Joe Kaufman's Big Book About the Human Body. Possibly where I first got interested in biology-related topics. My parents have my copy at the moment, but I'm keeping that book forever.
Spoilered because I have a lot of thoughts Spoiler: Artemis Fowl Ok, so Artemis Fowl was amazing. I was super proud of myself for cracking the code along the bottom of the first book, but I was super pissed that literally none of the words used the letter 'Q', so I didn't know that letter until The Internet Happened and I looked it up. Also, this book was instrumental in one of tiny me's first crushes, as well as tiny me's first attempt at Having A Boyfriend. it was super awkward I never actually finished the series because the time gap between when I read The Eternity Code and when I was able to get my hands on The Opal Incident was long enough that I'd kind of lost the thread of the series and it felt like I was trying to put on a favorite pair of jeans that I'd outgrown. Incidentally, did anyone else try burying an acorn to see what would happen? Or was that just me? >.> Spoiler: Redwall I loved Redwall so much I wrote fanfic of it before I knew that fanfic was a thing. And I made my mom read it. Which she did, because she was an awesome mother who encouraged her child's interests. She also let me try to make some of the food that was mentioned in one of the books. I kind of winged the recipie, but I remember that it was something that otters ate, and it was supposed to be spice and have tough veggies in so I used a ton of red pepper flakes and asparagus (It was actually pretty ok? I liked it anyway.) Then the official Redwall cookbook came out, and the recipe they had for it was nothing like what I'd come up with and that was the end of my Redwall cooking career. Oh, also, I literally just remembered this omg. So, I was in a choir when I was younger, and we did a couple of opera performances, one of which was Chip and his Dog (which I hated) but long story short, I made off with one of the swords (which was a spray-painted particle board cutout) and it became The Sword of Martin for when I was pretending to be a Redwaller (Though I never could decide between being an otter or a squirrel. It never really mattered since I was always playing by myself anyway :P ) Spoiler: A Series of Unfortunate Events I loved these books so much that I would regularly try to replicate the VFD tattoo on my ankle in Sharpie. Plus, I could tell my mom that I was learning new words from reading the books, and therefore they were "educational" and not just "dumb fluff". Spoiler: Darren Shan/Demonata. Fuck the last book of Darren Shan (although it kind of prepared me for the ending of [train noises], which is another series that I adore). Funny story about Demonata. There were two libraries in the county. The director of the one in my town was a staunch Catholic. There were no books by Darren Shan in that library. The other branch had all the Darren Shan books, and like...half the Demonata series, although I don't remember if they stopped buying them due to public outcry, or if they just weren't published yet. Spoiler: Dealing with Dragons I HAVE SO MANY FEELINGS ABOUT THIS ok so like...I love absurdity when it's done well, and I love the idea of turning tropes on their head, and I especially love good female characters that are identifiable instead of being strong female characters for the sake of being strong female characters. Also, I just really loved the spells. I wrote them down in my little "book of poems/songs from books I love" and actually incorporated the whole "Power of water, wind, and earth" part into a spell of my own. Because hey, if it works for my favorite fictional characters, it's good enough for me, right? The audiobooks for this series were also amazing. I normally hate audiobooks, because they're s o s l o w but the voices and everything with these were just perfect, and I'd listen to them while mowing the lawn. Spoiler: The Folk Keeper Not a series, but I was reminded of it because I used to listen to this audiobook too. I absolutely loved this book because it was sad and a little scary, but also hopeful and strong and I only vaguely recall the storyline, but this was basically my first introduction to the rules of dealing with the fae and it had quite an impression on me. Spoiler: Abhorsen Charter magic and Disreputable Dog and Mogget and DID YOU KNOW THERE IS A NEW BOOK FINALLY THAT IS SET AFTER THE EVENTS OF ABHORSEN. So I guess this is only kind of nostalgia, because I'm still reading the books, but also when I read them as a kid, I reallyreally wanted to cosplay Lirael, partly because the whole bell thing reminded me of the handbells that my grandmother used to play in church, and I always loved handbells. Plus the idea of being able to just kind of....waltz into death and waltz back out really appealed to me. fakeedit: Did anyone else feel like there was kind of a.....allegorical tone to the Charter magic vs Free magic thing? Like, charter magic is Good and you have to be baptized in the Charter, and it doesn't play with Death and things like that. But Free Magic is corrosive and Not Good and can be used for Necromancy and it quite literally stinks. And the Abhorsen, who uses a blend of both magics is kind of like a Sin Eater/Savior figure and I literally never really noticed this until I was thinking about it just now. Or maybe it's just me. Spoiler: Mordant's Need So, I read fast. Especially if I'm consuming books for pleasure rather than reading something technical. One day, I went to my favorite librarian and asked her to recommend a really long book to me. She recommended this two book series. They're both adult books, but because she'd literally known me since I was a little kid, she knew I was quite capable of reading/comprehending/not being scarred by it (I think I was somewhere between 14 and 16 when I read them). Oddly, I don't remember much about the books aside from the fact that I really liked them, they took me a long time to read, the main character had tinnitus and the tinnitus was somehow related to the alternate world she enters. Spoiler: His Dark Materials ha. ahaha. I have such mixed feelings about these books. I was not allowed to read them because they were "satanic" and "demonic" and full of "magic and witchcraft". But I somehow convinced my mom to let me read the first one? And I read it, and loved it, because look! A girl who is doing things she's not supposed to, because they're only forbidden to her because she's a girl! (and also I really wanted a daemon because reasons), but out of self-preservation, I told my mother that it was weird I didn't feel like reading the rest of the trilogy. I think I eventually did read it, but my memory is very hazy so I might have just wikipedia'd the summary instead. But like, every time someone mentions the series, I have a very strong "Yes, good!" reaction, followed closely by a "ew, omg why would you read that" reaction and it's really disconcerting. Spoiler: Crystal Singer series Fun fact, there's sex in these books (as there is in most Anne McCaffrey books) so my library classed them as Adult books, even though they're really YA....a fact I didn't realize until I re-read them this year and realized they weren't really written for adults. They're really good though. Spoiler: The Ship who Sang series Another Anne McCaffrey series. The premise is cool af, and after I finished reading the books, I was very angry that I could not become a shell person. (Ok, so as an adult, the premise is kind of....also creepy because consent/lack thereof/the justification for not getting it? But to tiny me who wasn't really aware of such a concept, it was cool af. Spoiler: Mandie books Ok, so, when I was 9/10/11-ish these were my jam. I think I read them all. They're "Christian" mystery novels that are racist as hell, marketed as an alternative to Nancy Drew/Trixie Belden books. All I can say is...my mom was kind of deep in the rabbit hole when I was that age, but we both got better. ....I'm...gonna stop. I could probably go another couple of miles with this lol. This explains why I loved Hermione so much when I finally got to read Harry Potter by stealing the books from the library
