Here's a hint:
Whether it was The Chronicles of Narnia, The Book of Three & The Black Cauldron, The Dark is Rising, or any number of books I may have forgotten at this point, I have always & do still love fantasy. When you're looking at lists of books, they really love to lump Fantasy & Sci-fi together. But they really are different. Fantasy tends to focus more on the battles between good and evil with fantastic creatures. Science fiction tends to deal more with moral quandaries - kind of more on the "what if" spectrum of things. But ultimately, I understand why they're lumped together.
Many folks who love one also love the other. And truthfully, I don't know that I can really say that I loved one more than another as a kid either. I read probably more scifi as a kid honestly. Whether it be Tom Swift, or Isaac Asimov, or probably another dozen books I don't remember. THEN you get to the reason why they're so often lumped together. Things like Star Wars. Is it Scifi? Is it Fantasy? Is it both? And starting with Timothy Zahn's Heir to The Empire - I CONSUMED Star Wars books. Some were more on the scifi side of things and some were more on the fantasy side of things.
And now... I still love both! And stories that continue to blur the lines between the two. Steampunk. Gaslamp fantasy. Hard Scifi. High Fantasy. I love it all. And I love to narrate it all too. In the last 3 years I've worked with some truly brilliant authors on more than 20 books that fall under one or both categories. Now I also read about anything else and enjoy it too though.
And even though Disney threw out the expanded universe... The original Thrawn trilogy still holds up as the best Star Wars books ever written. Just ask my 8 year old.
What was your favorite genre growing up? How about now.
Mystery, scifi, and pre-teen fiction for girls. I loved reading everything. I read a lot of non-fiction books as well. I am a nerd :)
Would you consider The Babysitters Club series and the Sweet Valley High series realistic fiction? Hahahaha! If you do....I guess I'd go with realistic fiction. I'm not at all embarrassed about my love for the Babysitters Club, but I'm a teensy bit embarrassed about Sweet Valley High. 😅