While I was in the Library I picked up a card that had the popular books of 1968. I meant to add it to yesterday’s post, about my Library’s 50th birthday, but forgot. You might find it interesting.
But before I do, I just want to give a shoutout for my newsletter which I am sending out today. I have some very exciting news (well, exciting for me!). I would love you to hear about, so, if you don’t already get my fortnightly newsletter, you might like to sign up here. No spammy stuff, I promise.
So, Popular Children’s Books of 1968
- Tikki Tikki Tembo by Arlene Mosel (I loved reading to kids when I was a school librarian, later than ’68 though.)
- The Foot Book: Dr. Seuss’s Wacky Book of Opposites by Dr. Seuss
- There’s a Nightmare in My Closet by Mercer Mayer (Wonderful illustrations.)
- The Best Nest by P.D. Eastman
- The Tiger Who Came to Tea by Judith Kerr (Remember how the tiger drank all the water from the tap?!)
And Popular Adult Books of 1968
- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
- True Grit by Charles Portis
- By the Prickling of my Thumbs by Agatha Christie
- Outer Dark by Cormack McCarthy (I didn’t realise he was a popular author way back then.)
- Dragonflight by Anne McCaffery (I loved this series; did you?)
Any there that trigger memories for you? Dredging up my memory of being a reading teenager around the late 60’s my list might include:
- The Seventeenth Summer (a gift from an American penpal)
- Brave New World
- 1984
- The Diary of Anne Frank
- And just in case that makes me seem precocious, I was also right into trashy novels like Airport and Alistair McLean’s books.
What about you? What would be on your teenage book list?
Anne Lawson Art 
24 replies on “A postscript to yesterday’s post”
I don’t think I read much when I was a teenager – although I have been reading some “teen books” recently – just can’t remember what…
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So many more “teen books” around now than when I was growing up. It is a whole genre in itself, and it’s great that there are books to keep young people reading.
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In 1968 I was 7 years old, and reading Elizabeth Gouge, Rumer Godden, Alison Uttley, etc. When I turned 11 I discovered Isaac Asimov, and the world tilted on its axis! I never looked back. If you were to ask me what I have spend most money on over the course of my life, I’d have to say: Books, books, and more books.
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isaac Asimov is a great author for challenging ideas and I can see how you would have loved his work. I have spent so much on books over the years too, and feel very comforted in rooms with bookshelves. I have probably spent the same amount, if not more, on plants, but at least I still have most of the books, not so the plants!
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Just tweeted this. And I loved a lot of the same books as you. Still do. Wouldn’t read Airport again but I did enjoy it back then. 😀
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Thanks for the tweet, Meeks 😘 I suspect I probably read Airport for the racy bits!
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-cough- me too -cough-
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I read anything and everything in my childhood and teens – I had a train commute to school for seven years of it so had quite a bit of time for reading. I remember lugging a hardback library copy of ‘Gone With The Wind’ with me every day for a couple of weeks – it was huge and heavy, I loved it!
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Oh that made me smile! Did you ever get so engrossed that you missed your station? I would read anywhere I could, and would have loved a train commute.
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Everything on your late ’60s list except the first
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What? Teenage romance was never your thing?!
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🙂
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I read a lot of the books you did and, like the others, many other books, too. One of my favorites was A Tree Grows in Brooklyn–loved that book so much! And Rebecca.
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Kerry, our book club read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn about ten years ago. What a gorgeously crafted book.
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When I read it, I couldn’t believe that I, a farm girl, could have so much in common with a girl from a Brooklyn tenement. A lesson worth learning young!
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I may have read it when I was doing my library course, way after my teenage years, but I can’t remember it. I will have to hunt it out. Good literature can transcend time and place.
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That’s lovely, Kerry. Yes indeed.
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What a good idea to discuss a YA book. Literature should be read across the ages. Having said that, I wonder what my Book Club would make of the idea…..
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Anne, we’ve read three or four YA books over the years, all of them wonderful. One of our fellow bloggers writes YA fiction. It’s been a great pleasure reading her books (Shelley Sackier). We met her in 2015.
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I was 8 in 1968. I read all the time, but I don’t recall books from that year by name. I was passionate about Beverly Cleary’s books and of course Dr. Seuss. I discovered science fiction in high school. I also loved a good mystery and remember reading through a series of books, disappointed when I read the last one. I wish I could remember the author’s name.
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I wonder when I started reading Agatha Christie. It may have been then…..I wish I had kept a book list. Any more details about your mystery series? Perhaps we can collectively nut out what it might have been!
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Anne, like you I wish I had kept a reading list from so many years ago. I rediscovered so many gems when my boys were young and discovered well-known authors to that I had never read myself. I *loved* reading to my boys.
I have so little to go on with my mysterious mystery writer beyond the fact that I read her books when I was around 12 to 14 and at the time she had written 17 books. I’m a terrible sleuth.
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For as long as I can remember I have read. Before I started school my weekly treat was my grandparents buying me a Little Golden Book. I would have been 2 going on 3 in 1968 but none of those children’s title resonate. My two favourite [older] children’s books are Elidor by Alan Garner ( quite a dark theme but I loved the unicorn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elidor ) and The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame. I remember The Diary of Anne Frank giving me great pause for thought. My grandparents library gave me access to books of previous generations like The Famous Five, Old Yeller etc. Then in my teens as well as reading Trixie Belden, I read anything my Dad brought home from Alex Haley to Leon Uris, and one of my eternal favourites from that era, Papillion by Henri Charrière.
What a great wander down memory lane. Thank you 🙂
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Oh, you have given me a wander down memory lane too! I had forgotten Leon Uris. I LOVED “Exodus”, especially after reading “Anne Frank”. That’s a lovely story of the Little Golden Book from your grandparents ~ so many warm memories around books. And shows how important it is to be read to from a very young age.
I recently reread the Alan Garner books I could get my hands on (many are out of print), and “Elidor” was one. He certainly has some dark themes.
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