Ender’s Game – I read this when I was eight (thanks, Randy) and it has definitely withstood the test of time.
Piers Anthony’s Incarnations of Immortality Series
The Tommyknockers (and IT – my mom forbade me to read her Stephen King novels, so naturally I devoured them)
The Hobbit, the Fellowship of the Ring, and most of the Two Towers (which I didn’t realize until I saw the movie, prompting me to go back and re-read as an adult)
Jane Eyre (I’ve read it once a year since I was eight. Every summer.)
Oliver Twist (when I was six – my four year old brother didn’t think I could do it. I loved it, learned the word “crone”)
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (age 9. No, I didn’t get it)
Of course there were more age appropriate books in there, like all the Little House books, Black Beauty and the Black Stallion, the Ramona books, From the Mixed up files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (which I kept flashing back to in New York last month). This wasn’t meant a be a comprehensive list, just a reflection on some of the more unusual books I had access to and remember from that age.
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