Wednesday, February 3, 2010

slumber party { part 9 }: which book characters did you long to be in your younger years?


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don't you just love a slumber party? comfy pjs, silly movies, telling your friends, old & new, your thoughts & crushes & dreams.... such fun! join us! you can catchup with some of our other slumber party fun here: and for today's party question: which book character did you long to be in your younger years?
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a stack of books print by toxic guineapigs


as chilly winds blow outside, and we find wonderful ways to be cozy indoors, i so fondly recall winters many moons ago when i'd delightfully cuddle under my bed covers and keep warm on wintry days and nights with the fascinating characters in my favourite books! isn't a great book a wonderful thing?! and the characters in them dear friends we're inspired to be like?

so today for our slumber party i thought we'd reveal our favourite book characters from our younger reading days: characters we longed to be!

alrighty... here we go!



one of my earliest favourite book characters was laura ingalls wilder of the book & tv series fame: little house on the prairie. those pioneer tales, that good-clean fun, those one-room schoolhouse antics. i just loved it! i was especially smitten to become laura as i fell in love with the tv series. oh to be half-pint: bmy raided pig-tails running through the farm fields!let's be honest - i'd still love to be her, and married to that ... ALMANZO! .. *swoon!*


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another early favourite was the clever & beautiful young sleuth, nancy drew. a brilliant detective, i longed to problem solve like nancy, analyze like nancy, and since the versions we had at our home were the charming 1966-ish editions - dress like that late 60's fashion-guru nancy! (hmm.. i still adore that style!)

i was a little bit crushed when i found out that the "author: carolyn keene was a pseudonym for various ghostwriters! alas ... but that somehow added to the mystery & intregue!

as you might recall, i longed to be a spy or sleuth for many years.
of course i've given that up now as an adult.
of course. of course i've given that up.
i'm not a spy.
really, i'm not. :)

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well my reading tastes matured a wee bit, and i was soon smitten with jane austen's words, and most especially the matchmaker-y style of main character Emma Woodhouse. i fancied myself a young matchmaker before i'd read emma, and was inspired even more after reading! though the character seemed flawed in many fabulous ways, i thought emma to be dreamily delightful & a kindred spirit in many ways. and that mr. knightly! well ... that's another story!

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okay! so i've confessed!

so there are my choices for book characters i longed to be in my younger years! now... let's snuggle into our cozy sleeping bags, open another bag of sour cream & onion chips, crank up the pointer sisters, giggle & whisper and hear yours!

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21 comments:

  1. I loved Little House on the Prairie, too! I loved the show before I even knew they were books!!!!

    Another series I loved was Anne of Green Gables - it helped that we both were high-spirited red heads!

    My third would be Heidi. We had a great vintage copy of a Heidi book that I'd look at for hours.

    Fun as always, RR!

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  2. Han Solo counts? :-) And Bambi? :-)

    OK, to be serious...It is a tough question for me, because in primary school I read mostly sci-fi, and there arent many women .. :-).

    I begin to read more classical books much later, in high school, or even later, at university.

    At that time I liked stories from the turn of the century, especially French writers, and mostly I liked those characters, who were free spirited and faught for their place on Earth.

    The one I liked very much was the The Ladies' Paradise by Emile Zola and her main woman character, Denise.

    I am reading now Pride and Prejudice (yes, 15 years later than I should have) and I really like it.

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  3. we're kindred spirits, rox!

    and han solo always counts - for anything, vadjutka! sigh!

    love your readings, loves!

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  4. Oh. I was already thinking before I scrolled down on your page.

    I loved Laura Ingalls Wilder. Of course, that was long before it was ever on TV. I wanted to be living in her era and to try to be as nice as she was.

    Then I loved Nancy Drew. I wanted to be as smart and confident as she was.

    Oh, and I sometimes wanted to be mischevous and daring like Pippy Longstocking.

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  5. I desperately wanted to be captured by Indians, like Mary Jemison in Indian Captive. I wanted to wear buckskin and braid my hair - and my new family would call me Corn Tassel. I also daydreamed about being abandoned alone on an island like the girl in Island of the Blue Dolphin. Wow - do you think maybe I had some family issues? :-)

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  6. funny you should mention Almonzo..I watch Little House every day!!!! Was at a school yard sale last year and two little girls were selling the complete series on DVD. I bought the whole thing for $20.00 dollars...I felt like I stole it from them. They were happy to be rid of them...I adore that series!

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  7. I really wanted to be Nancy Drew! My friend Emily and I would spend hours pretending to be Nancy and her pals. We would fight over who got to be Nancy, so eventually we decided we would split her into twin sisters, so then we had Nancy and Natalie Drew, twin sleuths extroidinaire!
    I also really wanted to be in the Boxcar children family and the family in Little House on the Praire!

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  8. I longed to be any character I was currently reading & I was a bookworm so that changed weekly. I most fondly remember loving and wanting to be in any of Kay Gibbon's books.

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  9. I was more of a Swiss Family Robinson kind of gal myself. Anything adventurous!

    Still am!

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  10. okay - i'm definitely going to take the cake for being that weird kid:

    sure, every girl wants to be Nancy Drew - and I was no exception. but i also (when i was about 6-8 yo) wanted to be a rabbit because i love love loved Watership Down. later, i moved on from wanting to hop around all day to wishing i could be one of the bohemian elves of ElfQuest!

    God, I was a total dork! It's kind of fun to admit that and embrace that inner weirdo! Slumber parties are awesome!

    Best,
    Tara
    http://elanvitalanthology.blogspot.com

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  11. I absolutely longed to be Laura (and still do). I really think I was meant to live a life on the prairie!

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  12. harriet the spy
    but I never read the second part where she got her come-uppance

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  13. When I was little, Laura Ingalls certainly was among my favorites.
    As I grew older, Elisabeth Bennet has become a source of inspiration.
    I simply LOVE Jane Austen.

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  14. Pippi Long Stockings! Read all the books and watched the films.... even though the books were way better.

    I always wanted to play the game where you couldn't touch the floor you just hopped on the fridge and counters to get were you wanted to go.

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  15. oh I wanted to be Anne Shirley in the worst way. I still dye my hair red sometimes....

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  16. I wasn't much of a reader when I was really young. Green Eggs and Ham was the only book I'd check out of the library for months on end. When I started getting into Junior High, I started reading more though. My dad would get me books from a Christian book series called Mandy. Now, I don't want to hock anyone too bad, but I have never read Nancy Drew. From what I've heard though, the Mandy series is very similar. She was constantly solving 'mysteries' and quite often got herself into big messes. I loved those books.

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  17. Oh, Nancy Drew. She was my favorite, and still is.

    I also wanted to be Dawn from the Babysitters Club series. She was from California, which I found exotic and exciting (and now I live here!).

    And I also identified with Ramona in the Beverly Cleary series. Her haircut is still tres adorable!

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  18. I always wanted to be Susan Pevensie in the Narnia books, I remember reading them again and again.
    As I got older it has to be Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice.

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  19. I totally wanted to be Ann from Anne of Green Gables. Oh how much I loved Gilbert and to be best friends with Dianna would have been lovely. I just always loved how strong, determined and fun Ann was.

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  20. Your slumber parties are so much fun!

    Like most of you, I had a special affinity for Laura Ingalls. My mom and I read the books together when I was very young, and in grade school I watched the show every day.

    But I *really* wanted to be one of the Happy Hollisters. It was a series my dad had read as a kid, and I had his dusty old hardcover set, complete with wormholes! The Hollisters were an adventurous, problem-solving family, always digging up buried treasure, finding long lost ruins, and such. I was obsessed with history and archaeology even as a young girl, and I used to daydream that I would find clues to lost civilizations while building forts in the forest behind my house.

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  21. Add another Laura to the list. I read those books SO MANY TIMES! I've learned so much about all sorts of things from those books (like what doe you do with a pig's bladder? Make a ball, of course!) And those calling cards - so awesome!

    Jo from Little Women of course. And Anne of Green Gables! Strong women all!

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thanks so much for your comments, nicies!
it's a joy to read what everyone writes here.
thank you!