I am from Belarus, born in 1989. Like many people in Belarus, I speak Russian, so a huge layer of reading when growing up was Russian literature. Perhaps, except for the Chronicles of Narnia and the ill-fated Harry Potter, we have no intersections. But for me the book of my entire childhood and the main fandom was not Harry Potter, but The Lord of the Rings. 🤩 It was translated in Russian only in 1990, so it was almost brand new for us, and we LOVED it. 😍 In early childhood my favourite read was a retelling of The Wizard of Oz by a Soviet author Volkov and a series of sequels (5 more books), later picked up by the Russian author Sukhinov (8 more books). Then at the age of 7-9 I loved Astrid Lindgren's books (all of them) and the Moomins series of Tove Jansson (pretty typical read for Russian-speaking children), as well as The Hobbit and The Chronicles of Narnia (not so typical). At the age of 12 The Lord of the Rings happened, and after that for a long time I read almost exclusively fantasy - both by English and Russian authors, mostly epic and humorous like Tad Williams' The Dragonbone Chair or Robert Asprin's MythAdventures series, but The Lord of the Rings was out of reach, of course. At the age of 14 my main passion were Sherlock Holmes stories, and at 15 I was a big fan of the fantasy series with a cosy portal world “Echo Labyrinths” by the Russian author Max Fry. 16-17 years old was Terry Pratchett's period. And then I entered the Faculty of Philology and childhood ended, classics and literary fiction began. 😅

Artemis Fowl omgggg

My childhood books, and you can probably guess where I fall on the generational timeline, were Stephen King, Christopher Pike, Babysitter’s Club, Sweet Valley High, Zodiac Club, VC Andrews and Anne Rice. There was also Anne of Green Gables.

So much nostalgia! Love this video idea 💓. I distinctly remember loving the michael morpugo and Roald dahl books as a little child then becoming obsessed with the darren shah demonata books before the vampire craze hit.

Maximum Ride had me in a chokehold in middle school. It was the series that got me into fanfiction.

“i’m not team edward, i’m team gerard” 😂😂😂

It’s nice to see a book tuber from my generation! Born 1990 😉 so love the throwbacks! P.S - I missed Percy Jackson too lol

My early reading years were filled with French series (La courte échelle, Faubourg St-Rock, Contes pour tous), but I switched to English reading in my early teen years - much more choicse at more affordable prices. The Babysitters' Club was the catalyst, followed by Sweet Valley High, Girl Talk, Nancy Drew, R.L. Stine novels... It's too bad the reading apps were not around back then, I'd be really curious to know how many books I got through over the years.

shout out to angus thongs and full frontal snogging. if anything is the asylum where they raised me it’s that series. i call me parent “mutti” and “vati” bc of those books. i read them literally when i was 11 and was straight up the only person in my school who did.

PLEASEEE make a video on the clique omg i'm visiting my parents and looked through old books i had and found the whole clique series that i read in middle school, as well as the spin off alphas, lmao. im rereading them now too 😂

I think we forget that children go through very dark things really early on. I grew up fairly sheltered, but still I was afraid of dying, already struggeled with ocd and anxiety. But adults don’t really talk to you about these things. So I know how happy I was when an author did talk about these things. Kids are humans too with struggels and all. So they should have books that deal with that. But in a way that speaks a kids language.

I always felt like something was wrong with me for not being able to remember books I’ve read. These comments make me feel so much better!

It was so different growing up before streaming and KZbin really took off. We all watched the same shows on cable and movies in theaters and read the same books, because that’s what was new and available. Today there is so much variety I would imagine kids really lack that shared experience, at least not in such huge groups. Everything feels a bit more niche these days so you have to seek out your people to find those common experiences.

I was definitely obsessed with The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.. I still vividly remember the soccer camp incident and how her friends all come to help. Can’t believe Blake Lively is about to star in a Colleen Hoover movie now 😱 😵‍💫

Kids today have the wayward children’s series, have you read them?! If not I highly highly recommend, especially book 2: Down Among The Sticks and Bones

Late middle to high school I had a weird phase of reading drug addicts memoir type books like Go Ask Alice, Crank, and Candy.. and then Heath Ledger starred in a heartbreaking adaptation 😭 I was hooked

Goosebumps and famous five by enid blyton was like my entire reason for existence

If there's a children's series you should reread it's the Inkheart series. The 2nd two books are even better than the first one , they're exquisite and timeless. Please read them!

Watched this video directly after the latest Mike’s Mic drop featuring none other than Angus, Thongs, and Snogging! Haha what are the odds.

Born in 1990 and grew up in Rancho Bernardo (North County San Diego), always so crazy to see places like the Carlsbad library pop up in your videos! Definitely grew up reading Harry Potter in close to real time, those books made me love reading. Never got into the Twilight side of things but omg did I love a dystopia! And we were so spoiled with movie adaptations!

I hate that the “Story curse of the north” just pretty much allows any plot point to be like welllll….. the story curse twisted it. Lol I’m going to start using that in my personal life

Did you ever watch True Blood or read the books it is based on? Twilight came out when I was a teen but I wasn't into it - all about True Blood & Eric Northman for me (season 2 eric 😍)

My childhood books were Ramona Quimby and lots of classics, Fear Street and everything RL Stine, then Harry Potter in my late teens into adulthood

I'm from Finland. I was born 1980 but I kinda have a younger mind. 😂 I liked the Twilight series when I was 27+ for example. I read them in English. I'm a polyglot.

I SCREAMEDDDD when I saw Danica hahahahahaha

is anyone else waiting on the CC3 forgot the plot? i feel like the books not even settled until ive watched these afterwards lol

I was born in 1994 so I remember most of the books you mentioned. I love Cirque du Freak, it was one of the first book series I ever read by myself all the way to the end. I'm thinking about rereading them myself.

victim of the cirque du freak to twilight pipeline (happily)

I live in Singapore and shared almost the exact experience?! These book series really did raise me

The TV show has nothing to do with the book series really but the movie is pretty much the same (but makes fun of) the first book. The TV show was also cancelled after the first season and is really hard to follow. Too many characters and storylines in the short TV show. The movie is funny and more book accurate. The movie cast also looks identical to their book descriptions but the TV show cast has my heart forever I love them all because I’ve talked to most of them and they are the sweetest (especially Sisi and Jonetta🫶🏻 Sisi is also an OG VA fan which is so iconic)

As a die hard vampire academy fan I am 7 minutes in to this video and SCREAMING “L-ISS-AH” like the nickname for Alyssa. Rhymes with Kiss,Hiss,Diss etc. 🤣🫶🏻

This was too good! No wonder I like all the books you recommend, we read the exact same stuff growing up! Thanks for the nostalgia trip! (I would love a Twilight reread video in Port Angeles)👀

Yes to everything you mentioned in elementary school and I also remember the Wayside School Series and Scary Stories to Read in the Dark being popular. Did anyone else read the Alanna books by Tamora Pierce in middle school? Never read the Angus, Thongs books but saw the movie and thoroughly enjoyed it even though I was a bit older than the intended age demographic by that point. Those songs slapped. I remember really enjoying the Delirium books in high school.

I was born in ‘86 and read most of these books too. But my favorite books, and the ones I really grew up with were The Babysitters Club, Christopher Pike horror books and Sweet Valley High. I was seriously addicted to the SVH books 😂. My dark fantasy books were Holly Black’s Tithe and Annette Curtis Klause Silver Kiss and Blood and Chocolate. Also L.J Smith’s The Secret Circle, I’m not sure why but I did not get into The Vampire Diaries 🤷‍♀️

I have so much nostalgia for these books but I’m scared to re-read them (except HP) and ruin my perception of them 😂

i regret buying the summer i turned pretty trilogy bc i felt the same way about reading the first one WHAT WAS THAT

Children have always wanted to explore darkness - it's about learning and testing boundaries. Look at fairytales and fables, they always had dark and scary elements. When I was growing up (I'm in my 50's) we started out with 'The Little Golden Books' (I also remember Enid Blyton Famous Five, and Roald Dahl) and went straight to Stephen King. There wasn't really YA in libraries and book stores. I can remember reading adult horror and science fiction/fantasy titles in grade 7 through to high school. Piers Anthony, Ursula LeGuin, Dean Koontz, David Eddings, Tolkien, Some girls were into their romances, but contemporary wasn't really a thing back then for our demographic. You either read softcore erotic romance, or your were into sci-fi or horror. Oh, and don't get me started on what representation and diversity was like... I can guarantee 98% of what we go access to was written by old white men and their privileged view of the world (and women's role within them.) I think when we started to see the YA boom in the early 2000's and we were seeing strong female characters and female authors take centre stage, a lot of older readers were buying these titles too, because we had never seen representation like that in scale.

I really like how you mentioned that kids can read much darker subject matter than adults make think. And they often want to in fact. My dad owned a book store growing up and my parents did not put any limit on what I read so I definitely read “adult” level novels staring in elementary and they would contain dark themes. I know my mom would say that she didn’t want my curiosity to be stifled. I will say though that they were always good about being available to discuss any topic I maybe did not quite grasp at the time and not all children may have that available to them.

As an early 2000s baby, I was surprised I read a lot of the same stuff and had the same phases but just a little earlier. I feel like if I had to pick a few from each era of childhood - I feel like early elementary school was all over the place but I definitely read a lot of goosebumps and idk if anyone remembers Allie Finkle’s Rules for Girls (I didn’t even realize that was Meg Cabot until now??) but that series truly encouraged me to be even more the menace I was already becoming, added with goosebumps and other “scary” books feeding that obsession with anything “dark.” Then getting older I rocketed straight into fandom territory with Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, and Hunger games but like anything I could get my hands on so there are so many random fantasy books and series burned into my memory that are so obscure I probably couldn’t name them. Middle school was dystopia heavy with things like matched and delirium being some of my favorites - literally how pretentious I became in my head after this with the whole “don’t go gentle into that good night” and other like poetry and “intellectual” stuff in those books is crazy. The legend series, the uglies, ets. All of that, also definitely cemented my not like other girls psychopathy at this point. The lunar chronicles series dominated later middle school to high school, and then high school I think wasn’t anything too crazy Bc I mostly read a lot of my same favorite authors over and over, so Marissa Meyer literally just had a chokehold on me. but I started branching out to more genres because I wasn’t as scared of someone finding out there was a romance plot line in a book I was reading lol which felt very controversial before then.

Oooohhh you should definitely give Percy Jackson a go now!

Me and my 3 friends all named ourselves one of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants girls and we all solely referred to each other by those names for YEARS 😂

this was SO GOOD

even though theres like a ~10 year difference between us, we read a lot of the same books in elementary/middle/early high school! a series of unfortunate events was probably the series that changed by brain chemistry the most, and i read the last book at least once every couple of years thinking that it was the one where the siblings would finally get a happy ending.

I LOVED Angus Thongs and Fullfrontal Snogging. That scene where she shaves her eyebrows and they don't match so she shaves a little more, and more. Forever in my brain as one of the funniest things I've ever read.

I was born in 2001 but I read so many of the same books that you did growing up!

Speaking on kids liking dark themes in books. I vividly remember loving a book that I read in the 4th grade that was about a cursed apple orchard and the main character’s only friend was a dead boy. And it baffles me that I read that at like 9 years old 😂😂😂 the book is: The Garden of Eve by KL Going. I’m thinking of rereading it now as an adult because I still jive with the weird, magical, other worldly vibe in books. And oh my gosh I LOVED The Clique series 😭

Omg the cirque de freak and angus snogging mentions brought up core memories for me that I forgot about 😮 such good books

99 baby here, I remember reading all of the Judy Moody books (as well as captain underpants). At the time i remember there were so many diary style series like Dear Dumb Diary and Diary of a Whimpy Kid. Then I fell into the Percy Jackson rabbit hole and never managed to get out (the new disney plus series is so good!)

'91 baby here too! I COMPLETELY forgot about the "Chicken Soup for the....Soul" books, wow!! They had one for everything lol

Does anyone have a recommedation for youtubers who do 40+ min wrap ups? Most i found only do like ~25 min and i really want to hear more about the books than there is time for then:[