Books from your childhood

The interesting discussion about Bawdin's children's books prompted me to suggest this topic. What books did you love as a child? We are so diverse here: different age groups, different countries, different genders.

I can think of two authors I read. My earliest memories were of the Oz books by Baum, but only those by Baum himself, no spinoffs. And I really liked only the first four or five with Dorothy and Ozma. I read a few of them about two years ago and found them sadly lacking. I can't quite put my finger on why.

I also read the Betsy-Tacy books by Maud Hart Lovelace. (Have our UK members even heard of her?) The series starts when Betsy meets her best friend in first grade in a small town in Minnesota. Lovelace wrote a novel for every year and ended with Betsy's wedding right after World War One. I reread the later books and was just as charmed by the idyllic descriptions of turn of the century small town America. Think Music Man with pine trees and ice skating.

Then there was the Nancy Drew series which I inherited from my aunt so they were the originals, not the politically correct reissues. Rereads are very eye-opening. Didn't do the Five Little Peppers, Bobsey Twins, or Hardy Boys.

I loved Alcott's Eight Cousins and Rose-in-Bloom. I still think she chose the wrong cousin.

Then my parents gave me permission at age ten to apply for an adult library card since I had read everything in the children and juvenile sections.
My first book. Gone with the Wind, of course. Loved it, loved it, loved it. Tried a reread four years ago, couldn't finish it, and left my copy on a bus.

So, what are your favorites and how do they hold up in the 21st century?

Lovely idea for a thread!

I suggested in the thread that I only read Enid Blyton, but that wasn't quite true... also loved Richmal Crompton's William books (still brilliant) and the Jennings books by Anthony Buckeridge (which I haven't revisited.) Also Narnia, if you count being read too.

My earliest abiding literary love is the Mr. Men by Roger Hargreaves. I learnt to read with them, and I still love the characters....

The less said about Goosebumps, Point Horror, and Sweet Valley High, the better...

Ditto to many of the above but I would also add the Anne of Green Gables books and the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. My mother used to read the latter out loud to us and when she got to the end of the series she'd start up with the first again.
I collected Nancy Drews and my best friend and I used to walk to neighborhood garage sales looking for the older ones. But looking back now I think the fun for me was in the collecting part, the getting of the books. I practically never re-read them once I had them and I have almost no memory of the various plots.

Also, I did have one of the Bobbsey Twins books but my sister and I considered it hilarious because the kids were so goody-goody. We used to literally roll on the floor with laughter.

I loved the Graeme Base books when young. And how about Noel Streatfeild's Shoes books? The Wind in the Willows and Mr. Toad books.

Later, C.S. Lewis, the Little House on the Prairie books, and Lewis Carroll were among my favorites.

Lcanon, I forgot Anne of Green Gables! Those were wonderful too!

Well I learned to read at three - and didn't think I ever needed to learn anything else -so although I didn't do very well at school - I read and read - and had finished with kids books by the time I was about 11. Now that is a *cough* couple of years ago now : ) and I have forgotten many of the books I read as a child however these are the ones I remember best and fondest.
Carrie's war by Nina Bawden
The Tree that sat down Beverley Nichols
Danny Champion of the world by Roald Dahl
Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome

I must admit to a childhood guilty pleasure - Enid Blyton!

I loved famous five and secret seven books - and the Mallory towers and St Clare books.

Enid Blyton was my big favourite - particularly the school books like Ali. Oh, how I wanted to go to a boarding school! her Adventure series books were wonderful too - particularly The Valley of Adventure.

We didn't have much money for books when I was young so a lot tended to come from the library. But I had battered old hardbacks of Little Women and Good Wives (which I've bemoaned parting with on Simon's site). I liked the Katy books too but never got on with Anne of Green Gables.

Later, of course, I was utterly obsessed with Narnia. But one of my clearest memories is of borrowing from the old library near the river Dr. Seuss's I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew which I thought was the most surreal and amazing thing ever!!

Oh, I had so many favourites! Anything by Noel Streatfield, all the Ardizzone Little Tim books, Paddington, the whole Borrowers series, the Doctor Dolittle books, Natalie Savage Carlson's Orpheline books, a bit of Rumer Godden especially Miss Happiness and Miss Flower, The Family from One End Street, Marjorie Lloyd's Fell Farm books, The Wind in the Willows, Andrew Lang's Fairy Books, Five Children and It, the Allison Uttley Little Grey Rabbit books (and her wonderful Magic in My Pocket), The Secret Garden, Little Katia by Edith M. Almedingen, Leila Berg's Little Pete Stories, Marlows at Newgale by Hilda Boden, Little O by Edith Unnerstad, the My Naughty Little Sister books by Dorothy Edwards and, of course, a good dose of pony books - Marguerite Henry, the Pullein-Thompsons, Ruby Ferguson, Monica Edwards, etc.

My two favourites, however, were The Little Bookroom by Eleanor Farjeon and South Country Secrets by Barbara Euphan Todd.

The books I read most as a child are still on my bookshelves and many are often re-read.

The Narnia books.
Rumer Godden's childrens' stories: Miss Happiness and Miss Flower and Little Plum, The Dolls' House and her ballet books.
Noel Streatfeild: Ballet Shoes over and over again but also other 'shoes' books and the Gemma series.
Pony books: my favourites were the Jill books by Ruby Ferguson.
Elizabeth Goudge: The Little White Horse and Henrietta's House
Enid Blyton: Malory Towers and St Clare's and the Adventure series, although my favourite school stories were (and still are) the Chalet School books.
Of the 'Classics': Heidi, What Katy Did and the sequels, Little Women and sequels, Black Beauty (I like books that make me cry).
Then in my mid-teens I went on to historical novels - mostly Jean Plaidy - and Tolkien.

I LOVED Astrid Lindgren's books about the Bullerby children when I was about 7 (also her 'Seacrow Island' when I was a bit older.) And Maria Gripe's 'Hugo & Josephine' trilogy (had a lot of Swedish books in our school library!)
Then Noel Streatfeild, 'What Katy did', Nina Bawden...

10: Oddly enough, I also graduated to Jean Plaidy, Victoria Holt et al as a teenager - along with Tolkien. My mum was always reading Victoria Holt so I think I used to just borrow them from her!

I loved my pony books and my classics: the Streatfeilds et al. Never really liked Blyton. Read quite a few of the Three Investigators books. Diana Wynne Jones. Rosemary Sutcliff. Susan Cooper. Alan Garner. Nothing's really changed, either!

Oh yes, Elizabeth Gouge, loved her!

And I did Jean Plaidy etc. as a young teen, too - and then ALL of lots of things - Georgette Heyer, Agatha Christie, Ian Fleming (!), anything there was a lot of!

I think I read every single Jean Plaidy, especially the Tudor books. I especially remember the covers of the massive hardback Plaidys in my local library, which were very colorful and dramatic.
Did she really write all those books, considering she was also Victoria Holt, etc.? Or did she have ghostwriters?

I read widely as a child but preferred Enid Blyton over all of them. I also LONGED to go to boarding school and absolutely adored the Adventure series. I read them to my son when he was about 8 and he loved them too. Funnily enough the book I liked least at the time was the Sea of Adventure and it was my favorite on re-reading. Of course, in the versions I managed to buy in the 90s the wonderful illustrations were gone but so were all the swarthy/black villains. Jo Jo, the villain, in the Island of Adventure is white now and named Joe. In fairness to Enid Blyton, her racism went totally over my head as a child but reading them to my mixed race son would've been impossible without the editing.

By 12 I was also in the adult library and hooked on Agatha Christie.

>2 Stuck-in-a-Book:: Oh, Simon, how could you dis Sweet Valley High? YA lit would be so much poorer without the Wakefield sisters, supersquare Liz and her slutty, sociopathic twin Jessica. How could anyone not love such classics as In Love with a Prince and Don't Go Home with John? To say nothing of Lila's Story! i'm shocked, I tell you, shocked!

Seriously, though, as a kid I loved the Oz books and The Chronicles of Narnia.

I read quite a bit of Enid Blyton (against my mother's wishes), but they weren't my favourites. I mostly read them on summer holidays because my grandad's village shop in a Welsh seaside village stocked TONS of them - on a spinning rack in front of the shop - and I was allowed to "borrow" them as long as I didn't get too much sand or chocolate on them. So I worked my way through them all. The only ones I really loved were the Six Cousins books - Six Cousins at Mistletoe Farm was the best one.

I too read Enid Blyton quite voraciously as a child, especially the Famous Five, Adventure and school series. I didn't like the Secret Seven as the children weren't really distinguishable from one another.
I also read pony books, especially those by the Pullein-Thompson sisters, Ruby Ferguson and Judith M. Berrisford, though the latter was greatly inferior to the former two.
The Chalet School series was a favourite, even though I read them all out of order and got very confused!
Books set around ballet and the theatre, including Noel Streatfeild, Jean Estoril, Lorna Hill, Jean Ure and Pamela Brown.
Swallows and Amazons series - read so many times that my copies fell to pieces!
The usual girls' classics - Heidi, Katy, Anne, Rebecca, Pollyanna (yuck!), Little Women, and the works of Frances Hodgeson Burnett and E. Nesbit.
Animal stories - Black Beauty (which I can't read now because it makes me cry - obviously I was a lot tougher as a child!), The animals of Farthing Wood series, Lassie come-home, and the Redwall books.
Fantasy - Diana Wynne Jones, Susan Cooper, Alan Garner, Tanith Lee (her children's titles), Jill Murphy, Barbara Sleigh (Carbonel).

And many more ... I can rabbit on about children's books all day!

Argh - forgot Anne and Heidi and Pamela Brown and E. Nesbitt and F. Hodgson Burnett and the Barbara Sleighs and Arthur Ransome (the weird Peter Duck one was a story they made up in the houseboat, I think) ... maybe I should just take a photo of my bookshelf of children's books ...

OK, here you go ...

The top shelves: http://www.flickr.com/photos/9247360@N04/8056374925/

The bottom shelves: http://www.flickr.com/photos/9247360@N04/8056374011/in/photostream/

The pile of extras: http://www.flickr.com/photos/9247360@N04/8056374814/in/photostream/

That's all my own "chapter books" and beyond plus ones I've bought as an adult.

Oh my, this is fun, especially seeing so many books in common with all of you, even though we are not all of the same generation.

When I was very small I read several books by Joan Walsh Anglund, very sweet little books that fit nicely in a child's hands. The illustrations still bring back strong emotions.

I loved Noel Streatfield's Ballet Shoes and others in the "Shoes" series. My mom had a set of Five Little Peppers books that I discovered on a dusty shelf; I vaguely recall reading the first one at a point where I'd *gasp* run out of books to read. I also enjoyed Marguerite Henry's "horsey" books like Misty of Chincoteague and Brighty of the Grand Canyon, even though I was not at all horsey (but then I didn't dance either, and still enjoyed Ballet Shoes).

Like others here I enjoyed Nancy Drew and Anne of Green Gables, and then Jane Eyre as I entered my teens ...

How about From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler? and Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH? Island of the Blue Dolphins?

I'm finding once I started this I can't stop. So many great books!

>20 LyzzyBee:: So many of my favourites are also on your shelves! Seeing all those lovely Puffins makes me wish I shelved mine together like that. And you reminded me that I forgot K. M. Peyton, the Silver Brumby series, and Robert Westall, although I prefered his supernatural stories to the wartime ones.

>22 lauralkeet:: I only read From the mixed up files... as an adult, but I think I'd have loved it just as much if I'd found it as a child. I also liked The Westing game - for some reason, I always associate those two books with each other. Marguerite Henry's King of the wind was my all-time favourite book for many years, and through it I learned the names of the three stallions from which every Thoroughbred is descended. An essential fact :-)

I was also obsessed with the Little House books for a long time, and had a huge book crush on Almanzo Wilder!

Lots of books that I loved are mentioned, though I never really liked Mr Men. I didn't learn to read until I was 5 (I came home from my first day at school crying because I hadn't been taught to read, and then my mum taught me herself, which she'd previously been told wasn't the thing to do), but then I progressed very rapidly in what I was reading, partly because my mum took me to live abroad for a year and my dad sent parcels of books which I just devoured.

I had (and still have) The Long Winter which was my only Little House book - but I loved it and actually re-read it recently during one particularly nasty spell of snow!

How long can each post be?

It will take me a while to compose this one.

17 - ha! Don't get me wrong, I read dozens of the things... I probably could have spent my time better.

Marguerite Henry, mentioned above, was another love. Anything with horses. No Flying in the House may have been the first book I designated to myself as a favorite. Another was a compendium called The World's Greatest Stories by Louis Untermeyer which had tales from Greek and Roman history -- the Capitoline Geese, Horatio at the bridge. It was kind of a miniature classical education. And I had a series of books called "Junior Classics" with Greek mythology, Norse mythology, folk and fairy tales.

Please make your posts long, Lady Urania. The comments are fascinating.

How did I miss boarding school books as a kid? And I still tear up when I read Black Beauty or even see any of the many adaptions. What was the name of the little horse (pony?) who died when she was pulling a loaded wagon up the hill?

>29 Liz1564:: Ginger. I used to have to make up an alternate happy ending for her in my head whenever I read the book!

One of my favourite books as a child was Roller Skates by Ruth Sawyer - set in 1890s New York City - Lucinda's parents leave her staying with someone else while they're in Italy for a year, and she skates around and makes friends with neighbours and others in her area. It has some very sad bits though, I reread it a couple of years ago, and I still cry over books.

My sister acquired some of my Streatfeilds and they've been loved to bits, so I've been buying replacements, only I don't always remember what I still have or not, so I have a few duplicates to give her. Some are modern editions but I really prefer the original titles to the attempt to market many of the best known as part of a "shoes" series, eg Curtain Up, White Boots and Party Frock. (I'm very glad to see the LT touchstones come up with the right titles).

I loved Joan Aiken's Wolves series, which only contained about 4 books when I was a child, and I also love(d) her short story collections, they include some of the best tales about magical happenings around. I also loved Diana Wynne Jones.

I liked ballet stories, school stories, pony stories, historical novels, time travel, just about anything really.

I read most things in the children's sections of my libraries as a kid, and used all the family's library tickets (we had little cardboard tickets, 1 per book, and a total of 14 between me, my mum and stepdad).

Oh memories flooding back- I'd forgotten 'Roller Skates!' Also loved 'All of a kind Family' about Jewish family in USA (they always seemed to be eating lovely foods!)and 'Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth & I'. Also recall 'Snow Cloud Stallion' with wonderful picture on cover of horse in the mist. What is it about horse books- I never wanted a horse but devoured books about them!
And did anyone ever read 'Marigold in Godmother's House' which was magical?
When I got to 11, I remember reading Beverly Cleary's 'Fifteen' many times, about a girl and her first date.

>22 lauralkeet:/23 - Same here! I only read From the Mixed Up Files as an older teenager, but I adored it.

I read Fifteen at 11 or 12 too. I also loved her Ramona series - I've bought two omnibus volumes but they're a bit awkward for easy reading, and I think I still have 6 of them in single volume editions.

I used to pick some really odd books up at jumble sales - Yvonne Runs Away by Valentine was really too old for me, and there was The Mystery of the Missing Clocks (I think) which might have been part of a series. Also The Key to Rose Cottage was a huge favourite. They had no dustjackets and I knew nothing about them and I think a lot of them are forgotten - but I loved them at the time!

31: And also loved those little cardboard tickets - much more fun than nasty modern plastic things!

>32 starbox: - I loved All of a Kind Family! I still have it!

What an awesome thread.
My childhood favorites that stand out at the moment were:
A Little Princess, The Secret Garden, my first read of Gone With the Wind and Doctor Zhivago was in 3rd grade and I still read them every 5 or 6 years.
Loved the Trixie Belden series, Nancy Drew series, The Hardy Boys series, The Bobsey Twins series, The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew series and so many more.
But my absolute favorites were The Little Grey Men by B.B. and The Black Fawn by Jim Kjelgaard.
How lovely to think back on those idyllic days of youth when there were no worries and taking my book, I would lie out in the cow pasture under a tree and read the afternoon away watching the clouds float by until called back to reality by a parent or sibling.

I seem to have similar favorites to most of you. Once I found an author that I liked, I would try to read all of the books that they had written, and I'm still that way today.

My absolute favorite - A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

Other favorites:

Anything by Louisa May Alcott especially Eight Cousins, Rose in Bloom, Little Women, Little Men, and Jo's Boys.

Champions Don't Cry by Nan Gilbert

All of a Kind Family series by Sydney Taylor

Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder

That Barbara by Wilma Thompson

Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh

Freaky Friday and A Billion for Boris by Mary Rodgers

Encyclopedia Brown series by Donald J Sobol

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg

Robin Kane series by Eileen Hill

Anne of Green Gables series by L.M. Montgomery

The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

Mandy by Julie Andrews Edwards

I still have my copies of quite a few of those books - 40 years later!!

When I was in 3rd or 4th grade, I started to read Victoria Holt and Emilie Loring novels because my mother read them. In the 4th grade, I started to read Agatha Christie and a life-long love of mysteries began.

It will take me days and days to compose my thoughts to share in this thread...I was (and still am!) a voracious reader.

There are many titles here I don't recognize, but also many that bring back very happy memories. What I've enjoyed most of all, though, was learning that there are others who learned to read at age 3 and were reading adult classics by the third grade. As a child I often felt like a bit of a freak for my reading abilities and interests.....you all have assured me that I was not alone. :)

Right - you asked for it....well you didn't really but you have struck a nerve with this thread so here goes....there are a few bookcases in the house featuring children's books - this is one of them ...



Closer inspection reveals an obsession with Enid Blyton . I'm ashamed to say I thought The Put 'em Rights was really great as was The Secret Island - Dag is my middle name, did you know????



and yes, Anne of Green Gables and Swallows and Amazons



I inherited Mum's canon of Aussie kids' lit Seven Little Australians et al and Dot and the Kangaroo and some other treats like The Dare Club



and her obsession with Violet Needham



They all look a bit sad and old don't they - probably a bit like me!

There are so many I could mention here that I loved in my youth - The Adventures of Poppy Treloar by Pixie O'Harris was pretty good. As was An Older Kind of Magic by Patricia Wrightson and of course A Wrinkle in Time .

When I was little I doted on Milly Molly Mandy and the Bunchy books.

If I ever feel bewildered, I derive great comfort from Milly Molly Mandy and treasures like The Brownie Guide's Handbook



or The 70s Girl.



Does anyone else have any Ameliaranne books? This plate is from Ameliaranne's Prize Packet.



These are a few of my favourite things - to quote a hackneyed line. Now, back to my Uni asssignments...sigh....

Almost everything listed above I read and loved as a child, and still own most of my childhood copies, which get re-read on a regular basis! And now I've started reading them all aloud to my 5-year-old son, who loves them too! A few that haven't yet been mentioned: all the other L.M. Montgomery's (especially Emily and Pat), Magic Elizabeth, the Happy Hollisters series, Strawberry Girl (the first book I ever bought for myself, at a library book sale when I was about six or seven--I still have it!), On to Oregon, Butter on Both Sides and The Tie That Binds, Edward Eager's books, anything about horses or dogs, The Moffats, My Side of the Mountain, Sue Barton and Cherry Ames, Kate Seredy's books, the Childhoods of Famous Americans biography series, National Velvet, fairy tales from all over the world, Gone Away Lake and The Saturdays, The Great Brain, Amy's Eyes, Ronia, the Robber's Daughter, Mrs Piggle-Wiggle, Winding Valley Farm, Salted Lemons... And yes, yes, YES, Miss Read--The Little Bookroom!!!!!!!

Huh, maybe I should have just directed you to check out my "juvenile literature" tag! :) I am, perhaps, inordinately fond of children's literature and am extremely attached to all the familiar editions that have been with me for my whole life.

>38 rretzler: - rretzler, how did I forget The Witch of Blackbird Pond!? That was wonderful!

40: Ooh, I'm quite envious of the Ethel Turner collection - I have Three Little Maids and her best known book, Seven Little Australians but that's it, though I do have a couple of other Australian books. My dad lived there for a few years but I don't think he would have been buying me kids' books at 18 when I he moved, I think he must have travelled there earlier for a holiday or conference as I also have the odd soft toy.

>40 alexdaw: - oh, how wondrous!

Alex, your bookshelves are things of beauty! I have the Seven little Australians series, but I didn't discover them until I was an adult (loose definition of adult!). I've also recently tracked down Patricia Wrightson's books. I did have some NZ children's lit as a child - Tessa Duder's Alex series, Margaret Mahy's wonderful YA novels and some books by Joan de Hamel. I loved any books I could find from Down Under, as the landscapes were so fascinating to me, and any fantasy elements were very different to those in British books.

Luci, I too loved Joan Aiken, especially the James III series and the fairy tales illustrated by Jan Pienkowski.

Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea trilogy was a favourite too.

This is a great thread; thank you Elaine for starting it! So many memories of wonderful books and happy times spent reading.

I can't believe I forgot to mention the Little House books. And The Witch of Blackbird Pond!

>40 alexdaw:: OMG, Alex. That's quite a collection. Very nice.

Books I remember liking early on were Winnie-the-Pooh, Stevenson's A child's garden of verses and Thackeray's The rose and the ring. A favourite was Mr Blossom's shop by Barbara Euphan Todd.

A little later I loved Noel Streatfeild (particularly the ones about children on the stage), E. Nesbit, C.S. Lewis, The Borrowers books and the Anne of Green Gables books. I was also fond of The rescuers by Margery Sharp, The land of green ginger by Noel Langley, the Jennings books of Anthony Buckeridge and the William books of Richmal Crompton. And I really liked My family and other animals by Gerald Durrell.

One children's book I didn't read when I was young but only discovered more recently is the excellent Mistress Masham's repose by T.H. White.

Oh I didn't realise Ethel Turner wrote a series! I still have '7 Little Australians', having fallen in love with the TV series. Were the other books prequels or sequels to that?

>47 parmaviolet: - I adore Barbara Euphan Todd but have never read Mr Blossom's Shop! And now I want it very badly - but the least expensive copy I can find online is £15. Should I or shouldn't I?

40: They don't look sad, they look beautifully loved and cherished and read!

Lovely discussion topic!

The more I think about it, the more I think of more books but my favourites for now:

Anne of Green Gables books (I have red hair, I'm adopted and I always had my nose in a book so I identified with Anne quite a bit)
What Katy Did and sequels by Susan Coolidge
Swallows and Amazons and sequels by Arthur Ransome (I always wanted to learn to sail and have adventures as a resultt)
The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper
The Neverending Story by Michael Ende
The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton
The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis
Feefo, Tuppeny and Jinks by Enid Blyton - this was a favourite of my Mum's and I've only recently noticede that this doesn't seem to be a very well known Enid Blyton book but it's a lovely story.
Finn Family Moomintroll by Tove Jansson
The Phantom Tolbooth by Norman Juster
Anything by E. Nesbit I could get my hands on
The Snow Spider Trilogy by Jenny Nimmo
The Great Smile Robbery by Roger McGough - very silly but very funny
A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond - I've always tried to model my hard stares on Paddington's
Little Women by Louisa M. Alcott and sequels
The Starlight Barking by Dodie Smith - for some reason I liked this much more than 101 Dalmatians
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken - I never realised there were sequels to this wonderful book until I found LT!
The Usborne Puzzle Adventure series - things like Search for the Sunken City and Danger at Demon's Cove - I loved anything published by Usborne
Stig of the Dump by Clive King
Lorna Hill's Sadlers Wells series

#1 I've never read the Oz books and have been meaning to try them now I have an ereader.

#8 I'd forgotten about The Valley of Adventure series! I still remember their parrot (Kiki?) who could make a noise like a train going through a tunnel (or something).

#20 I love seeing all the Puffin logos in those pictures Liz.

This thread's also reminding me of how many children's books I've since enjoyed as an adult that I know I would have adored if I'd read them as a child; Ballet Shoes, The Little White Horse, Diana Wynne Jones, Alan Garner, Rosemary Sutcliff.

#37 Oh, I'd forgotten about The Little Grey Men - I loved that one too! There's a sequel, Down the Bright Stream, which I didn't like quite as much, mainly because of what happened to one of the characters...

#40 Wow - they look lovely!

I'll have to second From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and The Phantom Tollbooth. I didn't discover E. Nesbit until I was in my thirties, but I know I would have loved her books as a kid. Among the last children's books I read and loved as a child are: The Bronze Bow, The Kitchen Madonna, and The Diddakoi.

#48 hmmm...well...I'll have to open them up and see won't I? Sequels I think and possibly in this order:

The Family at Misrule
and
Little Mother Meg

Judy and Punch seems to be a bit of a stand-alone or a during the meanwhile type book as it is set when Judy goes off to boarding school. The inscription syas "To M and N demanding so strenuously more about Judy that at long last it comes'. It was published in 1948

Though Librarything tells me that Judy and Punch is number 3 in the series before Little Mother Meg so there you go...I shall have to read them and decide for myself :)

Miss Bobbie
Three Little Maids
St Tom and the Dragon also seem stand-alones

and

Jennifer J which was dedicated "To the Girls of the Sydney High School of 1921 who migrated then from the old, much complained of, historied buildings known by mysefl, to the shining new ones. "Oh, les beaux jours quand nous etions si malheureuses!" which I think translates to read "Oh the good old days when we were so unhappy!"

There's a huge list of Ethel Turner's books in the back of St. Tom and the Dragon - 25 to be precise. She was prolific.

Love this thread!

My first non-picture book was The Naughtiest Girl Again by Enid Blyton and I devoured Blyton after Blyton afterwards: the famous five adventure stories, the mystery stories featuring the secret seven or a group of children with a monkey, the Malory Towers and St Clare school stories, the fantasy series about the flying chair and the ones about the magic tree with rotating fantastic lands at the top and lots of short story collections, often featuring toys which came to life after the children went to sleep and children who ate junket.

I did grow out of Blyton after a few years of this but they were definite page turners at the time. I also loved, or went onto love:

Some classics: Little Women, What Katy Did, an abridged version of Jane Eyre, A Christmas Carol and Alice Through the Looking Glass (loved it and re-read it more than Alice in Wonderland).

Some school stories: The Chalet School Stories, various Angela Brazils and the E J Oxenham, Abbey Girl stories.

Some fantasies: initially involving families of rabbits who could talk, Elizabeth Beresford's Wombles, little men by riversides (the BB books) and Carbonel the cat and then the Narnia stories, The Owl Service by Alan Garner, The Earthsea Trilogy by Ursula le Guin and the Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper.

Some pony books. Actually this was a short phase and I borrowed them from my sister but for a while I read My Friend Flicka and Josephine Pullein-Thompson books.

Noel Streatfeild: Reliably wonderful. I loved Ballet Shoes, the Gemma books, Thursday's Child and a few others found at the library.

Pamela Brown: The Bridesmaids when I was a young child and Looking After Libby when I was a bit older. Looking After Libby concerns a sensible school girl's trip to London to search for her wayward twin. She meets Hari-Krishna devotees, a gorgeous rock star and a transvestite along the way, so this one was quite a eye opener!

Time-slip novels: I still love these. My favourites were/are Charlotte Sometimes, Tom's Midnight Garden and Come Back Lucy.

Comics and annuals. I had a girl's comic every week and the corresponding annual every Christmas. Started with Twinkle, then moved onto Bunty, Mandy, Tracy, Tammy and Misty. Misty was my favourite and I was devastated when it finished. Very spooky, atmospheric, comic strip horror for 1970s schoolgirls. I still have the Misty annuals that I originally owned and some of the comics. For some reason, the annuals were published for some years after the comics but I got to the stage when I thought I was too old to buy them. If only I knew that I'd still be interested in them in my forties! The stories in the annuals were a lot blander than they had been in the comics, anyway!

Also enjoyed in early childhood: Milly Molly Mandy, Topsy and Tim, Beatrix Potter, Alison Uttley, Anita Hewett's collection of animal stories, Arthur Rackham fairy tales, Ant and Bee and the big illustrated, fairy tale collections I had which originally belonged to my mum.

I gave up on the Arthur Ransome books. I didn't like his style and found the adventures boring ;)

I've just found In the Mist of the Mountains free on Kindle or for £2.56. Can't find a blurb. A selection from her diaries is also available for Kindle.

Nice thread!

I agree with many/most of the books here, but noticed some omissions:

The Jungle Books and Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling
Silver Chief series by Jack O'Brien
Karen books by Marie Killilea
The Prydain books by Lloyd Alexander
The Black Stallion series by Walter Farley
White Fang and Call of the Wild by Jack London
The Lad books by Albert Payson Terhune
Light in the Forest by Conrad Richter

And anything by
CW Anderson
Jim Kjelgaard
James Oliver Curwood
Glenn Balch
Ernest Thompson Seton

More to come as I recall...

Addendum:
The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford
The Cricket Winter by Felice Holman

Dee - thanks for reminding me of the comics. Our family got Beano and Dandy but we could not afford the girls' comics so I got them second hand from my friend Kay. Also got the albums every year. It seems to me that I spent my childhood reading only Enid Blyton and yet I have read nearly all the other books everyone mentions. Your mention of the annual albums reminds me that we loved Rupert and got that album every year even in our teens. When my son was born my sister got me a bunch of Rupert annuals online for him and I still have them (and Toby Twirl) in my spare book cupboard.

PS - Welcome to all the new people this thread has drawn in. Having raised a boy in America I have read some of the newer ones others have mentions (The Cay, Mrs Frankweiler, Mrs Frisby etc) and they were all excellent. I can't remember who mentioned Tessa Duder but she was the assistant in a second hand bookstore I used to frequent in Dunedin and I socialized regularly with her daughter, who was a university student with me. I had no idea at the time that she wrote.

Having been born and raised in another country, my childhood is linked to other books, most of which are not even translated into English.
However, I loved Louisa Alcott's books as a child, and the two "Melendy children" books by Elizabeth Enright I had available in Italian translation, so much so that I have been looking for and collecting as many of her books as I could find during the past few years.

Eleine, I also 'discovered' and enjoyed immensely all the Betsy-Tacy books once my daughter was a few years old and I started buying them for her.

I must say that there are many many more authors for children in Anglophone countries than in Italy. So, now, I am collecting and reading children books, my excuse being that I am preparing a library for future (who knows when and if ever) grandchildren ;-))

I read and enjoyed one Betsy and Tacy book.

"Take us, take us, take us..."

I was an omnivorous reader as a child, but I've never heard of Enid Blyton. When I got beyond picture books, I jumped right into my mother's copies of Louisa May Alcott and read all of them multiple times -- my favorites were Eight Cousins and Under the Lilacs. Her favorite was Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and it became one of mine. My mother read us Heidi when I was about 6, and I reread it at least once a year until I graduated from High School, likewise The Secret Garden. I came late to Pippi Longstocking, but who could not love her?

My mother had Virginia Fairfax's Girl Scout books and a few original Nancy Drews, and like others I collected as many as I could afford, along with Cherry Ames -- the new ones cost $1 a piece back in the late 50s and early 60s. My great aunt had all the OZ books and books by Inez Haynes Irwin about Maida -- Maida's Little Shop and others, which I loved.

From the library, some of the favorites I remember are Lois Lenski's books, especially Strawberry Girl and Cotton in my Sack, The Princess and the Goblin, the Mary Poppins books, the Betsy and Tacy books, Gene Stratton Porter's Freckles and A Girl of the Limberlost, Noel Streatfield's Shoe books, the Anne of Green Gables and Emily books, Lamb's Stories from Shakespeare, and all the Greek and Norse myths and fairytales I could get my hands on. In our grade school library there was a set of biographies about the childhoods of famous women which I devoured in 4th grade -- everyone from Martha Washington to Lucretia Mott and Susan B. Anthony -- I became convinced that women could do anything.

I wasn't much into boys' books, but for a year or two I belonged to the Weekly Readers' book club and received a book in the mail each month (sheer bliss), and I was delighted to read A Dog for Davie's Hill, Danny Dunn and the Anti-Gravity Paint, Ride Like an Indian, and No Children, No Pets.

At about 11, I got privileges to borrow from the adult section of the library, and went on to Ben Hur, Gone with the Wind, Edna Ferber,
and other big books that beckoned to me. But those from my childhood continue to hold a special place in my memory.

Swish of the Curtain by Pamela Brown - I also acquired 3 of the sequels (the only one I didn't have was Blue Door Venture). I've bought the first 4 in reissued editions, apparently #5 is due on 1 November! Someone has listed a 1970s edition of Maddy Again on Amazon marketplace for £1182! I wonder if anyone would pay anything for my old copy (though I think some of the Amazon listings are a bit mad, people can ask for anything, doesn't mean they'll get it).

I was a voracious reader, and to top it off my high school job was shelving the books in the children's room of the local library, so I read A LOT of children's books. I read and loved so many of the titles above that I won't relist them, but here are some of my childhood favorites that haven't been mentioned:

Beyond the Pawpaw Trees and The Silver Nutmeg by Palmer Brown
Tatsinda by Elizabeth Enright
The Dog in the Tapestry Garden by Dorothy Lathrop
Season of Ponies by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara
Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield
National Velvet by Enid Bagnold
Knee Deep in Thunder by Sheila Moon
The Secret Language by Ursula Nordstrom
Nancy and Plum by Betty MacDonald
Jade, Lark, Linnet and others by Sally Watson
The Green Knowe books by L.M. Boston
Little Lord Fauntleroy (I liked stories about sickeningly good children, and I read a lot of my mother's childhood books)
50 Famous Stories Retold
The Princess and Curdie and The Princess and the Goblin
The Silver Curlew and The Glass Slipper by Eleanor Farjeon
Mio, My Son by Astrid Lindgren
Master Skylark by John Bennett
The Hobbit
Have Spacesuit, Will Travel and other juvenile fiction by Robert Heinlein (not nearly as sexist as his adult fiction!)
Danny Dunn and the Homework Machine
The Mummy Market by Nancy Burns Brelis (I doubt this one holds up, but I liked it!)
Pippa Passes by Scott Corbett
Magic Elizabeth by Norma Kassirer
Augusta Huiell Seaman's mystery stories
The Diamond in the Window by Jane Langton
The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope

Some of your posts have reminded me of more books I was fond of, including The just so stories, What Katy did and its sequels, Swallows and Amazons, The magic faraway tree and, of course, the Alice books.

#61 janeajones, you mention quite a number I liked: The secret garden, The princess and the goblin, the Mary Poppins books and A girl of the Limberlost. I was very keen on Greek myths too!

#49 miss_read, that does sound a high price for Mr Blossom's shop. I wonder what you'll do. I bought it because I remembered borrowing it from the little library of my first school and liking it. I'm sure mine was much cheaper though!

A book I remember being intrigued by was The fair to middling by Arthur Calder-Marshall.

#64 - I'm going to hold off on Mr Blossom as much as I'd love to have it. My local library doesn't have it, or I'd go that route.

I still go back and read Ellen Raskin's books -- The Westing Game was her most famous, and I loved it, but I also loved The Tattooed Potato and later in life would remember the names of writers and artists referenced in it (Christina Rossetti and Isaac Bickerstaffe are two I recall just now). Raskin's characters are so layered and complex that rereading them in my adult years has made me appreciate them even more. I feel that reading her work encouraged me to look more closely and sensitively at things around me. They are so smart and creative -- mysteries with twists, yet poetic -- often funny, but never a character you can simply laugh at.

Wow. There are so many wonderful books mentioned - and many that I have never read. I read to my sons every night and these have given me some great ideas for our reading list!

>66 outrageoussocks: My favorites of hers are the picture books, especially Spectacles and Nothing Ever Happens on My Block. I buy them whenever I find them, and have a small collection, though by no means all of them. My son had to read The Westing Game in school and didn't like it, but I think it may have been because he wasn't old enough to appreciate it.

(63) @aviddiva, you mentioned some that I also recall reading, such as My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara. Did you also read the two sequels, Thunderhead and Green Grass of Wyoming?

How could I forget Pye and National Velvet by Enid Bagnold? I recall her younger brother had a 'spit jar' in which he collected his spit!

One of my sister's owned The Secret Language by Ursula Nordstrom. Ick-en-spick!

I also had a Weekly Reader version of Danny Dunn and the Homework Machine, but didn't read any of the others.

And I have a copy of Magic Elizabeth that I found this past year, a book of my sisters' from the past. :)

How about Encyclopedia Brown? And Henry Reed? Did someone mention those series?

Fuzzi, I read Thunderhead, but didn't know there was a third! (Must go find...)

Ah - I've been re-reading the Mary O'Haras - only Green Grass of Wyoming to go now. They're very different reading as an adult - I've reviewed them on here and on my blog ( www.librofulltime.wordpress.com )

The Flicka books definitely stand up to reading as an adult - in fact, you wonder why they were marketed to children in the first place. I suppose it was because of the central plot of Ken growing to maturity.

I like the Westing Game because of the rich mix of characters of all ages and backgrounds. Very well done.

(72) @Sakerfalcon, I have found that many if not most of the 'animal' stories from that era are good for either children or adults to read: the children get the animal story but miss the deeper aspects (right, @LyzzyBee?) that we pick up when we read them as adults.

A good read is a good read, whether it's in the "J" section of the library or the main browsing stacks. :)

73 erm, yes, that's right ... http://librofulltime.wordpress.com/2012/07/19/book-reviews-19/ !!!

Nobody's mentioned Eve Garnett's wonderful 'Family from one end Street' trilogy- the adventures of the poor Ruggles family in 30s London.

Nice link, @LyzzyBee!

#75 Yes, I loved them and have only recently acquired the third in the trilogy, Holiday at the Dew Drop Inn, which I've never read before.

>75 starbox: - I did! Back in message #9! And I loved Holiday at the Dew Drop Inn too!

Star - I read them but didn't like them. I was living something close to that life and wanted nothing to do with reading about it. I was much happier imagining myself at boarding school with my tuck box.

Life has been a bit mad lately, so I haven't been visiting too many threads on LT. How delightful to find this lovely thread at the dear old Virago site. I still have my very first books: "Little Yip Yip Gets His Bark" and a book of poetry with gems like Alfred Noyes "The Highwayman", which I adored.
THE wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding—
Riding—riding—
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.
Heady stuff!

Mom claims I was reading Winnie the Pooh at 3, hurling myself backwards belly laughing. I had a great uncle in Scotland with a bookshop, so got a huge box every Christmas with Rupert, Beano, Black Bob the Wonder Dog, Girls Annuals, Enid Blyton, et. al. He sent me my very first Jane Austen when I was about 6: Emma. He also sent all the Nigel Tranter books, so I suspect he was a bit of a Scottish nationalist. I had a mad crush on Sherlock Holmes, reading everything. The Secret Garden was a great favourite.

But the great treasure of my childhood was a series called "Journeys Through Bookland" which began with very elementary things like Hans Christian Anderson and progressed by its 9th volume to essays by Lamb, Keats' poems, Sir Francis Bacon's essays, and the like. The 10th volume was an instructional guide, so I never did read it. Its purpose was to engender the love of reading in children and it certainly worked with me.

My grandson (15 now) memorized The Highwayman at age 12 for extra credit in his English class. His old fat nanny was so proud of him. I memorized Evangeline at the same age for extra credit in my Reading class. Hooray for grandkids who love to read good stuff!~!

@tiffin, as I read the words to The Highwayman, in my mind I could hear Megan Follows' recitation of that poem in Anne of Green Gables.

@tiffin, I was at our public library today and I saw a complete set (I think) of Journeys Through Bookland for sale!

They're in fair condition, some looseness in the binding. Are you interested? I think they're either 50 cents or one dollar each.

If you want'em, just let me know asap so I can stop by and buy them for you. :)

fuzzi, that is so kind of you but I have my parents' original set! I do appreciate you making the offer.

You're welcome. I try to always treat others as I'd want to be treated. :)

77 and 78 - Holiday at Dew Drop Inn is definitely the best of the three!

Add me to the list of fans of The Family at One End Street. I brought back my copy from my parents' garage a few weeks ago (they have finally convinced me to take all my old books!) and was just looking at it last night. I had forgotten it was a trilogy but Verity I remember loving Holiday at Dew Drop Inn.

I want to add my list of childhood favourites, but I need to do so from a proper keyboard not my smartphone as this will take too long.

Just looking at Holiday at Dew Drop Inn to see if I might want to read it to my kids, and I noticed that no one has reviewed it yet! I'd love to read a review of them. I don't suppose we could convince one or all of you to review it?

Any other fans of K M Peyton here? I reread Flambards recently and should try and get to the other 3 - an orphan goes to live with her fierce angry uncle and his feuding sons in a mansion, just before WWI. Father and one son are hunting mad, the other son hates horses. Christina comes to enjoy horses (and hunting) and to care for both her cousins.

UK Kindlers can currently download it for 99p, though for me it's one of a set in paperback, and I should probably try not to Kindle books I already have unless I'm happy to let go of the hard copy, which I am for most things when they're cheap on Kindle but not for books with pictures and things where the visual appeal matters, and I also probably won't part with VMC editions, Persephones and some of my inscribed books.

I gave my sister a copy of one of her other books for a Christmas/birthday when she was in her teens (I'm 11 years older), Snowfall and had to wait years to borrow it behind all her friends (but it was a hit).

I also remember liking Dear Fred particularly, though I would have to reread it to see if it still worked for me.

I loved Flambards Elk!

Another K. M. Peyton fan here, although I have to pretend that Flambards divided doesn't exist, because I hated it so much! The Pennington/Ruth books were good too, and I also loved Dear Fred - I own a copy but haven't reread it for fear it won't hold up.

I've fairly recently read most of the Pennington books and enjoyed them. I didn't read the Flambards books but have been tempted by the 99p kindle version!

I'm another who loved the Flambards books - in my case I didn't know that Flambards divided existed, perhaps its better that way (but I'm curious now). The combination of/clash between the world of horses and aviation was great; I loved many horse books, but also my great grandfather was involved in the early years of aviation (he was a rather unsuccessful aircraft designer!).

Haven't read anything else of hers.

Oh, thank you - I read the Pennington books again, thinking they were Dear Fred, but that has reminded me that was another book entirely, no wonder I was confused. Off to search down a copy of that now ...

Just saw your Dear Fred on your blog, Liz, along with one of Some Tame Gazelle which made me look forward to opening it some time in the next couple of hours. Was glad you enjoyed the reread.

http://librofulltime.wordpress.com/

I just discovered yesterday that the What Katy did trilogy actually has 2 further volumes: Clover and In the High Valley, both available as free Kindle downloads!

I found those when my Kindle first arrived - haven't got round to reading yet - think I will need to reread the first 3 first.

I recently discovered and bought a sequel to one of my favourite children's books - Ruth Sawyer's Roller Skates. The second book is The Year of Jubilo. I'm a bit scared to read it now though.

98- Yes, it's always disappointing when books you loved as a child actually don't turn out to be that good when re-read with a more discriminating taste!

I still enjoyed Roller Skates at 40 or even 41, but having just discovered a sequel, I'm anxious that it will turn out not to be good.

Read Amy Moves In as a child, enjoyed it. I recently found a copy for cheap, reread it, still enjoyed it...AND discovered there are two sequels! I found book three, just need book #2...

Not sure how young we're talking. I loved The Cat in the Hat and Yertle the Turtle, which shaped my political views to this day (more than 50 years after I read them.

I must add Lazy Liza Lizard to my list of childhood favorites. Loved & still love these books.

I had a fondness for Belinda's New Shoes by Winifred Bromhall, Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink, Hitty: Her First Hundred Years by Rachel Field, Black Beauty by Anna Sewell, and Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Those are just a few titles that come to mind. I was a huge fan of Heidi by Johanna Spyri and Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll. I went through a lot of Judy Bolton and Nancy Drew mysteries at one point as well. I also liked James Thurber's Many Moons and The Great Quillow.

Princess Hildegarde by Sidney Baldwin was a great favorite too.

Added a complete set of a childhood favorite to my library:

In the Nursery (My Bookhouse series #1)
Story Time (My Bookhouse series #2)
Up One Pair of Stairs (My Bookhouse series #3)
Over the Hills (My Bookhouse series #4)
Through Fairy Halls (My Bookhouse series #5)
The Magic Garden (My Bookhouse series #6)
The Latch Key (My Bookhouse series #7)

My grandparents bought the complete set for my father when he was very young, and I recall reading them as a child...I'm not sure where they eventually went.

A couple weeks ago, while showing my father the fun of Googling images, I discovered this complete set for a reasonable price, and purchased them! I'm looking forward to reading the stories again, those that I loved in my youth.

I have the My Bookhouse set my grandparents bought for my mother and her siblings (minus the #1 -- which disappeared before I got the others). I have very fond memories of my grandmother reading me "The Snow Queen" and "Snow White and Rose Red" among others -- I always latched onto the longest fairytales I could find.

You could probably find a replacement for the missing volume, @janeajones.

I've wanted to buy these for years, but I'm picky, and while I have seen different series of "My Bookhouse" for sale, I always wanted the same red books that my father owned. Now I have them and am happy. :)

Does anyone remember a series called Journeys through Bookland? A few volumes of it came down to me as a child, and I spent many happy hours with them.

>108 wordswordswords:: I have the whole set, wordswordswords, inherited from my folks. I too spent many happy hours in their company.

tiffin, I'm so glad someone else knows about those. I don't have any of the volumes any more but can remember them well.

Here's another fine thread I haven't visited before! I read a lot of Nancy Drew, Cherry Ames, and Trixie Belden books as a young'un. My favorite Nancy Drew was The Clue in the Leaning Chimney, which I read at least a dozen times. The Number One spot on my young reader's hit parade, though, must go to Rosemary, by Josephine Lawrence. I still re-read that one every few years, and I still love it. And I also loved Charlotte's Web, which I don't think anyone else has mentioned here. I got a copy of The Complete Sherlock Holmes at a relatively early age (10, 11?) and devoured those. And one more childhood favorite (blessings on my parents for giving me this one), Favorite Poems Old and New. It's still on my shelves, and there are some fine selections in there.

I also loved Charlotte's Web, thank you for reminding me of it!

I'm posting it here because there's some relationship, and I came across news which has no connection to VMCs but might be of interest to group members - I know Liz likes pony books, and others read children's books, including me, though I didn't keep my pony stories (if I actually owned them in the first place).

Josephine Pullein Thompson died on 19 June aged 90.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10915480/Josephine-Pullein-Thompson-o...

(I would have assumed that she had died a while ago).

I'm not the only pony lady on here ... and thanks for posting this here, I knew it had happened and was quite upset, even though obviously she made a good age.

I saw the obit posted in another group; I too hadn't realised she was still alive. It was fascinating to read of her activities in later life, especially her advocacy of fellow writers. A remarkable woman whose books deserve the affection so many of us have for them.

Yes, I was intrigued by the bit about PEN.

And I've just remembered another connection - her mum Joanna Cannan wrote a book which has been reprinted by Persephone.

'I'm too busy reading to do the ironing.' Loved that - from her obit. Had no idea she was so interesting or so involved. Thank you for posting it Elk.

I'm not sure if anyone has read K.A. Applegate, but I was a big fan of her Animorphs and Everworld Series. Also, I only read a part of it during my childhood, but revisited recently, but I really liked The Seventh Tower series by Garth Nix.

>119 ramundo: I've heard of Animorphs, but have not read them. :)