Obscure children's books that you used to love

I was a voracious reader as a child.
I remember one called Twice in a blue moon, about a goblin and a missing prince, and being totally absorbed in it. From time to time over the years Ive looked but have never been able to find a copy .

*recite

YY to Linnets and Valerians. My mum handed down her old copy to me, I'm hoping DD will like it one day so I can read it with her

The Horsemasters by Don Stamford - perfect for a horsey-mad girl.

DH found a copy for my 50th this year and I could nearly recit the whole book!

Great thread, thanks.

I also used to love the A5 ish size comic books with extended stories from comics at the time like Bunty

Oh, yes - I can remember several stories which I think were from Mandy/Bunty and possibly even Twinkle annuals:

The Strawberry Handkerchief - about a young actress in a production of Othello

A Cinderella type one where the main character has to stand under a magic rowan tree and recite "Rowan tree, rowan tree, shake your berries down on me" to be transformed

One where a child's mum had phobia of germs/OCD as a result of her toddler sibling picking up a dirty dummy in the street and contracting a fatal illness

And another where a young woman was getting married and a fortune teller says she forsees her in white dress covered in blood. She chooses a pale pink wedding dress to try and break the 'curse' but in the end it turns out to be an incident with a tin of paint!

There was some very strange children's fiction around in the late seventies/early eighties !

I panicked as this disappeared from my Threads I'm On list!

DeeWe the Cornish Gold story wasn't a proper book, it was a comic-style spin off from Bunty or Debbie or one of those girl's comic - what we'd now call a graphic novel, I suppose. I can remember one of the illustrations was CG lying on the ground with someone (probably the heroine) feeling his ears to assess how near death or otherwise he was!

I can remember a snippet of a book I loved to read when staying at my gran's house. It would have been my aunt's so was probably written 1920s-1940s. I can't remember the title or author; I just remember a bit of the plot - the family had lost their income or were short of money for something, and the children started selling homemade produce round their (idyllic middle-class) village from the back of their pony and cart. I remember it was the first time I came across the term "seed cake" and it sounded impossibly exotic.

I also loved the Abbey books by Elsie J Oxenholm, but I doubt they'd be considered obscure.

How can the Wells books be out of print?! We loved them - my sister was a proper pink ballet girl and I had a crew cut and played football but we both loved those books. Mrs Crapper and her kippers and the ongoing mystery of Veronica "making her toilet" every morning.

I shipped Veronica and Sebastian like crazy. I didn't know there was a Vicky in Venice. I haven't read that one!

I also loved this book and I can't remember the name of it, but it was set in near future Britain and every night everyone drank a drink that erased their memory, which meant all crimes were prevented and nobody was ever really sad. Each person had a little dictaphone type machine called "The memory", on which they could store important things but otherwise it was all gone. The main character was called Paul I think. And there was a little shoot of a tree growing up through the pavement. But for some people their memories broke through, they remembered sort of folk memories? Like bonfire night and soul cakes and the running of the bounds, and it burst out of them so they had to be sent away to the country, into the fields, to live in the old ways without disrupting modernity. I LOVED this book when I was a child and i wish I knew how to find it! I thought it was called The Gift but I've mixed up the title with another book I had.

Does anyone recognise this book?

Fannyupcrutch - the book you're thinking of is called A Taste Of Blackberries, by Doris Buchanan Smith. The little boy that dies was called Jamie, and he had an allergic reaction to a bee sting. It's very sad but beautifully written.

I had the book version of the TV series Children of the Stones - very, very scary. Also The Whispering Knights by Penelope Lively which scared the crap out of me.

You Are Ri-Di-Cu-Lous by Andre Francois

So many lovely books remembered here! I've always been a huge fan of Alan Garner and Diana Wynne-Jones, plus I love Joan Aitken, especially A Necklace of Raindrops. And 'the thirteen says of Christmas' is now my daughter's favourite book.

Does anyone remember 'The silver crown'? I recently reread it, it's really very strange but still just as good.

Orlando the marmalade cat was set in Aldeburgh I think - the fantastic bookshop there always features it.

The Wells ballet books as in 'Veronica at the Wells' and 'Masquerade at the Wells' all the way to 'Vicky in Venice' etc - I reread them so many times and Veronica and Sebastian was the first fictional relationship I was totally over-invested in. I think most of them are out of print now though I still have my much-loved, very 1970s copies.

Is there any chance this thread could be moved to Children's Books so that it doesn't disappear after 90 days?
So many memories here.

Ladyplumpington The book with the blind boy is Annerton Pit.

I have a battered copy of the Little Wooden Horse that I loved but I could name many more!

Yes to Mary Plain. Sadly, I only have one of the books, but read them all when a child.

I am so pleased Violet Needham finally got mentioned. I love all her books, she wrote 19, I have eleven and they regularly get re-read. I don't understand why so few people are acquainted with her.

Does anyone remember Orlando the Marmalade Cat? The illustrations were beautiful.

One very obscure book which I loved and still have is "The Gooseyplums of Duckpond-in-the-Dip", written by Frances Dale, better known as Fanny Cradock. Does anyone else have any Gooseyplum books ?

Or Nasty by Michael Rosen? And also The Mennyms?

Yy to Go Well, Stay Well, one of my fave books when I was about nine/ten!
I have read all of Garner's books and would absolutely read them all again.
The Silver Sword is on my dds shelf (she is spoilt rotten when it comes to books!). And I absolutely loved The Young Visiters!!
I would have mentioned Mrs Pepperpot but it never occurred to me that they might be considered obscure.
But has anyone read 'The Flying Classroom'?

The Land of Green Ginger by Noel Langley, as mentioned above.

"As long ago as long ago and as long ago again as that....."

The Shrinking of Treehorn by Florence Parry Heide, with illustrations by Edward Gorey - I passed my own cherished copy on to my DCs and somebody has scrawled in it with a green pencil.

Walt and Pepper by Lisl Weil, about a cat and a dog who lived across the road from each other.

Charlotte Sometimes.

A great book about a girl who goes to boarding school and wakes up in the same bed in the past.

The book has a great twist at the end.

Really enjoyed this thread. I remember Tim and Tobias, which somebody mentioned.

I recently found a box full of my old favourites, including The Ordinary Princess (I pretty much knew that off by heart), Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf, Count Bakwordz on the Carpet, and The Millhouse Cat.

Also some from when I was younger:
Mouse Soup
Charlie the Tramp
A Kiss for Little Bear - which had the most wonderful illustrations.

Also, the Amelia Bedelia stories!

Mine was Follow That Bird