Anything I could get my hands on, including stuff I probably shouldn’t have.
What was I reading in the fourth through eighth grade? Adventures, mythology, science (geology rocks!), dinosaurs, science fiction and fantasy, horse books, pioneer stories. I grew up on the western edge of the Midwest, and Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series was wildly popular. So was Caddy Woodlawn, also about a frontier. My Side of the Mountain only added to dreams of living in the semi-wilderness on my own. After all, I’d read what to do, so I could do it, right? Books about American Indian legends, Indian crafts and woodcraft (tracking, hunting, making things) were also popular with me and my friends. Holling C. Holling’s books about history and nature, beautifully illustrated, got read until they fell apart.
Mythology, be it American Indian, Greek and Roman, Norse, Hindu, Australian Aboriginal, all those I devoured. Not novels based on them, but the actual stories, in mildly edited versions (no unexpurgated Ovid). Rudyard Kipling’s Just so Stories and Jungle Book. And his poetry and other poetry from that time.
Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising series. Tamora Pierce’s Song of the Lioness series. Anne McCaffrey’s Harper Hall and Dragonriders of Pern series, although some of the adult material in the latter sailed far over my head. I was reading for the dragons, not the romance. Robin McKinley’s Blue Sword and The Hero and the Crown, then Beauty. Lots and lots of Grimm’s fairy tales and almost all the Coloured Fairy Books. John Bellairs’ novels, starting with A House with a Clock in its Walls.
The Ramona Quimby novels and stuff like that. But I liked Encyclopedia Brown much better. A teacher read Alan Mendelsohn, Boy from Mars to the class and we laughed till our sides ached. Sideways Stories from Wayside School.
Margurite Henry and Walter Farley’s horse novels. Oh I loved King of the Wind, still do.
If there’s a linking theme, it is that all the books were fun stories that take place somewhere or somewhen else. I probably nibbled other things, no, I’m sure I nibbled other things. Ghost stories that had folklore (The Flaming Ship of Okracoke), historical fiction for younger readers (Johnny Texas), straight history of all kinds for all ages. I also colored Dover coloring books full of Tudor and Medieval women, and full of history stories. Almost all had characters who persevered through hard work, determination, and sometimes luck. Many had families that loved them, even when things didn’t work out as well as hoped.
I also read grown-up books like Arthur C. Clark, Isaac Azimov, and so on. Again, it needed adventure, cool characters doing neat stuff, and decent writing.
Looking back, I don’t think books were as rigidly divided into category and class as they are now. Kids books were picture books for little kids. Then you had “middle grade” and YA. YA varied from suitable for younger readers to, well, I recall a few that had very “adult themes and mature content,” as they say on TV today. What I wanted was a fun story with a neat character who fought his way through to success. The character could be a boy or girl, pale or brown, it didn’t matter. Adult or teen or kid, did he stand up for himself and conquer? Then it was an Alma book.
Which doesn’t help Dave at all! Sorry Dave.
Mad Genius Club 
9 responses to “Middle Grade Musings: Or What I Read Back in the Bronze Age”
Comic books… Alien novelization… Hammer’s Slammers
hey, i didnt say i was supposed to be reading it, just that i did.
I found Hammer’s Slammers in high school, so I was a bit behind the times.
oh my mom was PO’d when she found out i’d read it.
Last year for me, so put me way behind the times.
I read a lot of Heinlein juveniles, some Hardy boys, books about electrical experiments (Dewey Decimal 621.384, so it stuck), and near and after 8th grade, the James Bond novels. I might have read Doctor No in 8th grade, but once in high school, all that were published.
Magazines: Life, Boy’s Life, Pop-tronics, older brother’s Car & Driver, oldest brother’s Playboy. [Oops.]
I dearly loved Sideways Stories from Wayside School – still do! And King of the Wind was definitely a favorite. Charlotte Doyle too, as well as classic adventure stories like Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Count of Monte Cristo, Three Musketeers. I read Hardy Boys Casefiles and a few of the old hard backs ( I’m sorry, I as a girl much preferred the adventure with the Hardy boys over Nancy Drew and only read Nancy Drew when bored or when crossed with Frank and Joe 🙂 ) I got into westerns around 13 too, and read plenty of Louis Lamour, some William Johnstone, Cameron Judd, and Kerry Newcomb. My mom laughed herself silly at me and my embarrassment the first time I read a sex scene at the ripe old age of about 15 lol
YA has definitely changed A LOT from what it was when I was a teen in the 90’s, and I don’t think its for the better. Nor is this idea that everything for kids has to be educational. This has been what has ruined a lot of children’s entertainment, too. But I think there are winds beginning to blow once again from the other direction. Perhaps that tide will turn in the future and soon!
“I’m sorry, I as a girl much preferred the adventure with the Hardy boys over Nancy Drew ”
I’m glad to hear that I wasn’t the only one. I found that I preferred the team work and comradery of the Hardy’s over Nancy Drew.
I think that’s probably a general preference among “our sorts of gals”. 🙂
When I was young and reading our juveniles — well, the biggest difference between them and YA is that YA is not allowed to have a young adult as the main character. Except in the military, where being an actual adult is not so much a change because you are in a low rank at that age. Juveniles had adults who were on their own, responsible to and for themselves, and it’s not a tragedy, it’s just the nature of life.
I got my first library card at the age of 7 (1954!). I ran out of books in my “age group” about 1956 or so, and began reading whatever I could find. I had parents that read, and seemed to “find” interesting books. I’ve read a lot of books that are out of print now, and searching for them online leads to some EXTREME sticker-shock! Being “married with children”, in the military, and bouncing back and forth from Stateside to overseas (16/25 years) kept my library pruned to only the things I couldn’t live without.
So much that’s now being written is “girl wins the day” fantasy, usually featuring mythical characters (and sloppy writing — the current group excepted). Finding good, hard-hitting SCIENCE FICTION is difficult, but not impossible. So many of the distopian novels are just depressing (I know I’ll be among the first to go — insulin-dependent diabetic).
I’ve also found lately that I can get immersed in a series, then halfway through just seem to be overrun by the characters and settings, and need a major change. I’m always looking for new writers to try, and have found a few good ones (and lots of bad ones!). Thanks to Kindle Unlimited, I can sample a wide selection of books without breaking my very meager book budget.