I want to talk about the different books and series I've read over the years that have shaped my imagination. I'm not going to talk about every book I've ever read, just the ones that stood out to me. There will be one or two books on here that were read for class, and one that I really hated. I'm gonna talk about what each one's about, and what I liked about it. Looking through them I think you can tell that I mostly like books about survival, animals, adventure, war, and dead teenagers, apparently...
I lowkey hated this series, though I only managed to get read through one book, The Eternity code. I don't know, I guess it's just not my thing. I guess I have (at least back then) no reason to care about some kid genius who wants to be a career criminal. And then there's the fantasy element of the series. I like fantasy - I fucking love dragons and stuff - but I guess I just don't care for fantasy that's supposed to take place in the real world, which is why I never got into Percy Jackson, and I never read Harry Potter, but I probably wouldn't like it much either. As, I sure like how Artemis has a butler who's surname is actually Butler, and Artemis is so attached to him but apparently isn't on "first name basis" with him.
This series was peak 3rd grade reading for me, and proof that I do in fact like fantasy when it's done right. It's a series about a kid named Tom and his friend Elanna who has a pet wolf, and they go around fighting these giant evil beasts (Ferno the Fire Dragon, Tusk the Mighty Mammoth, Targus the Night Horse, Aracnid the Spider King, etc.). Tom's an orphan but there was one book that started with them meeting his father, who ended up being a ghost. That was cool. I swear this series was peak fantasy, and so was Spirit Animals. When I first learned about Monsuno (I'll try to talk about that somewhere, idk where yet), I tried to write my own Beast-Quest style stories, though I didn't get very far, but oh well. Now I kinda want to go the book store to look for these books...
Except I would prefer if I could find the books with the original cover art, because looking online it looks like the covers and even illustrations have been changed. They look more cartonny than what I remember. Hell even the logo is different. I managed to find an image of one of the orignal covers, and I forgot that the Q had a monster eye in it. I gotta say, hearing about how brutal and graphic that series was in retrospect, can't say I'm a huge fan of the new art. If I can find more images of the original covers, I'll make a page showing off the old and new covers for comparison. Why oh why do publishers have to change the covers or the illustrations? Especially if it's not even as good as the original? People say it's marketing or whatever, you gotta redesign shit when sales start to slow or something, but honestly I think that's bullshit. Me personally, I might still buy the new editions, if for nothing else than for the story, but I would REALLY rather buy the old ones if I can find them. I'll buy them second hand if I have to, I don't mind. As long as the pages aren't torn out and the cover is still together, I'm fine with buying used books.
This was probably the most iconic series of 3rd and 4th grade. This is one of the series I checked out of the school library the most. I have a copy of Pearl Harbor 1941, Hurricane Katrina 2005, and The Great Chicago Fire 1871. But I've also read The Terrorist Attacks of September 11 2001, The Battle of Gettysburg 1863, The Sinking of the Titanic 1912, and I'm sure there were more but I don't remember what they were. I never read the ones about the SF earthquake or a series of shark attacks, but I kept seeing them advertised in the books I did read. There were also these magazines we read in our 4th grade Reading class. I don't remember what they were called by I have one issue laying around somewhere. Anyway, there one story in there written by the author of I Survived, and it was about the Lusitania when it was shot by a U-Boat.