Which childhood book/series taught you the most about life?

Submitted by Wolfj13 t3_10mubi7 in books

For me, it was ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’. I remember seeing the movie before the book as a kid and figured I would get into the book series when I was around 11 years old. I was originally expecting the books to be just as campy as the movie but instead what I got was a bleak, stressful, and heartbreaking journey I could not have foresaw. With Jude Laws voice in my head, I at first was taken aback by the sheer cruelty and short-sightedness of almost all the adults throughout the books. It was honestly a stressful experience seeing the children suffer from the cruelty or stupidity of the adults and it’s only years later that I see that it’s not far from the truth. The books taught me a number of things, some that I would apply later in my life, and they are:

  • Good and evil are relative
  • Bad people can get away with it
  • The world is more complex a than we’ll ever know
  • Never judge a book by its cover.

But one of the more interesting aspects that changed everything for me and really got me engaged into the story was the introduction of V.F.D. and how it would shape the course of the rest of the story. It was my first time learning of secret societies and how they have eyes and ears from the very top of the Senate to the lowest back alley. It was here that I realized that the children would never find peace and soon join the ranks of the very people they despised.

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sdurflinger t1_j6725n3 wrote

Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. One of many things they taught me was that people can be incredibly absurd.

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miss_scarlet_letter t1_j67f2sp wrote

Where The Red Fern Grows. dogs are the best and you are DEVASTATED when they die. the end.

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Vegetable-Text-4986 t1_j67j3pr wrote

A Series of Unfortunate Events, hands down. I still have the whole box set from when I was a kid

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MarieReading t1_j65v0bl wrote

Tuck Everlasting. Everything must and should (in time) die of course. It's been a few years since I've read it but I do remember it went into:

  • Class systems
  • Greed
  • Ownership of land
  • Shades of grey to good and evil
  • Sometimes you have to break rules/not listen to adults to do the right thing
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iwillmuffyou t1_j67s9uq wrote

This book really impacted me as well in deep and dumb ways. Mostly I kept thinking what would happen if someone cut off one of their heads and just buried it underground forever. Or what happens to them after the sun dies and shit lol

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idancefornachos t1_j66wl28 wrote

The Redwall series! It taught me the values that I want to exemplify and the cruelties of others. I went back and read one recently, and they hold up beautifully.

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MinxyMyrnaMinkoff t1_j67eptp wrote

The Animorphs! It had a stupid title, but shit got real in the Animorphs. Those kids fucking murdered innocent people and got PTSD and shit.

Yeah, Harry Potter might have “hooked a generation on reading” or whatever. But did Harry ever have to weigh the ethics of enlisting disabled kids as cannon fodder in a desperate war? Did Ron ever murder a former friend in cold blood because he knew he’d be a liability down the road? Did Hermione ever transform herself into a worm, forever, just to try to prove to herself that she hadn’t lost the moral high ground that she felt slipping through her increasingly-desensitized fingers? Nah man, and that’s why Animorphs were the best.

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jawnbaejaeger t1_j685hhk wrote

American Girls Collection of books started me on a my lifelong love of social and class histories.

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Donk454 t1_j67d4pa wrote

Choose your own adventure book, because life is just an endless stream of decisions you need to make that affects what is to come

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geld-sun-91 t1_j66qwsu wrote

I think for me that was Harry Potter

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notdatypicalITgurl t1_j66wp3u wrote

Ferret in the Bedroom, Lizards in the Fridge.

I read it when I was in 6th grade. I saw a lot of myself in the main character and identified with her struggles. It taught me it’s okay to be different. It’s what makes you you. Middle school was rough and this book meant a lot to me.

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Headless_Grammarian t1_j682qsw wrote

One of the book series that taught me the most was the Earthsea trilogy.

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kdz_blue t1_j688t66 wrote

My first books were called true value series I think.they used famous people and showed the values system like trust honesty and faith by telling stories...and also the seus books I got books before screen time and my over active imitation still gets me into trouble but I can think for mysrlf

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kdz_blue t1_j688yi8 wrote

Cynthia voight....good young adult writet

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