Blooey Singson: Books I Read When I was a Teenager

Blooey Singson is a writer, public relations executive, newspaper contributor, and freelance illustrator. She is a member of Ang Ilustrador ng Kabataan (Ang I.N.K.) and an administrator of the Filipino book club Flips Flipping Pages. Blooey is a book lover who reads over two hundred books a year, and a compulsive book shopper who cannot get through the week without adding a book (or ten) to her collection, which ran out of shelf space a long time ago. She reviews books and blogs about her book adventures on her website, http://sumthinblue.com.


TOP TEN BOOKS I READ WHEN I WAS A TEENAGER

1) The Harry Potter series (Books 1-5) by J.K. Rowling- I discovered Harry Potter when I was 14 years old, and the rest of my teenage years were spent reading the series, making it a huge part of my adolescence. I feel like I grew up with Harry and his friends.

2) The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin - I've read many more mystery novels after reading this book, but The Westing Game remains to be one of the most brilliantly plotted mysteries I have ever had the pleasure of reading

3) The 21 Balloons by William Pene du Bois - I discovered this book back in the 4th grade, but it remained one of the most read books in my library up to my teens. It was the first travel book I ever read, and it has always made me wonder how it would feel to just drift aimlessly on a hot air balloon.

4) Skin and Other Stories by Roald Dahl- I've been reading Roald Dahl since I was young, but when a college friend lent me this collection of short stories, I discovered a whole new level of appreciation for Roald Dahl. Today, I love his adult works more than his children's books.

5 - 6)Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume and Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech- These two novels deal with coping with the grief of a loved one. I lost my dad at age 11, and it took years for me to get over it, but these books really helped a lot.

7) The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupery - This book will always remind me of my 4th year literature class, when forty-four of us girls in blue and white uniforms sat enthralled as our teacher read us passages from the book. We were tamed for life.

8) Noli Me Tangere by Jose Rizal- I enjoyed this high school requirement immensely, even when we read the full length Tagalog novels and we had to consult the Filipino dictionary with every sentence!

9) P.S. I Love You by Barbara Conklin- They weren't selling Sweet Dreams in the bookstores anymore when we were in high school, but a classmate photocopied her older sister's battered copy of this book and it was passed around in class, drawing collective sighs from thirteen year old schoolgirls.

10) Love Story by Erich Segal - Along with P.S. I Love You, this was another one of those books I read in high school, during that phase when all we ever wanted to read were books about undying love that made us gush and sigh, and cry and wish that someday we'd be able to experience the things we read about!