Nostalgia Book Tag

I was tagged by Georgia @ Giordizzle to do the Nostalgia Book Tag which is a tag that she created herself. I'm excited to do this one but since I can't remember a lot of the books I read when I was younger I'm going to have to divert a little from (I think) what she intended and go for when I was a pre-teen/early teenager.

Your favourite childhood book:

The first one that springs to mine for this one is 'The Twits' by Roald Dahl. Growing up in England (I'm not sure about other countries) Roald Dahl is someone who is taught about a lot during english class and I remember every library being filled with his stories. Back in the good old days when they used to put toys in the cereal boxes they'd sometimes include Roald Dahl books and I even begged my dad to let me sign up for a Roald Dahl subscription that came once a month with a special magazine and a gift that was influenced by a Roald Dahl book so it doesn't come as a surprise to me when he's the first person I think of when the question is 'childhood reading'. The Twits has always been my favourite story of his purely because I found it hilarious, only looking back on it now I realise that it probably has more to do with the way that the story kind of shaped my morals when I was a child and that's why it's so important to me.

A book you remember reading and hating:

This one isn't a particular book or a particular reason why I hated it but I didn't like reading 'Biff and Chip' style books. Even in Year 3 and Year 4 I always felt like they were too 'young' for me as I had been reading a lot of more complicated books from a lot younger of an age than I was then but those were the books that my school had deemed fit for us to read in those years.

A book with a background story to it:

I didn't understand this question first but then I read Georgia's answer and at once a book sprang to mind. My brother and my sister have never been huge readers but my mum always thought that it was important for them to read outside of school and outside of the books that they were forced to read for education so she set up 'reading time' (this is when we were all in primary school, keep in mind) which basically meant that for an hour every evening we would sit down and read a book together. The chosen book was 'Kensuke's Kingdom' by Michael Morpurgo (my mum seriously loves the guy) and so every evening we would sit down as a family and read this book. About three days later, as most things my family try to do, this slows to a stop and eventually we just don't do it anymore and I never get to finish the book. I don't know why I haven't picked it up since or why I don't want to but to this day I still don't know what happens in Kensuke's Kingdom but I always feel an attachment whenever I see it in a store.

An underrated childrens/YA book:

Diary of a Chav by Grace Dent. These are books that I think about probably more than I should. They don't have any huge metaphor that you have to uncover (that I know of) and they aren't profound in any way but they were fun books that I devoured when I was entering Secondary School and they dealt with things like Eating Disorders, Depression, Alcoholism etc while still maintaining the humour and fluffiness needed to keep a teenagers attention. I don't know if these would be classed as 'underrated' because most people who have read them seem to love them but I don't see people talk about them and I don't know anyone who has read them without me having to have pushed them on that person in the first place.

The book that made the biggest impact on you:

In complete honestly, I read this book about two years ago but I can't have a question like this and not put this book as the answer *deep breath* here goes: Ketchup Clouds by Annabel Pitcher. Those who know me know that this isn't a surprise at all. I could talk about this book until I throw up and then through my tears keep on singing it's praises. Ketchup Clouds is one of those books that came into my life and then refused to leave. At all. I first found out about the book when I was browsing in my local bookshop and then I saw a huge stand filled with the books because it was a new release, I read the blurb and then I remember turning to my cousin and saying 'I need to read this book' but I didn't buy it, mostly because back then it was only my mum who brought me books and I just didn't think of ever picking it up until Christmas came along and I put it on my list of books that I wanted (incidentally Fangirl was also on that list but it hadn't been released yet). My sister must have remembered me talking about it so much that she picked it up and there is was under the tree for me to open on Christmas morning. I could talk forever about this one but I don't want to be here writing this post 3 years from now so I'm going to wrap it up quickly. I think it really goes to show something when I can't stop thinking about a book I haven't even read and even now when I look at the book on my shelf it fills my stomach with butterflies. For most of my life I had been dead set on my opinion of a particular controversial subject and until I read Ketchup Clouds nothing could even come close to wavering my stance on it until I read a quote about forgiveness and it made me cry. I sat in my bed and I sobbed like a baby and I'm talking the snot running down my face, heaving, feeling like I'm going to puke type of cry. Yes, it's predictable. Yes, there is insta love and yes, yes, yes there is a love triangle but no book has ever impacted me the way that one line did and I can't forget that. Also there is this which is beautiful: 'Spread those strong wings of yours. Fly.'

A book you can pick up and read even now:

Horrid Henry or any of The Famous Five novels. Those were ones that I could fly through and if I pass in a book shop I feel fond memories come back. I think I owned almost every Horrid Henry book when I was still at the age of reading them - I could read them in less than a day and then go back for even more. At the moment I'm actually on the hunt for The Famous Five books so that I can add them to my collection and hopefully pass them onto my children when I'm older.

A book/series you read when you were younger that now has a movie adaptation:

I could go for the short answer and say Horrid Henry again but instead I'm going to go for a book that I read when I was a bit older (13) and say Fallen by Lauren Kate. The movie is set to release this year and although I wasn't too keen on the series as a whole (the first two were great but the following novels just didn't grab my attention) I know that I'm definitely going to go and see the movie to see how it all plays out on screen. OH, or Dustbin Baby by Jaqueline Wilson which was turned into an ITV/BBC movie I think? I can't do a book tag that delves into my childhood without talking about Jaqueline Wilson.

A book you realise now is actually just shit:

The classic one for this would be Twilight but I didn't actually read Twilight (GASP) because I didn't even realise it was a thing until I went to see the movie not knowing that it was part of a huge franchise and then walking past the book shop and seeing about five stands filled with the book. I'm going to go for another non-shocker and say Fifty Shades of Grey because I read it when I was 14 so that gives me enough time to look back and reflect right? right. I liked it when I was reading it, maybe because I was young and it was the first book that I'd ever read that really dealt with sex in an open way and blah blah blah young naive me. Now I look back and I just shake my head at my younger self (as I do about a lot of things).

A book you'll never forget:

Stone Cold by Robert Swindells. This was a book that was assigned to us in Year 7 to read and write an essay about and although I so desperately wanted to be one of the cool kids sitting at the back complaining about having to read such a shit book I found myself getting so passionate about this story and it's a book that I still think about and talk to my friends/family about to this day around 5/6 years later. It was scary, it was dramatic and it definitely make me think about a lot of the things that could be a danger to homeless people aside from the usual things that we think about.

A book that is important to you:

This book is important to me for so many reasons and a lot are definitely more personal that others so I won't go into too much detail about that. Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman is a book that I'd heard so much about before I'd ever actually read the book myself. In Secondary School I used to do Drama and Performing Arts because it was a huge outlet for me and it was something that I loved to do. The first big play that we did in Performing Arts was Noughts and Crosses and it's because of that, that it's so important to me. The period in which we worked on the play and performed it was the last time for a long while that I felt completely happy. Nothing astonishing happened to me, there was nothing that really stands out as it being a 'happy' time but that was the last full period before my anxiety really kicked in (which isn't exactly a bright light at the end of the tunnel) and created a lot of problems for me. I read the books not a long while after that and to this day I still think that the topic is so important and still extremely relevant not to mention that they are equally beautiful and heartbreaking.