Martinex1: This snowy (at least for some of us in the Midwest) Monday let's consider two questions related to the Bronze Age.
Question 1: My sons read series of books that weren't published in the Bronze Age, like Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Captain Underpants, but what were your favorite prose series growing up? What books did you just have to have? Maybe these will jog some memories.
Question 2: We recently discussed board games, but a simple deck of cards goes a long way. What card games did you play growing up? Do you have a favorite? Was it a family favorite or something you occasionally did to pass the time? Poker? Hearts? Rook? Pit? Uno? Gin Rummy? Euchre? Go Fish? Let us know and share some card playing stories as well.
16 comments:
Good Morning all, on this -2 degree F morning! Fun question Marti!!!
Well, I never read any thing resembling a series but...
"Me and Caleb" and "Me and Caleb Again" were read over and over and over... Those books command a pretty penny on ebay, even beaters from the library. My kids loved "Me and Caleb" too! Published in the early 60s and won some big-time award.
Also, the author Jolly Roger Bradfield had put out sort-of-a-series of three books in the 60s: "Giants Come in Different Sizes," "The Flying Hockey Stick," and "The Thirsty Camel." Wow... did they get some mileage! Though they were illustrated the stories just grabbed us kids!
Card games: Lots of Poker, Rummy, Gin Rummy, Michigan Rummy, Uno, and War. Also a lot of Cribbage with an Uncle who would simultaneously enthrall me with his WWII exploits!
1) I loved those mystery series, the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew and The Three Investigators - when I was in primary school (aged 7 to 11) the class visited the local library once a week and I scoured the shelves for those books. A few years ago I was listening to a radio documentary about the Nancy Drew books and I discovered, to my amazement, that they were aimed at girls - call me stupid but it never crossed my mind that Nancy Drew was meant for girls! Nobody said anything at the time so I guess nobody else realized either!
I also read the "Jennings" books by Anthony Buckeridge. They were about the adventures of a schoolboy at a private school. Nowadays, politically I have a real problem with private education but back then I enjoyed the Jennings books - and Anthony Buckeridge was apparently quite left-wing despite his books being set in a private school.
2) My favourite card game was Snap! - childish and silly but great fun :D
By the way, the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books were written by Franklin W. Dixon and Carolyn Keene but neither of those authors actually existed - they were just pseudonyms for a variety of different authors.
On the subject of snow - this week in the UK we are promised (or threatened with?) the "coldest week of the winter" so I'm hoping to see some snow :)
I think that I read about a half dozen Hardy Boy mysteries and found them utterly unremarkable, and lacking a reason to read any further, I switched to science fiction.
I think that I played Go Fish a couple of times, and then there was one summer when Uno was king. Towards the end of my middle school days, and living in Milwaukee, Sheep's Head (Schafkopf) became the game to play.
Oh Lordy, how could I forget endless games of pinochle with my grandmother and parents! I even tried to learn Bridge in the 8th grade at school. Once a month the school set aside an hour to learn game of your choice for the year!
I haven't thought about it in ages but I recall enjoying a sci-fi series in elementary school starring a warrior/agent named Keill Randor. I see on Wikipedia it's called the Last Legionary Series by Douglas Arthur Hill, and revolved around defeating the Galactic Warlord. I just remember there was a telepathic bird sidekick and at some point Keill gets unbreakable bones (all of which no doubt appealed to my X-Men -loving sensibilities). They were fun actions stories.
Also, Encyclopedia Brown, anyone? Those were fun, too.
-david p.
Oh, reading was very high on my list of youthful activities! Among those tomes were many Hardy Boys mysteries; at one point there were probably 20 volumes on my shelf. I knew Frank, Joe and Chet like friends...
And as david p mentioned, Encyclopedia Brown was good too. But there was another series I read, from Scholastic books (you know, those books we ordered at school). Its started off as "Double Trouble for Rupert", and continued from there. These books weren't really mysteries; basically funny stories about the misadventures of a kid named Rupert Piper and his friends. Perfect reading for a 9 year old kid; loved those stories (and loved getting a stack of books through Scholastic periodically, my parents seemed happy to spend a few bucks if it kept me reading).
As for card games, Eucre was a common pastime at our house, and among our friends after we got married. Easy to learn, and doesn't require so much concentration as to preclude a bit of conversation. Also like Rumm. We have a family variation called "Progressive Rummy", in which each successive hand gets larger with a corresponding increase in the number of 'sets' and 'runs' required to play down and score. The final hand is so extensive it takes two decks to handle it, and your hand starts with about 15 cards. Fun times...
For a while in elementary school I was really into the Danny Dunn books, and then also John Fitzgerald's Great Brain series.
However, Tolkien's Hobbit, which I read pretty early on, led me to LoTR, and then the Earthsea books by Le Guin (RIP) led me to seek out similar material, including SF, while comics led me to Burroughs' Tarzan and Barsoom books, Conan, etc., so the "kiddie" stuff was soon left behind...
Redartz, we had those Scholastic book order forms at school in Canada too! I still have a bunch of the books I ordered.
I was a big Hardy Boys fan (I still have a bunch), Three Investigators, and the Narnia books, if that counts as a series. I liked Encyclopedia Brown, though I didn't own any of them myself ... I just read them in the school library.
As for card games it was mainly rummy, thirty-one (which we referred to as "Scat" for some reason), and the ever popular Go Fish. I also liked Uno--in fact I've been trying to find an Uno deck in the local stores since I haven't played in so long. Later, I got into cribbage, but it's been a long time since I played that.
Red and Edo - what were the basic themes of the Rupert and Danny Dunn books? The names seem so familiar and I can almost picture some covers - for the life of me I just cannot remember. I bet I read them but can you jolt me with some specifics?
I loved Encyclopedia Brown. I liked how the mysteries worked and that there were clues to solve them. I had a fair collection of Hardy Boys books and especially loved their Detective Manual ( I think that’s what it is called) that taught how to recognize crimes, find fingerprints etc. I wanted to be a Private Eye so badly.
I also enjoyed the “Trick” books from Scott Corbett with the magical chemistry set that always caused havoc for a couple of boys. Lots of fun.
Did anybody read the adventure books where you pick your own outcome? Choose your adventure? I don’t remember what they were called, but you read the first part of the story and then make choices, jumping to page 7 or 32 depending what you decided and so on.
We spent a lot of time at the library growing up. Weekly trips it seemed.
Marti- Can't remember too many specifics about the "Rupert" books as it's been about 40 years since I read one; lol! I just recall that they featured a bunch of short, humorous stories, about 8 pages each. Usually involved Rupert getting into some difficulty or other, and trying to get out of them. Only a couple that still come to mind: one had Rupert getting access to a computer at school (called a "Univac", at the time it was pretty futuristic) and using it to do homework. Another story concerned his mother using Rupert as a dressmaker's model while making a dress for a female friend of Rupert's. Of course one of his tormentors walked in and saw, and Rupert chased him down the stree,t still wearing the dress in question. Anyway, the stories were like that, like little situation comedies. Lots of fun...
I read a couple of Hardy Boys mysteries....and the Three Investigators, I liked them better than the Hardy Boys. I didn't really get into a lot of series early on for some reason, but I eventually gravitated toward the ERB series (Tarzan, John Carter, Pellucidar, etc...) and the Doc Savage stories because the local bookstore had a lot of them, and all of them were in comic book form at the time, too.
Card Games.....I am probably the worst card player ever. People run screaming when I approach their table and they need a fourth to play. I remember playing stuff like Old Maid, Go Fish, Spades, etc.....but I pretty much stunk it up on all of them......dominos, too. At work, they made a rule that I should never be allowed to play dominos in any setting with anybody. :)
Martinex: Yeah, I liked Choose Your Own Adventure books and various other books in that vein. I gravitated toward the Dungeons & Dragons-type books, like Dragontales, Endless Quest, and AD&D Adventures.
Here's a link to a site that has info on almost every "game book" ever published, including Choose Your Own Adventure.
Hey Martinex,
Question 1: Two series to jog some memories. The "Boxcar Children" about orphans who lived in a railroad boxcar. Then "Mike Mars, Astronaut" about a young man who was part of the "We Seven" era of space exploration. The X-15, Mercury, and Gemini spacecraft all played a part in the stories. So even early on I was a science nerd.
Question 2: I played a lot of Gin Rummy with my dad and older brother. I remember we always played up to 500 points. Also, on cold winter nights we would cook chestnuts (on the stove, not a roasting fire) along with the game and a cold glass of milk. We did have a fireplace and my dad would always keep the fire up to 11 so we were more than toasty.
Travis Morgan
P.S. Maybe that's why I wound up flying tha SR-71 to Skartaris.
Lord of the Rings and Blackjack!
- Mike from Trinidad & Tobago.
Martinex, the Danny Dunn books are basically science-based (mis)adventures. Danny is a precocious red-headed kid who lives in the same house as a professor/inventor (his mother is the housekeeper), and often the story revolves around Danny's use or misuse of one of the professor's inventions - usually two of his school chums, a girl and another boy, are also involved. As per Red's description of the Rupert story with the Univac, the story in one of the books centers on Danny's use of the professor's wall-sized computer to do school-work for himself and his two pals.
Also, Mike W. reminded me: yep, I read the Narnia books as well.
I should also mention that I occasionally read young-adult books now, deep into adulthood. So it was only a few years ago that I first read, and thoroughly enjoyed, Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain. I also discovered another great current SF/fantasy author, Nnedi Okorafor, through her YA books like Zahrah the Windseeker and the Shadow Speaker.
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