Today, PaperBackSwap turns 14! Happy Birthday to us! And what is a Birthday Party without games?!
Since playing pin the tail on the donkey, or musical chairs isn’t easy to do online, we have come up with a game everyone can play.
We call it Favorites at 14.
Here is how it works:
In the comments here on the Blog, tell us one of your favorite books, title and author, from when you were 14, or thereabouts. And tell us why you liked the book.
It is that simple. On Friday, September 7, 2018, we will choose a winner at random.
The winner will receive their choice of 6 PaperBackSwap Credits, one year of Standard Membership or a one year subscription to Box-O-Books.
Contest is only open to current PBS members whose accounts are in good standing.
Good luck to everyone!
Tags: Box-O-Books, Contests, Free Credits, Milestones
I loved the Little House on the Prairie series. I couldn’t wait to go back to the library to check out the next book in the series. Reading about the happy times and the struggles that Laura and her family went through gave me insight to what life was like in those times. I also watched the entire TV series and encouraged my grandchildren to read the series, which they also enjoyed.
At 14, I was in the 9th grade. My favorite books at the time was the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. And to this day, I still enjoy re-reading them.
It is hard to pick one book. I remember the glee at 14 when the librarian allowed me to check out books from the Adult Section, not Young Adult and introduced me to The Jalna Series by Mazo de la Roche. I couldn’t read the books fast enough and head back to the library for the next book in the series.
If I had to choose just 1 book it would be The Building of Jalna, the first book in the series, published in 1944. The series needs to be read in order and I have reread them 3 or 4 times in my lifetime. I introduced my daughters to the series and hope to introduce it to my grandchildren too.
When I was 14 in eighth grade, we read To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and it is still one of my favorite books. It is book that can have a major impact on your life. It’s a story of racial inequality and takes place during the Great Depression in the American South.
Around age 14 would have been when I was a freshman in high school. I read a lot and one of my very favorites that I read over and over was Gone With the Wind. I think I was interested in that time period because it was so different than the one I lived in and there was so much danger. And, of course, I loved the romantic thread to the storyline, although I always wanted a better ending to that book!
hallo … 14 is a long time ago …. around that time one of my favorite authors was enid blyton … a british childrens/young adult writer . i loved all her books , but the famous 5 was one of my favorites . there are lots in that set … take any title and i probably read it … she also had a series about twins at boarding school … those titles differ in english … [ i read them in german ]… i remember …. also … at 14 i went to boarding school ….
At 14, Ponyboy from S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders was my first true love. Living in that world with Pony, Soda and the other lost boys was a far cry from my safe, suburban upbringing two decades after the period of the book. I fell deeply in love with Ponyboy which formed a pattern of real life relationships that I would have throughout my teens and early 20s. The Ponyboy in my imagination was dark and brooding but vulnerable, with a beautiful chiseled face. (Rob Lowe of the film was slightly askew of this: too pretty, not dark and broody enough.)
When I was fourteen the second book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, was one of my favorite books. I have always loved reading and the enticement of the very thick Harry Potter books was great! I’m not and never really was a Harry Potter fan, but I did enjoy reading the books, and continue to re-read them every couple of years!
My favorite books at that time were the Nancy Drew books. I read them all and really loved them. I think the Hidden Staircase was one the first few written, and I especially like that.
At 14, I read Robin Hood, I don’t recall the author. I was from a poor family and I liked the way Robin Hood robbed the rich and gave to the poor. I liked the character in the story. He was doing good for others rather than for himself. I based my life about being good to others. I got a college education and became a teacher. After retiring, I worked with Hospice patients. I always donate to worthy missions. Reading that book helped me meet my goals in life. I am glad I read it.
Catcher in the Rye a very teenage type of book.
Anything and everything Nancy Drew – but really when I was 14 was so long ago; maybe next contest could be what were you reading 14 years ago.
At 14 (’63), I was in Hospital having broken nose (from when I don’t know) bones removed. I read the Walter J. Black printed copy of Zane Grey’s ‘Riders of the Purple Sage’. I still have it along with the rest of the Black set.
A Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne…I got my hands on a paperback copy (a book that didn’t have to be returned to the library after a few days) and read that book I don’t know how many times! I think that was my first real serious science fiction book – and I loved it!
When I was 14, a freshman in high school (1962!), I went into the school bookstore to buy John Steinbeck’s The Pearl, required reading for my English class. Another book caught my eye, Lloyd C. Douglas’s The Big Fisherman, which I bought instead, as I didn’t have enough money to buy both. It was the first book I’d ever purchased, and I read it cover to cover at least five times in the next few years. I never did read the Pearl, but was able to pass each quiz by just listening to the discussion of the book in class and making lucky guesses.
When I was 14 I read the book “Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret by Judy Blume. The book was interesting because it was about a teenager growing up and the fact that her breast wouldn’t grow, how she felt like she wasn’t good enough, awkward and the way most girls that age feel bad about their selves. I felt like I was not alone after reading this book and was able to better cope with the pressures of teenage life.
Starship Troopers by Heinlein – I loved the vivid descriptions of military life and training.
I believe my favorite book at the age of 14 was Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume. I remember reading this book over and over again. I guess becoming a teenager and having lots of questions about life and oneself really drew me into the book. I haven’t read this book since I was a teenager… I loved most all of Judy Blume’s books and Encyclopedia Brown books too. But Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret had to be my number one book of my teenage years.
If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits? by Erma Bombeck I thought it was very funny, at the time. 🙂
“Wifey” by Judy Blume. I enjoyed it because I loved Judy Blume and was forbidden from reading this book since it was considered much too adult for a 14 year old.
My favorite books at this time was the Little House on the Prairie series. I loved it so much, I named my first daughter Laura. She is now reading them, and it is so enjoyable that she is reading them from my books!
That was the year I started high school. The book I remember most that I read in high school was “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Still re-read it every-so-often.
At 14 I was a freshman in high school. I was checking out book-bags full of books from the school library every week. I’m not gonna lie, I judged a book by its cover. If the book had an odd spine or fantastic cover art I was sure to read the synopsis and it was usually a good find. I found a very not school friendly book. The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant. It had everything, a great name and wonderful cover art ( I’m a sucker for a good hardback book). This book was different then most books I had read since it was more for adults then young adults. It dealt with harsher realities and just had a different feel. I loved it, I loved it so much that I wanted to use it for a work assignment and I had to fight to use it. The teacher didn’t feel like it was appropriate since it was pretty “adult” but I loved it . I drew a colored pencil Birth of Venus to represent the book , they loved it so much they lamented the picture and displayed it until the end of the school year.
Loved the Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien. Absolutely my favorite book assignment in school. Have since read all the J.R.R Tolkien books and listened to them on audio. All the fantasy, adventure and good and evil. What an author!
At 14 I was totally immersed in Joseph Conrad – scouring bookstores and haunting the library until the librarian simply ordered all of the titles I’d not read from the state library. Conrad stayed with me. Years later, I went on a second search, collecting all of his works published in the 1920s Doubleday edition.
Yes, picking just one book is so difficult. Like Barbara R., I’m tempted to say “To Kill a Mockingbird” – a book that is life-changing for so many reasons, but then there was “1984” also, which has also had an indelible impact on the way I, and so many others, view the world. So for variety’s sake, why don’t I just say another completely different type of book altogether that I also loved, “The Lady in the Lake” by Raymond Chandler. It, too, made me look at reading and storytelling in a completely new way.
If memory serves me right, when I was 14 I was in the process of collecting and reading the Fearless series by Francine Pascal. At the time I felt like I could relate really well to the main character and reading/following all the crazy things going on in her life made mine seem a little more normal.
My favorite book around the time I was 14 was probably This Present Darkness and Piercing the Darkness by Frank Peretti. Strong stories about spiritual battles unseen that encouraged me to think beyond what I see and hear.
Fourteen was a very long time ago, and I’m not sure what my favorite book was at that time. I know I loved the Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden mysteries, as well as The Black Stallion and all of the offshoots of it. Fourteen may have been when I was getting interested in more adult themed books I found in my parents’ bookshelves, too. I think I read King’s Row at about that age. I liked it because, although some of the tragic events that happened to that poor guy were shocking to my young self, I was struck by how he never lost his optimism. It taught me that most things can be borne and overcome if you don’t lose hope.
I loved the book A Swiftly Tilting Planet (the third in the Wrinkle in Time Trilogy) by Madeline L’Engle when I was 14. I loved the relationship that Meg and her brother Charles Wallace had, and their tessering through time to relive the stories of their ancestors and try to change the future by affecting the past.
The Cherry Ames series by Helen Wells, any or all. At that time and for years afterwards, I seriously thought I would become a nurse. Of course by the time I reached college, I changed my mind.
I was always an animal lover and loved any story that had to do with them. Black Beauty by Anna Sewell was a favorite. I cried during the tough times and celebrated in the good.
City of Masks (Stravaganza Series). This was the first book of a very underrated series, but also the last book I bought from a school book fair, so just getting it is a vivid memory. But I loved this YA book, and to this day, over a decade later, I wish the author would write more books in this series. It had everything!
Politics, royalty, alternate worlds, teenage angst, romance, tension, jokes, magic. I could re-read it and still enjoy every minute of it.
I recommend it to everyone!
I was a big Three Investigators by Robert Aurthur series reader back in the day. I couldn’t get enough of them Jupiter Jones, Bob Andrews, and Pete Crenshaw were by far formidable detectives for their age. They were smart and had a killer clubhouse hidden in a scrap metal yard. I remember a few of the titles, but the one that really sticks out to me is The Mystery of the Green Ghost. They are hard to find now, but I would love to get a few for my kids. While everyone else was reading Nancy Drew or The Hardy Boys, I had my head in that series.
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein It captured my imagination and transported me to another dimension.
Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell. I could imagine myself on that island by myself, surviving by my wits. Befriends the dog/wolf was icing on the cake.
I’m not sure if it was exactly at 14, might have been the year before, but right about that age my Mom handed me a copy of Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Identity. I was hooked! I proceeded to devour every Ludlum novel in existence, even spending weekends tracking down first editions, finding his pen names and reading those, too. I couldn’t get enough.
I’ve been an avid reader since, and go from book to book, like ET following a trail of Reece’s.
Incidentally, it was my Mom who also got me on PBS, which is a Godsend to folks like us. I always have at least 8 books ready to go in my TBR pile!
Happy reading, all!
I loved the Narnia series by C S Lewis. He could make that world seem real to me!
Happy birthday, PBS! It’s kind of hard for me to remember what I was reading at the age of 14, but around that time, I had discovered the author Mary Stewart and loved the books she wrote. One of my favorites was “Airs Above the Ground”.
At 14, I was swept away by Jane Eyre. I felt her anguish and insecurities as I had never felt for any other book character before, probably because they mirrored my own 14-year old anguish and insecurities. I think I also fell in love with Mr. Rochester, too. This book still mesmerizes me. I love British prose and went on to become a Jane Austen fan in my later teenage years.
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, for sure. I carried it around with me all through high school, and had big chunks of it memorized. I’ve bought many copies over the years but I still have that original falling-apart paperback around someplace.
Gone with the Wind by Mitchell. I read it during the summer at age of 14. And cried thru the last half of the book (see the pages was tough). Also tried to read in private so my brothers did not see me crying over a book.
Matilda was always a book I identified with so strongly as a kid. I don’t know if a book can be considered a security blanket, but that’s the closest analogy I can draw. Matilda reminded me even as a kid when times get tough and the odds aren’t in your favor, if you are kind (and a little clever) there is love out there in the world waiting to embrace you in its arms. 🙂
Happy birthday, PBS!
I’m in my seventies, so there was no such thing as “young adult books” for teenagers – I went straight from Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys to Mary Stewart and Victoria Holt. The book that stands out in my mind is “Airs Above the Ground” by Mary Stewart. It had adventure, mystery and the famous Lipizzaner Stallions. I’ve reread the book multiple times through the years and it will always remain a favorite.
My favorite book at fourteen would have been Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. I was a verocious reader and had read all of the books in my age group like Penny T. which included Nancy Drew, Victoria Holt and Mary Stewart. then I found the Bronte Sisters. This book was just so sad and romantic that I still remember when I read it.
In 1982, I liked the original Conan the Barbarian stories and novels by Robert E. Howard. I also read my way through the Tarzan series by Edgar Rice Burroughs for the same reason: I craved adventure, and I found plenty in the pages of books!
I found a copy of the Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann and it changed me from child to adult. I was a fan of Susann then and read everything she wrote. Powerful women’s stories.
I was probably a bit younger than 14 – but I loved the “Anne of Green Gables” series of books. Even though her stories were from long ago, they felt current because I could relate to the problems and issues she faced as a young girl growing up.
As a girl of 14, I loved the Nancy Drew series. Particularly, Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase. I loved to imagine I was transported to another world and was solving the mysteries. It was always a disappointment when I was called away from my beloved books to participate in real world chores. There was many a missed bedtime because I was secretly reading well into the night.
I loved Sweet Valley High books. I guess it was because they were about a life that seemed so much more interesting than mine. They could drive!