Top Ten Books I Wish I’d Read As A Child

“A thief steals a treasure from its owner. A vandal steals it from the world.”

Frances Hardinge

1. The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making – Catherynne M. Valente. The Fairyland books are just the most perfect little fairytales, and I would totally have related to September. But then I guess I could never have noticed all the little references and in-jokes.
2. Howl’s Moving Castle – Diana Wynne Jones. I wish I’d read this before I read a lot of YA fantasy; I think the inventiveness of the plot kind of gets a bit lost among all the similar (if less well-written) fantasy plots out there.
3. Power of Three – Diana Wynne Jones. This would have blown my mind as a child. Again, one of the protagonists is heavily relatable, and the whole setting would have appealed to me hugely.
4. Cinder – Marissa Meyer. If only because it’s a little embarrassing walking into the YA section at the age of 20…
5. A Face Like Glass – Frances Hardinge. See Howl’s Moving Castle, above; while A Face Like Glass is clearly a really well-written piece of YA, I think the sense of wonder it creates is bound to be better appreciated by a less knowing reader; the kind of reader I was when I was a child.
6. Neverwhere – Neil Gaiman. I think I appreciated worlds more when I was small, and Neverwhere is a very cool world. The weakness of the story would probably have bothered me much less.
7. The Looking-Glass Wars – Frank Beddor. Again, a really fascinating world with not-so-brilliant execution. Plus the literary mashup would really have appealed to me.
8. Clariel – Garth Nix. I read this last year, and it kind of ruined the Old Kingdom series for me. Maybe if it had been published earlier the disappointment would have vanished in the mists of memory…But then again, maybe not.
9. Stardust – Neil Gaiman. See Neverwhere. I feel like I’m repeating myself a lot in this post, but there’s not much more I can say about Child Me that is actually relevant here.
10. Artemis Fowl and the Atlantis Complex – Eoin Colfer. I never got around to finishing this series, and now I probably never will, and it will linger on the Unfinished Series Shelf of my brain for ever after and be annoying. Not annoying enough actually to go out and buy the book, though.

(The theme for this post was suggested by the Broke and the Bookish’s weekly meme Top Ten Tuesday.)