A Wrinkle in Time".

[laughingirl.livejournal.com]

Shouldn't #6 be #8? ;)

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

There is no #6.

[in-a-tizzy.livejournal.com]

1 Little Princess
2 The Luckiest Girl (I think that's the name it's a Beverly Cleary book)
5 one of the Little House books
7 Oh I know I"m gonna kick myself when I find out what this one is. *racks brain some more*

[verstehen.livejournal.com]

Oh, I have much love for Ellen Emerson White. <3 I wish I owned those books; they're out of print now, if I remember correctly.

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

You can usually find them on Alibris - I only have my original of white house autumn, and had to re-get TPD. And did you ever read Long Live the Queen? Scary, scary stuff.

[verstehen.livejournal.com]

Yes, with the kidnapping! Lord, I think that was my favorite, actually.

...and now, along with sending you $30, I have to hunt these up on Friday. ;)

[borgin.livejournal.com]

I found two in used bookstores, which is awesome because I love the books. Even if I'm too young to have read them when they were actually in print.

[shelaghc.livejournal.com]

I don't recognize the meme.

How does it work?

[leni-jess.livejournal.com]

5 is one of the Little House on the Prairie set - a middle one, I'd guess. It really stood out!

1 will be a late Victorian novel, can't imagine which.

Boggles at the rest (and wonders about the nuns).

Girl, if you think I am that au fait with Mallory Towers trivia - I read, what,two? umpty years ago? - you don't have enough to do, even with three children.

Vicious query: Did you read Dimsie? or Pollyanna (early or (worse)late?)

On the other hand, did you read Antonia Forest's novels? Still very re-readable!

[marauderthesn.livejournal.com]

#4 is The Real Me, I think, but I can't remember who wrote it.

[kitsune13.livejournal.com]

Betty Miles. I *loved* that book!

[lore]

10 isn't Dear Lovey Hart, I Am Desperate by Ellen Conford?

Oh, I bet something is wrong up there.

love, lore

[cleverthylacine]

6. Madeline?

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Little Town on the Prairie. I have been working out which one it was since you posted. Little Town is I think my favorite one; I love the dime social and the little events they had like the spelling bee--I love how much Laura loves to spell, and I love that whole image of her putting her toes in a crack and spelling away. And then the variety show where Pa dresses up as a minstrel and later Laura spots the shoeblack in his whiskers. And the charades where Pa puts two potatoes on his ax and calls it "Commentators on the Acts". And just the sense of Laura growing up and having a real adolescence and going to a party and everything. Even though she married young, I never felt like she missed out on the fun.

How amazing Almanzo had to have been, to stand up next to Pa.

[cedarlibrarian.livejournal.com]

I *should* know #10, but I don't. I'm terrible at this game.

If #8 is one of the All-Of-A-Kind Family books, it's not the first one, because that one starts when Sarah comes home from school upset because she lost a library book.

[macloudt.livejournal.com]

Bah. The only one I recognize off the bat is #5: Little Town on the Prairie. My entire Little House series has been in Beth's room for years now and she's enjoying them, but I still reread all of them at least once a year.

[firefrorefiddle.livejournal.com]

1. The Little Princess
3. Our Town?
4. Makes me think of several of the Wolverine/Rogue fics I've read, but I don't recognize it.
5. Laura Ingalls Wilder, #?
9. Lost Moon?

[emiliap.livejournal.com]

3.) Our Town. I just finished doing that show at my school. :)

[cuppatea.livejournal.com]

Oh my. If I'm right, there's someone else who actually has read...

9) Just Plain Maggie

??

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

Oh yes! I put it in there just in case anyone knew it and...

I read it in third grade, then reacquired it via alibris about 6 or 7 years ago.

: loves the book eversomuch

[mizzy2k.livejournal.com]

1. A Little Princess (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
2. The Luckiest Girl (Beverly Cleary)
3. Grover’s Corners (adaptation of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town) ?
4. The Real Me (Barbara Fisher)
5. Little Town on the Prairie (Laura Ingalls Wilder)
6. The Eight (Katherine Neville)
7. ?
8. ?
9. Just Plain Maggie (L.L. Bein? Bien? Bine? Something like that.)
10. Getting Lincoln's Goat (E. M. Goldman) (okay, this one’s just a guess…)

And I’d guess… urm… 5th? Ack, and my mum thinks I should work in children’s books? Eh, I wish I was at home and could have cheated *g*