Forgotten Classics

The wind in the willows

Thank you both, I'll look those up.

CSLewis - the "Chronicles of Ancient Darkness" are fantastic; I'd definitely recommend them to your son! They're written by Michelle Paver. DS1 loved them, and DS2 is just starting them now.

How about the Alex Rider books, CSLewis? Or the junior James Bond books written by the guy from the Fast Show - Charlie someone (can't remember his surname)

I still re-read my Noel Streatfeild and Lorna Hill 'Wells' books. I think I've now got the complete set of the latter (15 in total)

Lots of these I loved as a child, and am trying to encourage my daughters to follow suit.

However, I'm finding it more difficult to find good, 'wholesome' reading for my son, as a lot of this list (understandably) seems to be a bit girl-centric - green gables, l.m.montgomery, streatfield - the main characters are generally girls.

Can anyone recommend some good books with strong male characters? Apart from Willard Price (and Harry Potter which he's already read to death), I'm struggling!

So many of these... Rumer Godden, Beverly Nichols, the Carbonel books.

Also:
Marianne Dreams
A Little Silver Trumpet
In a Blue Velvet Dress

And the Lorna Hill "Sadlers Wells" series. I re-read them endlessly...

An Irish classic (although only published in 1990!) is Under the Hawthorn Tree by Marita Conlon-McKenna. It's set in the time of the Irish Famine and is a wonderful story.

Another one is Run With the Wind by Tom McCaughren - it's the first in a series of books about foxes. They are really wonderful. I loved them when I was about your DD's age.

Just thought I'd throw in a couple of more unusual ideas!

We're still at the Alfie stage in our house and I'm loving it. I read DD "Alfie gets in First" and she tells me the side story in the pictures, just like I did with my mum. I loved them when I was little but only now do I really really appreciate them.

Paul Gallico's 'Jennie'.

I read Swallows and Amazons as a child, along with lots of other books. I always think it is overrated.

Has anyone mentioned the Anne of Green Gables books yet? There's a big series of them, taking Anne through arriving on Prince Edward Island, growing up, going to college, becoming a teacher, marrying, having children, and then there is at least one about one of her children, I think.

I see someone has mentioned The Swish of the Curtain - that was a TV series when I was a teenager.

I should have thought of The Chalet School series - I have the full set on my shelves, and reread them at least once a year (though I prefer the later books, when Jo is grown up and married, and especially after the school moves back to the Oberland. As a child, being bullied at school, I yearned to go to the Chalet School.

I also read the Malcolm Saville Lone Pine series as a teenager - but they might be a bit dated for today's children.

When she's a bit older, I heartily recommend the Dragons of Pern series by Anne McCaffrey - but they do have some rather adult passages in for a pre-teen!

I can't believe nobody's mentioned Chalet School yet! The rare ones are expensive, but you can get second hand copies of the popular ones going cheap.

I think all my other favourites have already been suggested - Joan Aiken, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Diana Wynne Jones, E Nesbit, Noel Streatfield...

And I loved A Traveller in Time! DD has it on her pile of books to read, but hasn't got to it yet (it could be there a while, it's quite a big pile!).

No mention of Nurse Matilda yet?
Fell Farm books by Marjorie Lloyd
Lone Pine series - Malcolm Saville (maybe for slightly older children?)

This thread's reminded me of several books to be added to my dd's stash for when she can actually read...

Thanks SDT! I think I read all of those.

But I went back and re-read Little Women recently, and my goodness it's dreadful! Totally destroyed all my lovely memories of it. Definitely a mistake,

I see a couple of people have mentioned Carbonel - wanted to bump it up there! There are 3 of these.

Anything by Noel Streatfield.

And things like The Boy with the Bronze Axe, Eagle of the Ninth.

LM Alcott also wrote a book called Eight Cousins, which also had a sequel, which I can't remember the name of.

More moralising of the same sort as the Little Women books, TBH, but I did like them as a child.

Fab ideas and memories here. Which Witch? was my favourite Eva Ibbotson. Also loved Pippi Longstocking and Peter Pan and Wendy is still one of my favourites.

How about 101 Dalmatians and the sequel The Starlight Barking? Loved them very much.

Betsy Byars books. The Eighteenth Emergency and others by her; they are very American but I really enjoyed them.

Watership Down.

BIWI - there are four LM Alcott books that I know of - little Women and Good Wives, and Little Men and Jo's Boys - the last one is about the school that she and Franz Bhaer set up at Plumfield, iirc.

I read EVERYTHING by Penelope Lively as a child and yet I've never read Moon Tiger that I have had on my bookcase for years.

I'm pleased to see the Beverley Nichols books on here. They had been a fuzzy, half forgotten memory for so long and now I remember :)

Inspired by this thread I've just bought Alpaca by Rosemary Billam which isn't the right age range but was my absolute favourite when I was tiny. My daughter can have it read to her now and I'm sifting through more Picture Lions which I had forgotten even existed.

Lots of people love goodnight Mister Tom but I loved Back Home by the same author.

Also the Trebizon boarding school series was more modern than Malory Towers - they had boyfriends!

What was the book about the Labrador called Emma who was training to be an guide dog?

I'm finding that DS1 (7) doesn't seem to have the appetite for nostalgia - well, maybe it's not nostalgia, perhaps more a curiosity for a different age - for 'old fashioned' books that I did. Most of what I read in the 80's was set in (and written in) the 50's or earlier - the Astrid Lindgren books are all set in the past, the Elizabeth Enright (Melendy children) books were wartime or post-war, Ballet Shoes and all those ones, Swish of the Curtain, Green Knowe, all of Rumer Godden was written long before I was born ... I loved immersing myself in a time that was long past. I loved the antiqueness of it.

I've been reading him Astrid Lindgren's Emil books (Clever Pig, Sneaky Rat, etc) and while he likes Emil getting up to mischief, the 19th century stuff bewilders him a bit. I lapped it up.

Can I add Penelope Lively to the list if nobody has yet? Wonderful writer. A Stitch in Time is fab, Thomas Kempe is good and quite sinister, Astercote is downright spooky.

I loved the little princess and secret garden I think by frances hodgson burnett

pocked?! pocket, obviously

OMG for years now I've been trying to remember what the book was where the children pooled their pocked money on a Saturday! Thank you so much Takver (and others) who named the book!

I loved:

The three Katy books
The whole Mary Poppins series
The whole Anne of Green Gables series
The Railway Children
Little Women/Good Wives (and was there another one?)
and of course, the Chalet School books

That's it Rusty. Ooh yes, I'd forgotten about TooToo's posh girl friend.