Refilling the Tank

I'm on a small hiatus this week. I took myself off to the Kripalu center in Western MA to celebrate finishing my edited draft of Cloudland (yes, I really am DONE. It's a miracle), but also to rest, recharge, and refill my tank - and, I hope, to work some more on my new book. Refilling our - well, for lack of a better term, even though this one makes me cringe a little - wells of creativity ok no I really can't say it. Refilling our tanks is essential for everyone, not just writers, and it's something we all tend to forget to do. We work and work and give and then we wonder why we cry at TV commercials and feel like swearing at the poor kid at the movie theatre who asks for our ticket, because why is one more person asking me for something?? Not that this is what happens to me. Ahem.

So, I've gone off to avoid yelling at people, and to refill. And so this post really will be brief. No seriously, Melissa, it will. I swear.

I once posted about the books that changed my life, and turned me into a writer. Like most highly organized, mildly neurotic people, though, I really really like lists, and so I have a lot of other "favorite book" lists. Here's another one for you: my Favorite Childhood Books. Some of these my parents read to me, and some I read on my own. (Yes, there's crossover from my first list. What can I say? These books just rock.)

• The Anne of Green Gables series, by L.M. Montgomery
• A Little House on the Prairie, by Laura Ingalls Wilder
• The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis 
• The Lost Prince and A Little Princess, by Frances Hodgson Burnett 
• The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien
• A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeline L'Engle
• The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster

It's funny; when I was coming up with this list, I thought of a lot of books that I really liked - I may or may not have been one of those be-spectacled kids who got nicknamed 'bookworm' when I was little - but they didn't make the cut, because while I liked them, they weren't my favorites. The ones on the list are the ones that I read so much that the covers fell off, and the pages all curled up at the edges, and the paper took on that warm, woody smell of all well-loved books. They're also all still on my bookshelf, barely held together with scotch tape, with the exception of the last two. I don't know how that happened, but I need to buy new copies. 

And that's it for today, folks. I'm off to read, hike, yoga (yes I made it into a verb), rest, and refill. 

If I don't get to your blog this week, I'll be there next week, I promise. In the meantime, all you commenters, what books do you love when you were a kid?