Top ten favourite books/book series as a child/youth

I read a lot as a child. I pretty much had a book in my hand at every waking moment. Until I became a horrible teenager and decided to give up books for smartarse comments & stalking boys I liked who were several year levels older! I cannot encourage parents enough to get their kids reading books as early as possible. I was a very imaginative kid. I once thought, when I was in Year 2, that Santa was going to make the characters from Voltron come alive for me for Christmas and they were going to come to class and help out the teacher. I even told my teacher that and then spent the rest of the day avoiding eye contact with her as I was embarrassed when I realised that it was make believe! I would always act out books and television shows with my friends at lunchtime e.g. using the quadrangle as my own personal dangerous cliff face to act out a scene from Mysterious Cities of Gold! I wrote a ton of stories (my stories about the kids' newspaper that I wrote in Year 6 are hilarious!) and this hasn't stopped, pretty much. My interest in script writing, chick lit novel writing and other creative concepts have stemmed from reading as a child. 

So here are my favourite books as a child/teenager. 

10. My Naughty Little Sister and Bad Harry - Dorothy Edwards and Shirley Hughes.

I not only read these books but I had audio books of these stories that I played on a loop as a child. My cousin was nicknamed Harry after these books (his name is not even close to that!) and it has stuck ever since. I loved the exploits of a mischevious little girl and her friend, the equally naughty Harry. There was a whole series of these books and the one I remember the most is when My Naughty Little Sister goes to school. I even recall thinking about this in kindy after hearing the story and it's one of the few memories I have of kindergarten. So cute. I hope these are still available so that I can give my nieces and nephews and friends' children these books in the future to read. 

9. The Digging-est Dog - Al Perkins

This was always one of my favourite books. It was published by the same company in the same style as Dr Seuss with similar illustrations and up until a few years ago, I still had a copy. I loved dogs and the thought of a naughty dog digging his way around the town, making gigantic trenches and causing havoc always used to make me smile. It was a cute little story and I reckon the cover above was the one I had! 

8. The Witches - Roald Dahl

Roald Dahl was one of those incredible childrens' authors who had the most wicked imagination. He was, all at once, gross, intriguing, funny and poignant, his story worlds capturing your attention from the first page. I loved his books as a kid but I particularly liked The Witches. I loved the idea that witches would hold conventions! It's macabre, creepy but hilarious! (And I love the movie they made with Angelica Huston and Rowan Atkinson too!)

7. The Serendipity books - Stephen Cosgrove

I have never seen childrens' books quite like these since. What draws me to them so much are the absolutely exquisite illustrations by Robin James. They are simply beautiful. I believe Mum might still have some at home - we had a good 20-25 of them with their colourful covers, exactly as pictured above. There were stories called 'The Gnome from Rome', 'Leo the Lop' about a bunny rabbit, Morgan Mine (about a unicorn), The Muffin Muncher (that name gives me the giggles now - I'm so immature!), Wheedle on the Needle (set in Seattle) and the ones pictured above "Serendipity" and "Catundra". All the stories (about 70 or so of them) have a moral or important theme.... being yourself, friendship, tolerance, beauty comes from within, shyness, bullying, harmful gossip.... This is so important in books for children to learn and I think they are simply gorgeous. 

6. The Sweet Valley High series

The book series by Francine Pascal about pretty blonde 16 year old twins Elizabeth and Jessica from Sweet Valley, California (pictured here with terrible haircuts!!!) took a while for me to get into but as I got older (and more interested in boys), I grew more interested in their dramas. She tackles serious issues affecting teens, much like Degrassi Junior High did for Canadian tv audiences, albeit the former is a little more soap-opera like in its approach. And like Degrassi, the author(s) break up the couple that had been on and off for the entire series at the end. Not sure how I feel about that... 

Apparently Francine Pascal didn't write them all the books (there are something like 150 of them!), merely presiding over ghost writers to complete her series. There are many spin offs from this series as well, such as Sweet Valley Confidential and University. However, even with all the issues she tackles in these books, they're probably still much tamer than what kids are reading these days! 

5. Sweet Dreams romance novels

One of the first teenage romance novels I ever read was a Sweet Dreams romance novel called Wrong Way Romance by Sheri Cobb South. I LOVED it. I borrowed it from the Woodville library about 100 times (I'm pretty sure I was the one who made it fall apart at the seams!). It's one of those classic 'Girl hates boy, boy hates girl, boy is forced into pretending to be girl's boyfriend and they fall in love, jadajadajada' stories but it was very well done, funny and I think back then, I wanted hair like the girl on the cover! I was in my 'I want a boyfriend' stage of teenagehood and I think these type of books were the reason I ended up wanting to write chick lit. (Adult though, not YA fiction). I was in Tasmania at a family gathering and I read my Aunty's entire collection in a week! She had a lot of them! 

4. Point Horror series 

Before the tweens got R.L. Stine's Goosebumps, there were the Point Horror books (written by R.L. Stine as well as a wealth of other authors). I still remember reading them as a teen and loving them. They were scary, had characters you could relate to, a bit of romance and usually involved a twist (sometimes you saw it coming, sometimes not). I remember ones called 'The Hitchhiker' (I still have a copy of that!), 'The Lifeguard', 'Final Exam', 'Teacher's Pet', 'The Babysitter' and other cliched titles but the one I liked the most was one that was reminiscent of Hitchcock's Rear Window. It was called 'The Window' by Carol Ellis and involved a girl hurting her ankle and witnessing a crime from her camp window. I would love to get my hands on some of these books again. They were great (and the covers were always impressive too). 

3. The Babysitters Club - Ann M Martin

Oh, who didn't love the exploits of Kristy, Mary-Ann, Dawn, Claudia, Stacey, Jessi and Mallory, babysitting as part of a club (read: business) they created. My whole tween/early teen life was consumed by the lives of seven 11-13 year old girls! There were so many things wrong with the concept (child labour, creating a business without paying tax, unsupervised children, the fact that they didn't seem to do school work because they were always babysitting!) but I loved it anyway! There were boys but the target audience were so young that romance didn't really enter into the books much (aside from innocent kids' stuff). My favourite book was the one about Jessi, the ballet dancer, who is stalked by a jealous dancer when she wins a lead role in her dance school production. I remember reading it once with a tape player and headphones playing the music from the ballet Sleeping Beauty, to immerse myself in the story more! And my friend Isobel and I bonded on the first day of high school over the Babysitters Club. It was really how we became friends. 

2. Graeme Base's Animalia and The Eleventh Hour

One word. WOW! What incredible books these are, designed by English born, Australian bred picture book author Graeme Base. Exquisitely designed, clever, creative concepts put together so well. I spent many hours looking at these books, trying to find mice in The Eleventh Hour and solve the riddles he had posed in the book, trying to see how many A, B or C items were in each page of Animalia and giggling over the rhymes. They are so incredibly beautiful. I can't wait to show these to other children like Hannah who isn't quite old enough yet to appreciate it. Apparently Base has created a lot of books but I have never seen them, only these two, but these definitely shaped my childhood and made me a more creative, imaginative person. 

1. The Malory Towers series - Enid Blyton

Who doesn't love Enid Blyton? She was a wonderful author of children's books with a vivid imagination and there are just some terms you can't see without thinking of her. Lashings of ginger beer, lacrosse (and getting lemon wedges to suck at half time), boarding schools with bitchy dorm mates, girls with boys' haircuts and boys' names! My favourite of hers (although I do love the Adventure series as well) are the Malory Towers books. The everyday goings on in a fictional seaside boarding school in Cornwall and friends Darrell (a girl!), Sally, Felicity, Mary-Lou, Irene and Bill (among others) kept me occupied for hours! There is a particular book (I think it's the fifth form book) that is about the girls' putting on a pantomime which I absolutely adored. It was almost like this was preempting my love for the theatre and music! Blyton's books can be racist, sexist and snobby but I almost think this is part of the charm of them these days. It was hard to choose a number one in this category because all the books have shaped me into the person I am today but I really do feel that these books made me understand girls more. And as somebody who has always felt more comfortable being friends with boys (and still am, I think), I believe that has been really important. 

Top 10 Favourite Youtube videos!

I admit, I spend an inordinate amount of time looking at Youtube videos, probably more than is healthy (or financially viable!). Once upon a time, I was jaded by Youtube after inadvertently seeing two absolutely horrific, disturbing videos which gave me nightmares for weeks. (One was so awful, I cried everytime I thought about it which was quite often in those early days!). 

But my fear and loathing of those incidents have been surpassed by some of the clever things you can see on Youtube courtesy of hilarious people who have a lot of spare time! So here are my favourites! And there were so many to choose from! 

10. Dramatic Reading of "Sexy and I Know It" by Ira David Wood III

This cracks me up. The laughing of the girl behind the camera is kind of annoying but I LOVE that this known director of Theatre in the Park does this song in Peter O' Toole style. I hate LMFAO, Redfoo and anything related to this song - the lyrics are so friggin' ridiculous that it makes it even funnier when read like this. I just lost it at 'wiggle wiggle wiggle!'

9. Bad Lip Reading channel

These brilliant people at the Bad Lip Reading Channel do a lot of these types of videos, mostly lip synching NFL which are hilarious but they have extended it to blockbuster movies. My favourite is Twilight as the acting is so unspeakably bad (sorry, R Patz) that they may as well be saying those words. Even the first line made me spit my drink out ("Mouses have wee wees..."). I love that they make Edward into a total douche and Bella into a 'Cher Horovitz style airhead'. And the cake scene! Gut busting stuff! 

8. Google Translate Sings

Malinda Kathleen Reese, you're a legend! Not only is this girl actually talented and has the vocal goods to pull this project off but she has tapped into the internet's finest comedy resource - Google Translate. She puts it through several layers (but sometimes may not have to do that many as Google Translate is so incredibly bad with certain languages!). Her version of Let It Go is brilliant, particularly for the way that the 'inspirational chorus' is made much less inspiring by a simple change to three words!  I can't wait to see more from her. 

7. Jesus Christ in Richmond Park

Naughty Fenton! It doesn't matter how many times I see this, I can't stop laughing. Videos of misbehaving canines and silly animals are always funny but I think the reason I find this particularly side-splitting is because it's just so unexpected. 

6. Gilbert Gottfried reads excerpts from "50 Shades of Grey" 

Once again, this book is so ridiculous that it was bound to have the piss taken out of it. And who better to do that than the voice of Iago in Aladdin. Somehow, he turns a book that was "supposed to be" (and I use the term 'supposed to be' loosely!) erotic and turns it into the creepiest reading ever! His pronounced bird-like twang, the enhanced pronunciation of particular words describing nether regions and the overall bad writing makes this video comedic gold! 

5. The Shining and Scary Mary (recut trailers)

The multitude of recut trailers prove that emotion in movies lies a lot in the choice of musical score, voiceover and delicate editing. Which is why it annoys me when people leave the theatre the moment the lights come up after a movie. Those people who made that movie great may not be the ones on the screen!

The first video is pure genius! The idea of cutting an iconic creepy horror movie as a romantic comedy is an inspired one. From the moment the voiceover and the kooky orchestral score strikes up, you could believe that this is what the movie is about! Very clever! 

The second is bloody hilarious as it does quite the opposite to the first one! If I knew nothing about Mary Poppins, I would have believed that the second video "Scary Mary" was a trailer for a horror movie. The use of audio effects, filters and clever editing makes this look terrifying. Love it! 

4. Paint and his amazing creations

The trick with a musical Youtube video is that you have to be good at what you do, not just aimed with a videocamera and an idea. This guy, Paint, is very very talented (I really hope he becomes famous beyond his Youtube channel as he has the skills). The video above, After Ever After, is one of my favourites of his - I love Disney and the music involved in those movies and so what he has done with these is very clever indeed. My favourite bit is where he refers to Belle's association with the Beast as 'bestiality". Great! Check out his Youtube. 

3. John William's heroic Jurassic Park score performed on melodica

I know, I've just contradicted myself. I did say that musical Youtube videos should be done by people with skill. But this one....oh, the joy of this one comes from the complete lack of talent. Absolutely hilarious! I was introduced to this by a friend who can't even talk about it without dissolving into hysterical laughter. I will never again be able to listen to the score of Jurassic Park (or, indeed, watch the movie) without thinking of this! 

2. Anything by Matt Mulholland

And now for a video that threatens to make me let a bit of wee out laughing! This Kiwi born comedian is apparently making a living out of his Youtube videos and good on him! I haven't seen a video of his that I haven't loved and this is one of my favourites. From his Penis Chorale to his ballad version of Who Let The Dogs Out; from his Batman Shampoo series to the Recorder by Candlelight songs, I never fail to laugh at his creations. But then, his serious stuff is bloody brilliant too. Some people would call it 'too much spare time', I call it a great use of musical talent! 

1. Orchestra Fail

And now my number 1: the video that never ceases to crack everyone up! Especially me! I want this as my ringtone so bad just so I can see people's faces when my phone rings on the bus! It is an inspiring, poignant performance of Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra'. It will bring tears to your eyes, I promise! 

I want to buy that trumpet section (aka herd of elephants) a carton of beer! Send me a message if you're them! Enough talk - the gemstone is in the above video! 


Honorable mentions to: Judson Laipply's Evolution of Dance, the clever dog who gets his ball out of the pool, Literal Music Videos (Total Eclipse of the Heart) and the sneezing baby panda!