Interesting things to ponder.

I'd probably say 12 to 14 or 16 for me. (most of the books I read before 12 were horse stories that I go back to with fondness but that didn't really move me.) Other than that difference, I agree with you. I may laugh at some of them now and comment on problems their authors may have, but it's still those books I pick up for the umpteenth million time when I need some fluffy reading comfort.

Alanna. Need I say more?

Totally!

It's the same with me. I find that the books I loved then advise the books I might consider buying as to how to become books I might love now. It's some sort of past-to-future-book conspiracy, and while I don't claim to know how it's done, I appreciate the effort the books are putting in on my behalf. My favorites from childhood time where The Stand (which I still reread every year) and the Mist story from King's Skeleton Crew, and after those two it's easy to see why I love apocalypse fiction like I do. Oh, and plagues and monsters too. I can see the transition to my pure and unadulterated zombie love as an adult and find the same kind of end of the world survival tales in books like World War Z. I also loved Tom Dietz's series on a kid from Georgia who discovers he can see Irish Fairies, because at that point I'd had 8th grade mythology class and I loved that I recognized characters from the myths in his works, and see the same kind of comfortable familiarity in Gaimen's American Gods and many of Heinlein's works.

I don't know if I agree. I mean, when I was 12, I started reading Marion Zimmer Bradley and Heinlein and Clan of the Cave Bear, and Elfquest. Now, I'm much older. I still love the above, but I haven't really read EQ in years, and I feel much the same about Jane Austen that I do about L.M. Montgomery and Laura Ingalls Wilder, and I didn't read Jane until my late 20s, and the other two were around 8 and up.

On the other hand, reminding me of the Mushroom Planet, as that article did, was wickedly happy-making.

Oh, yes, if not universal, certainly widespread. I believe it was Asimov who said that the Golden Age of Science Fiction is twelve.

That ten to twelve age range is when I first encountered Heinlein, when I first read A Wrinkle In Time, when I was first moved by, even if I didn't fully understand, Sturgeon. Certainly this was also roughly when I first read Asimov, and Clarke, and Kuttner, and oh so many others, but those first three are my Trinity.

Oh, and I was thirteen when Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams blew my comic-loving mind with Green Lantern/Green Arrow.

Oh, yeah... and it's a weird mix, too. Harvest Home and The Other (Tryon definitely started my love of horror), The Forever War by Haldeman, the Amber series by Zelazny, Bram Stoker (I had an unusual edition of Dracula that was falling apart; it had the 'deleted' chapter edited back in), and to this day I'll buy anything by Robert Asprin or Spider Robinson...

Now if someone could write me a horror sci-fi comedy fantasy adventure, and do it well, I'd probably explode, lol...

For me it was the books I read when I was 14-16. That was when I read Brave New World and the plague book that had the name Kivrin in it.

The ones that stand out for me are the Star Wars Trilogy novelizations and The Clan of the Cave Bear, both when I was twelve. And, then, a couple short stories: Kipling's "The Undertakers," and "The Game of Rat and Dragon" by Cordwainer Smith.

*pokes brain* Come on, I know there was a lot more than that, before/during/under/around the read-romance-novels-for-the-sex-scenes*-despite-wanting-to-kill-the-male-lead thing I had going on for awhile.

*if I had not found internet fandom and its vast supply of porn, I would be so insane right now . . .

I'd argue that you can fall in love with the way an author uses language

Oh HELLS, yes.

Oooh, remembered another: the novelization of Paint Your Wagon for sheer, beautiful, clever, wonderful prose. But then I would read complete and utter crap if it had shiny prose. It draws me in like certain people ;) might be drawn towards a sign saying "Velociraptor eggs, viable, free to good home."

True! Though you could argue I never truly stop loving a book that I've loved once, no matter how long ago and how ridiculous and embarrassing that love is in retrospect. *g*

I'm not sure if 9-12 is a special age in this regard, but it may well be. I read Lord of the Rings then, most of the StarTrek novels, a ton of 50's sci-fi, Sherlock Holmes, Douglas Adams, my dad's Karl May (really weird 19th ct German wild west author) collection, Jack London, Hal Foster's Prince Valiant (see what I mean about "embarrassing in retrospect"? *g*), J.F. Cooper, and everything by Marion Zimmer Bradley. Oh, and Dragonlance, since you mention that. *ggg*

And yes, those things have very much stayed with me. My theory would be, though, that these are just the things I love in general, and that happened to be the age I discovered them. Before eight or nine, reading was still too slow for whole novels, later than twelve, there just wasn't much equally influential literature left that interested me. I had already gone through all the good stuff (and some besides *g*) so to speak.
That theory is backed by the fact that I can discover new fandoms today and love them just as passionately as the old ones (e.g. George R.R. Martin, Kim Harrison, Diana Gabaldon, Mary Renault, Naomi Novik, all in the last five years). It's just become rarer. *shrugs*

Hrmm... I think there's a resonance, but it isn't always direct, for me.

I mean, that does certainly explain why Tamora Pierce seems kind of locked into my psyche. And Mary Stewart, as well, really, but there are other books which have fallen off the books I feel a need to have to hand, and others which have been added. What I can see are threads of themes and styles. I'm willing to believe that all the various Arthurian books which I read around then are part of why that's one of the ways to grab me (unless you do it poorly, in which case it's a way to make me grumpy.)

Anyway... I think it's sort of true and sort of not. I mean, I'm pretty sure a lot of those books will always have a certain emotional hold over me, and probably that I'll be unwilling to admit the flaws in a lot of them. And if I didn't have another book to hand and someone was reading one, I'd probably peek, but I don't really go back to visit most of them.

Then again (with a few notable exceptions), I was never really one much for rereading for most of my life. I only really started having more that a couple books which I would reread in the last decade or so. (And even those books I didn't reread all that often, usually.)

Yeah, for me it's the ones I started reading when I was a bit younger than 12, but since I was still reading books by the same authors (King, Auel, etc.) when I was 12, and still love those same authors now, I'd say it holds true.

Can I even say how happy I was to have King come out with a new book of short stories? I love his short stories... they will always be my some of my favorites.

I have two books that I am sure were from before 10-12 [i.e., Before Tolkien ;)] that I loved and that I tracked down copies of as an adult, but then I started reading early and voraciously.

_The Silver Crown_ by Robert C. O'Brien [yes, the one who also wrote NIMH].

Opening line: "She had known all along that she was a queen, and the crown proved it."

_Roller Skates_ by Ruth Sawyer.

The story of a tomboy temporarily orphaned in 1890s New York during her tenth year, this was probably my formative book. I could identify with, or at least admire, Lucinda Wyman in a way that never quite happened with other girls like Jo March of _Little House_, etc. [Looking back, I think Jo's environment was just a little too close to my real life - I grew up in very homogenous farm country where one learned early to cope and make do, whereas Lucinda's story is all about finding -- and keeping -- your own space via immersion in different cultures, encouraging one's creativity, etc. Also, I am quite sure that in one of his previous lives my dad was Lucinda's Uncle Earle. :) ]

Then came 10-12, which were painful years and where I retreated into books, bowling and skating in no particular order. A lot of what falls under trad fantasy: Tolkien, Lewis, Alexander, McCaffrey, LeGuin. I still remember the physical place where I first picked up that battered copy of _Fellowship of the Ring_. Plus John Christopher "Tripods Series", who I think was actually my first exposure to "science-fiction". After that... well, it becomes a bit of a blur. :)

*ponder*

Mercedes Lackey, Anne McCaffrey, Stephen King's "The Body," Watership Downs, and Tailchaser's Song. um. Yeah. *wry grin*

Books I discovered when I was twelve or so and that I still love:
The Lord of the Rings
The Silmarillion
To Kill A Mockingbird
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities