A Few Childhood Favourites and the Power of a Good Reread

Hello everyone and happy Thursday! I am coming at you today, not with a book review - though stay tuned for next week's post, it is going to be a good one - but with a little blast from the past.

A friend of mine wrote to me recently and said that reading as children helped us develop a lot of empathy growing up and helped us have a better understanding of the world. I found this so interesting - and so true!

Which is why today, I want to tell you all about my favourite books I read as a child. If you've read one of my very first posts on here about how school ruined reading for me, you will know that I used to a an avid reader, until the pressure of school and 'reading proper books' threw me off reading for a few years.

However, there were a few book series that I used to be obsessed with as a kid that I want to share with you.

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The Princess Diaries

This is probably a huge classic when it comes to childhood favourites. So many girls my age have read at least one or two of those books.

The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot follows Mia Thermopolis, a 14 year-old who finds out that her father is the king of a small country called Genovia, and that she is is sole heir, a princess. Over the span of 11 books, Mia struggles with many things: getting her first boyfriend, princess lessons, learning to balance her life in New York and her new life as a princess.

This series is a lot of fun, and when I was a kid, whenever I had insomnia - which, to be fair, happened more often that I liked - I would just pick up these books and spend most of the night reading them. Now, when I have insomnia I pick up my phone... Maybe I should get that habit of reading throughout the night back?

This book is probably the one that means the most to me in that list. I remember waiting for the next book to come out, falling in love with Michael Moskovitz and waiting to see if my dad was secretly a prince like it was yesterday.

And of course, I can't talk baout the books without mentioning the movie. Now let me say it right away, yes, the movie is iconic, but no, I do not like it as a book-to-movie adaptation. There are so many things wrong with the way they handled the adaptation, mainly the characters, but also the setting and - in my opition - the vibes of the story. I even refused to watch the second movie since it did not have Michael as the love interest.

That being said, I still like watching the movie, as long as I don't compare it to the books.

If you follow me on Instagram, you may or may not have noticed that I have been rereading the books this month. If you want to hear my thoughts in this reread, feel free to message me, I'd love to talk about it!

Cherub

Another book series that meant a lot to me was the Cherub series by Robert Muchamore.

These books follow a young boy called James who is recruited by the British Secret Services into the CHERUB program, which is made up of teens and pre-teens. After all, who would believe that a child is a spy? James is thrown into the spy world, learning how to fight, spy and face his worst fears. Each book consists of a mission, and is funny and action-packed.

Like the Princess Diaries, this is a very long series (17 books). Admitedly, I haven't read them all, I think I stopped around number 11 or 12.

I would have loved for these books to get a couple movies or a TV show. I think that it has great potential, and I am still hoping that we will one day get the CHERUB movies. For April 1st, the author pretended that Netflix was adapting the books, and once I realized I had been fooled well... It was a cruel joke for a big fan like me.

Tara Duncan

This last book series is one that I am pretty sure most people will not have heard about. And this is because Tara Duncan is a French series by Sophie Audouin-Mamikonian. Tara discovers that she is a powerful 'spellbinder' who was born in the Otherworld but raised on Earth.

This was the book series that got me into fantasy in the first place - and also that introduced me to the good-old love triangle trope that YA novels love to use.

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From this selection of books, I think that you can see why I have such eclectic tastes for books now. As a kid, I read very different genres very eagerly.

And now, years later, I have been thinking about rereading these favourites -and have aready started doing it with The Princess Diaries. There is such a power to rereading books you loved as a child. Not only does it feel very nostalgic, and I can sometimes see my younger self reading specific passages, but you also get things that you never understood when you were a child. I found myself laughing at some of the jokes Mia makes that I never would have understood when I was a kid - yes, I will admit that most of them are sex jokes. And I have found that doing these rereads are the best way to get out of a reading slump! They are quick and eays, and since I already know the story I can read much faster!

What were your childhood favourites? Have you read any of these books? Find me on instagram and tell me all about it!