Denise's Childhood Book Collection
Tracking down every book that mattered to me before I turned twelve — one thrift shop, one library sale, one lucky find at a time.
12 books recovered so far · RSS
The Baby-Sitters Club #104: Abby's Twin
Abby and Anna are identical twins who couldn't be more different — and this one finally lets Anna have a crisis too.
Found at Recently acquired
The Baby-Sitters Club #23: Dawn on the Coast
Dawn visits her dad in California and starts wondering if Stoneybrook is really where she belongs. The beginning of a long identity question the series kept returning to.
Found at Recently acquired
The Baby-Sitters Club #26: Claudia and the Sad Good-Bye
Mimi dies. Ann M. Martin did not protect us from this and I remain grateful and wrecked.
Found at Recently acquired
Claudia and the Disaster Date
Claudia gets set up on a date that goes spectacularly wrong. A late-era BSC book that leans into comedy and lets Claudia be a little chaotic.
Found at Recently acquired
Stacey and the Boyfriend Trap
Stacey's love life was always the BSC's most dramatic subplot. This one delivers on that promise in Friends Forever form.
Found at Recently acquired
California Diaries #1–7
The BSC spin-off that grew up. Diary format, darker themes, California sunshine with real shadows underneath — Dawn, Sunny, Maggie, Amalia, and Ducky navigating high school.
Found at Recently acquired
The Hork-Bajir Chronicles
A companion book to Animorphs that tells the whole sad history of the Hork-Bajir — gentle tree-people enslaved by the Yeerks. K.A. Applegate somehow made me cry over aliens.
Found at Downloaded / personal copy
Just Juice
Juice Faulstich is nine years old and hiding that she can't read. Karen Hesse wrote this with the same quiet devastation she brought to everything.
Found at Recently acquired
Say Cheese and Die!
A camera that photographs disasters before they happen. One of the Goosebumps books that actually had a good premise and used it.
Found at Recently acquired
A Wrinkle in Time
I didn't understand half of what L'Engle was describing and I read every word twice anyway. Some books you grow into; this one I'm still growing into.
Found at BookPeople, Austin TX
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
Two children run away from home and live secretly inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I thought this was a completely reasonable plan.
Found at Goodwill, South Congress Ave, Austin TX
Charlotte's Web
The one that taught me friendship could transcend every boundary I knew about — including species, and time.
Found at Half Price Books, Austin TX