The other day, my 7-year-old closed her Nancy Drew book and sighed. "You know what I hate about mystery books?" she asked. "You can't re-read them until your memory gets old." True, that. Even though my memory has gotten very old, I still can't re-visit anything I've read in the past 2 decades or so. Fortunately, though, my memory's aged enough that I can re-read books I enjoyed as a child. Thanks to Melissa's fabulous Top 100 list, volunteering with my kids' school reading program, and a recent IM chat with a friend, I have been re-visiting books I loved as a kid. In doing so, I've come to a grim realization - I seem to have skipped over an entire genre of children's literature. Yep, it's true. My reading repertoire included Nancy Drew, Amelia Bedelia, Babysitter's Club, Pippi Longstocking, etc. but few princesses, wizards, dragons or robots. In other words, no science fiction/fantasy. Looking back, I can remember reading only two books that fit into this category: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and A Wrinkle in Time. That's it, unless my memory's really, really, really bad. Once I had this epiphany, I raced to my computer and promptly put Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper and The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander on hold. Then, concerned that I might be missing newer children's sci fi/fantasy, I stuck the first Spiderwick book on my list, too. I'm still worried that I'm missing out, so I thought I'd ask all of you a question. It's this:


Help me remedy the mistakes of my past. I'm working on The Dark Is Rising books as well as the Chronicles of Prydain (all of which I will review when I'm done with the series). I believe I still need to finish the Chronicles of Narnia, but at least I've read The Hobbit and LOTR (although I experienced both of these as an adult). So, what am I missing? Help out an ignorant reader, will you?