Michel is delightful and sweet and a prankster and a rascal. He's never malicious, but always in the thick of it. I liked him a lot, and have always been impressed how much Lindgren can make me feel like I too live on a farm in the middle of Sweden. It's all so real and true.

Joyful is what this book is. Thoroughly joyful, and I'd love to blame it for my anarchist tendencies (but that would probably be unfair).

Journey to the Center of the Earth may have been my first sci-fi book, and it's hard to decide if I want to read the book as a story or as a historical document.

I loved this book as a kid, both for the fantastic beasts and for the scrawled notes by Harry, Ron and Hermione. Imagine if the Silmarillion came with scrawled notes in the margins from Gandalf and Galadriel.

There's nothing left to be said about Harry Potter books. This was the first one that felt like Harry was changing, growing up, getting some agency. The whole book felt like autumn, with the smell of wet leaves clinging to everything. Naturally I liked the whole "finding a new home" arc. And, equally naturally, I felt very seen in the plot arc that introduces time travel for the primary purpose of reading more books and learning more things. This might be my favourite part of the series (either this one or the first).

Harry Potter – look, I can't be objective. I grew up on these books. My friends and I could act out entire scenes by heart. I went through the cycle a generation experienced: Love, obsession, disappointment, detachment (in many cases by growing up, in my case by discovering fanfics).

I don't have many memories of this Sams book. I think I had more pity for Martin than for his father, because kids being bullied was relatable, whereas adults who were bullied looked weird and even contemptuous to me. But at the same time, I think both Martin and his father were self-inserts, and Paul Maar just is a better adult than kid. Or he just had forgotten about being a kid.

William de Worde brings journalism to the entirely unprepared Discworld. Journalists everywhere beware.

Yet another Sams book – I didn't really like the follow-ups. The original was whimsical in a way that the next parts didn't capture. Too busy following the formula.

Cheeky, fun, but nothing special: I think I only remember this book because I had the audio book and listened to it several times. I enjoy Preußler's other books more.

What can I say about this book that hasn't been said yet? Maybe this: I read it when I was nine, all in one go. I was visiting my grandparents and my uncle had lent me his books. I fell. I fell for them, I fell into them. They were exactly what I needed. I saw Middle Earth, I travelled with the companions, I pictured them vividly. I imagined myself with them, dreamt up original characters (that was years before I ever heard of fanfics). I rode with the Rohirrim and saw the mighty Minas Tirith. I had read the Hobbit before, and made the connection – this was the first time I had encountered such a loose connection between books, and I was excited that I knew it and recognised it. Everything about these books excited me. The beautiful language (thankfully my uncle had the old translation), the poems and songs, the dry sense of epos lurking in the background. The next year, a different uncle (yes, my family rocks) got me the audio book and a big map, and so I listened to the story I knew already, followed along on the map, and dreamed more dreams of Middle Earth. Another year later, yet another uncle lent me his copies of the Silmarillion and all those Christopher Tolkien books that contain more commentary than actual stories. The whole Middle Earth universe gave me a sense of scale and quality that has served me very well. That said: I usually don't recommend this book to friends. I read it at the right time, in the right frame of mind, and I still love it a lot. But it is often dry and tedious, it is slow and distracted, its characters belong in an epos and, as such, have little nuance and even less character development. You read the book for the scale, the worldbuilding, and you will enjoy the narration only if you'd also enjoy Beowulf or the Nibelung saga. Further reading I wrote up my thoughts on the book review by C.S. Lewis here Waiting for Aragorn

Adorable book for kids. Emil is wonderful, as is everybody else. As usual, Astrid Lindgren doesn't flinch away from real life, so Emil is for instance regularly locked away because his parents don't know how to deal with him.

Just like I knew who Darth Vader was for a decade before I watched Star Wars, I knew the story of Pinocchio by ambient cultural knowledge: The puppet that wanted to be a real boy, and couldn't lie without getting a longer nose. Two impressions come to mind when I remember reading it:

This was the first Harry Potter book that I read while it was still new. That was a novel experience for me: Most of my books up to that point had been old, or at least definitely not new. Reading an ongoing series was exciting. I don't remember much speculation about what would happen next, except for some recurring "Is Snape good or evil" debate.

I have a vaguely positive memory of this book, but that's about it. The protagonist was nice, had an annoying older sister, and dealt with ghosts with cleverness and hacked up techy devices? It's the Cornelia Funke boy series to her more famous girl series.

Madita is a somewhat less intense Pippi: she has a younger sister and is up to all sorts of ridiculous nonsense, but doesn't go to society-breaking extremes. Well, usually.

Goddamnit, this book might have been good. Instead it is infuriating – Kästner inserts sermons (in italics, at least, to make them easier to skip) into an already heavily moralising story, and tells children about social injustice, money and the revolution. Other than that, it's a decent story about a rich girl and a poor boy, their friendship, their worries and woes and joy.

Das doppelte Lottchen (English: Lottie and Lisa) is exactly what I loved to read as a child. The story of the twins Liese and Lotte, who were split up soon after birth when their parents separated. Once the two very different girls realise they are twins at a summer camp, they decide to switch places.

Third part of the series – I remember one good scene and not much else.