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
Sometime during my early teens, our English class was required to read Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, which really caught my interest, and Orwell’s Animal Farm. Both of these dystopian novels opened my eyes to other realities, as well as the danger of imagined worlds becoming true reality. I realized that freedoms were worth the fight, and would have to be fought for, over and over.
I am now an elementary school librarian, and I still love opening books and minds. 🙂
I have loved books from the time I first heard my Mom read to me and it never has ended. My favorite place was the library and my first Genre fave was and is Sci Fi/Fantasy with Mysteries as a close second. A burning love for books led me first to instill a love of reading in my own children and then to my former career as an Elementary School teacher. I wanted my students to love reading as much as I did. From a love of reading comes a passion to learn which leads to many positive advances in life.
My favorite book was and is CATSEYE by Andre Norton. I have a hardbound copy on my shelf which I will never give away. At least once a year I reread it.The story ,style of writing and characters let me go to a far distant place where the main character followed his dreams and escaped from poverty. He is aided by psychic abilities he inherited and a cadre of exotic animals he aided to escape from the servitude of organized crime. They could communicate without words. Together they won the freedom of a Preserve set aside to protect humans as well as animals. He becomes a Ranger there devoting his life to Ecological Preservation.
I love being a member of the PBS Family and sharing books with people who LOVE to read!
Daphne du Maurier, the classic mystery writer of mystical Cornwall. Rebecca and Jamaica Inn are my favorites — exciting, mysterious, well-written, and great characters!
Mrs. Mike by Nancy and Benedict Freedman. Wilderness adventure and love story. It was a book my mother read in school and I’ve never met anyone else who read it.
I was a HUGE fan of the Anne of Green Gables books by L.M. Montgomery, and have read them time and time again, from before I was 14 into my adulthood. My favorite family vacations were when we traveled to P.E.I. to visit Green Gables and see the musical in Charlottetown (about 20 years apart – and some of the same actors were still in it, the second time around!)
I just loved the characters, and the budding romance between Gilbert and Anne. I’ve always been a fan of series that continue the story. I like to see how they live their lives. Anne’s flair for description was another favorite part of my enjoyment of the books. I always wished I had her gift of imagery.
As a 14 year old girl, I remember vividly seeing the movie “Gone with the Wind” playing on the big screen in my home town. I just had to read the book after that wonderful movie and so
I borrowed my aunt’s copy. I have to say I learned more about the Civil War reading Margaret Mitchell’s masterpiece than in any high school or college history class.
Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins. It was my first intro into Tom Robbins’s books (a birthday gift from my cousin) and is still my favorite of his to this day.
My favorite book from when I was around 14 is The Wild Swan by Margaret Way. It was the first Harlequin book that I bought. I chose it because it had a horse on the cover. I still read Harlequin books and any other book that I can get my hands on.
At 14 I still loved everything by Roald Dahl, except by that point I had read everything beyond Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the Twits to more of his short stories for adults.
Watership Down by Richard Adams. My dad and I were shopping one day, and when we went to the bookstore, he grabbed that and said, “Read it, you’ll like it.” He was right – it led added to my love of books with animals as the lead characters. I loved learning the rabbit “language” and (supposedly) how a rabbit warren worked.
It was the beginning of my dad and I recommending books to one another! I recommended the Redwall series by Brian Jacques to him, and he enjoyed it!
Perry Mason was on television every Saturday night and I discovered Perry Mason books by Erle Stanley Gardner at the library. Loved those books! I think that I read every one the library had.
My favorite book when I was 14 was The Hobbit. My dad had gotten it when he was in his first class in college and I was always ahead in reading so I picked it up. The rest is history! Read The Hobbit and the whole Fellowship of the Ring and wore out two sets of them. I still have a set in my library today.
My favorite book was Martians Go Home by Frederick Brown. It was the beginning of a lifelong love affair with Science Fiction. I soon learned to not do book reports on science fiction books (in the late 50’s) as my English teacher did not consider them literature. I read them anyway.
Gosh! 14!?? I was a closet reader…it wasn’t really cool in 1977! There were so many great books! I would have to say S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders. Rebellious teens, hormones, wanting to fit it…the cool kids…One part of the book really hit home with me. No parents…being raised by an older brother…Exactly me. My parents died while I was very young…being raised by my older brother.
I had a lot of books I loved at 14, but my most memorable by far was Night Shift by Stephen King. His short stories were super creepy but so amazingly interesting to read. A wide variety of horrors and many short stories that in subsequent years become more full fledged novels & movies! I recommend this book still, ALL the time to people. This book is a perfect peek into the creepy creative mind of one of our generation’s greatest writers of horror and drama. Many people thought my parents were using bad judgement to allow me to read Stephen King at a young age….but I’ve let my kids do the same, and even read some novels with them together like The Shining and Salem’s Lot.
I was proud of my Nancy Drew collection by Carolyn Keene because they were my very own books. I was probably younger than 14, but loved finding a quiet spot during summer vacation to become completely absorbed in a good book!
The Mammoth Hunters, by Jean Auel. The plot was unique, and the story compelling. (May have been a little too “adult” for a 14 year old though…!)
My parents divorced when I was 8. I endured an evil stepmother for the remainder of my childhood. I found a joy in reading and was good at it, so it was forbidden and books were confiscated.
My step-sister and step-brother had a bookshelf full of children’s books, and I found there was just enough space between the side of the bookshelf and the corner it was near to squeeze there to hide.
I’d silently slip books from their place, making careful note of where that place was, and lose myself in a better, happier world.
They were books meant for little kids, but I didn’t mind.
The ‘Serendipity’ books by Stephen Cosgrove and illustrated by Robin James gave me hope and light in a time where I had none, and I truly believe they protected my heart from bitterness and anger with their messages of love, self-acceptance and courage.
14? That was a longtime ago, but one that stands out was Watership Down by Richard Adams. I’ve always been an animal lover, and it was a great story of hope, life, faith, inner strength and deep convictions, from the rabbits point of view, but with human traits as well. A wonderful read!
My favorite book when I was 14 was The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. This was my favorite book because I loved how he used a lot of descriptive words in his storyline. I remember imagining that I was on Mars and what I would see there. I recommend this book to anyone who loves Science Fiction added with a curious imagination!
When I was 14 I read Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes. I wasn’t much of a reader back then, reading mostly light romance. I had to read this for school. I think this was the first historical fiction novel I ever read. I was surprised that I really enjoyed it. It is about a boy who becomes an apprentice to a silversmith but is “accidentally” maimed by a jealous older apprentice. Through many trials and tribulations he eventually finds someone willing to hire him. He becomes a horse-man for the Boston Observer and a messenger for the Sons of Liberty. Through the pre-revolutionary years, he discovers he has value. A wonderful coming of age novel, full of drama and great character development. BTW my current favorite genre is historical fiction!! Highly recommend.
The Pearl by John Steinbeck I remember made such and impression on me. I had a multitude of favorites, actually.
My favorite book was (and still is) Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell! I loved it before I read it because I was a fellow fan fiction writer as the character Cath in the book and I knew I could relate to her. As I read, I was blown away by how much I could relate to her. Of course, I was still in high school while she was in her first year of college, but her personality was exactly like mine when I read it. As a teen girl who stayed up into the wee hours of the night writing fan fiction about her favorite TV show characters kissing, seeing that I wasn’t alone and not a weirdo was definitely reassuring. But also, constantly writing romance without ever having experienced romance can get to be a drag. Reading Cath fall into a relationship gave me hope. All the characters were so relatable and natural and I will never get tired of reading it.
I remember loving the ANIMORPHS series by K. A. Applegate when I was a teenager. I was enthralled by the strange fantasy creatures, the exciting adventures, and the dangerous burden on mere youth to save their race from intergalactic parasites.
Killashandra by Anne McCaffrey. I was a huge fan of Anne McCaffrey in my teens and read everything she published. Her passing was such a huge loss for fantasy lovers, although her son, Todd McCaffrey has become a good author in his own right.
Fourteen was a long time ago, way back in 1959. I was not much a reader as a teenager, too busy working.
But I did love horse stories and my favorite at the time was Beyond Rope and Fence by Grew, David. I still own a copy of it and re-read it at least once a year.
Forty-eight years ago, at the delinquent age of 14, reading a book was pure torture.
I do remember one, though,”The Old Man and the Sea” by Ernest Hemingway. Boy that poor fisherman suffered.
One line still sticks in my mind “Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink”
To bad I didn’t enjoy books then, as I do now.
When I was 14, I was really into the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. I was almost the exact same age as Harry while the books were being published and I loved getting lost in the magical world of wizards.
The vicinity of 2001, the second book in the Abhorsen series came out, Lirael, by Garth Nix. I loooooove that series. Read Shade’s Children by Nix, and have followed him along ever since. And I think the Abhorsen books are his best.
Definitely the Flowers in the Attic series by V.C. Andrews. It seemed so taboo at that time. One girl in my class read it and that paperback was passed from girl to girl, becoming dog-eared and worn as a result. That’s always the sign of a great book!
When I was around 14, I was reading my grandmother’s Steven King books. She always bought them as soon as they came out on hard back. I was also into murder mysteries. But my favorite at that time was Red Dragon by Thomas Harris. It scared me to death, but I’d still stay up all night reading it because I couldn’t put it down. It’s one of the few books I’ve ever enjoyed enough to read more than once.
The Babysitter’s Club series.
The super specials were some of my favorites because they are longer.
My friends and I would pass them around whenever one of us got a new one!
Kari
Stranger in a strange land, very apropos for the period in my life. Come to think of, still today. I should reread those olden tomes.
One of my favorite books from when I was around 14, was Misty Of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry. By 14 I had probably read this book 6 times, as I read it every summer. The story of a boy and girl taming and training wild ponies while living on an island still enchants me. As a kid, I talked my parents into taking us to Chincoteague Island for the wild pony swim, and they loved the island so much we kept going back, and I went on to a lifetime in horses, formerly a horse trainer, and now breeder, horse show competitor, and my side hustle is an international business selling old and rare horse books.
Misty of Chincoteague has been a horse lover’s classic since it was published decades ago.
My favorite book when I was 14 was “Wonderland Avenue: Tales of Glamour and Excess” by Danny Sugarman. I love love love The Doors and this book is written by a close friend of the band’s. It’s about his days with them and his own drug addiction. I love reading autobiographies. This is the book I actually wrote about three years later when I was 17 for my college entrance essay.
My favorite book when I was 14 was Dark Bounderies by Anne Purdy. It was a small but brillianty written book on the fictional life of a woman in early 1900’s Alaska and her indomitable spirit.
“Tuck Everlasting”
I read it before I was 14 years old, but it was still a favorite at 14 years old. I just seem to fall in love with the story over and over again. Makes you appreciate life in it’s natural order. I like the way the writer writes the story as well.
They made a movie about it. The movie was not how I imagined things in my head when I read the book.
Beginning of 4th grade I read Lassie Come Home by Eric Knight. At the beginning of every school year after that I would read it again. I recently got through PBS the same school edition as I remember reading as a kid. I remember the pictures! Also used to read Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty every year. Loved animals stories.
bfg by ronald dalh or anything by this author
Nancy Drew…..
And then there were none by Agatha Christie. The surprise ending was definitely a surprise. Ever since i devoured every book of hers. She definitely earned the title of Queen of Crime.
I remember reading the Great Gatsby in High school and really enjoying it! What a terrific book!
I loved the Blue Ribbon series by Christ St. John- I was and still am horse crazy and reading about the world of eventing and showing helped me pass the time between riding lessons. I identified with the quieter character, Jessie, but secretly wanted to be elegant like Dara or brave and daring like Kate.
I loved anything by Steven King, but my favorite at that age was The Stand. I loved the mystery and the little guy winning theme.
The Long Winter, by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I always loved books about the pioneer days, and loved all of Wilder’s books. They painted such a vivid picture of frontier life.
I really loved adventure books, and Call of the Wild, by Jack London was my favorite. I was 14 and enjoyed lots of books of faraway places. Of course I loved dogs, and and had a collie dog, so I knew how friends and protective dogs could be.
Go ask Alice by anonymous
Charly by Jack Weyland it was funny and romantic and broke my heart with the ending. I don’t know why it spoke to me, but it did.
Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger. My 14-year-old self really identified with Holden.
I absolutely love The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. It started a great beginning with the fantasy genre.