Obscure children's books that you used to love

Thought of another one, but can't remember the title. A group of animals living in a wood. It's winter, and deep snow makes it really hard for them to get ready for Xmas. But they manage it in the end. Sorry, not much to go on, I know!

Also a children's picture book about a female mouse who makes herself fantastic dancing dresses out of handkerchiefs and scraps of cloth. Illustrations were lovely, especially the one of her wearing a pink & white candy stripped one and matching bonnet.

Bottersnikes and Gumbles - read this in junior school and loved it so much. But couldn't quite the title until now. Thank you.

Necklace of Raindrops - quite magical.

Farthest Away Mountain - I so wanted to be Daykin, and cleverly out smart gargoyles.

Land of Far Beyond - quite chilling, and it was only years later that I realised it was about Christianity.

Moomin Midsummer Madness - Ioved them all, but this was my favourite. Such a sweet melancholic atmosphere.

The Satanic Mill - bleak, dark and sinister. Terrified the ten year old me.

A Traveller in Time - my all time comfort read.

But I've got some truly obscure ones. Anyone else remember:

The Sister's Tale - set in pre Christian Ireland. Two sisters, daughters of wealthy farmer. One is pressured to marry her father's (secretly) corrupt overseer but escapes and marries a heroic, local rebel instead. The other falls in love with local lad who turns out to be illegitimate son of a Danish prince, and she follows him to Denmark and marries him. Beautifully written and full of adolescent yearnings.

When the Night Crow Flies - set in the Seventies. About a middle aged, bumbling white witch and her niece and nephew. They take on the local witches coven of 'black' witches intent on doing evil. And win. Jokey in parts but also sinister.

Island in a Green Sea - set in the Seventies on a Hebriddean island. 13 year old local girl with 'the Sight' gets be friended by visiting female student researching the history of the island. Haunting book.

Bonfire Night - young boy moves to a new town. Intrigued by girl next door who acts mysteriously. Turns out she is the leader of group of local kids conspiring to have their own bonfire and fireworks. Lots of hidden dens. Secret signs. Whispered codes. Brilliant stuff.

I Own The Race Course - young boy overhears a conversation and mistakenly thinks he is suddenly the owner of a run down race course. He starts trying to smarten it up and make it successful again. Really heart warming and uplifting.

Children of the Oregan Trail
The Incredible Journey
Anything involving ponies, Josephine Pullien-Thompson, Ruby Ferguson's Jill books
Swallows and Amazons series
The Kon-tiki Expedition when 10 years old, followed by most of the books my dad bought and read. I was the ultimate bookworm, often reading several in a week

Elizabeth Enright's four novels about the Melendy children, starting with The Saturdays. Haven't rtt so apologies if someone else has mentioned them. They are terrific.

for those of you who loved five dolls in a house, I actually corresponded with the author as a child for a few years and was lucky enough to go to her house for tea- she was lovely and I remember we had chocolate rice crispy cakes. my dad built me a replica of the house and I spent years collecting the dolls and furnishing it and finding the monkey on the roof.
She also wrote a sequel called five dolls and their friends.
my father also built me a replica of Miss Muggin's shop from the Milly Molly Mandy stories - which I still have. I was a lucky child.

I've just reread The Cuckoo Clock by Mrs Molesworth. How I loved it. Along with Frances Hodgson Burnett.

Jojay, so glad. It deserves to be better known. The illustrations are wonderful. I especially love the corks on the cork oak trees. My mistake, burned by the Nazis, not banned by the U.S.

I found Gobbolino scary. And her other famous one The Little wooden horse sad. But DS loved the little wooden horse.

Capewrath - my Granny has a copy of Ferdinand the Bull at her house, and I read it to DS 2 (6) recently and he adored it!

Other favourites I remember or have come across at my Granny's house are:

Harold Hare's Garden Party ( where he mixed all his favourite foods together and can't understand why it tastes DISGUSTING!)

Moorland Mousie - ( about an Exmoor pony who grew up on the moor and then got rounded up and sold)

Orlando the Marmalade Cat

The 'Jinny' pony books - she lived in Scotland and had a beautiful Arab called Shanti iirc

The 'Jill' pony books - yes I was a pony mad kid...

Love The Giant Jam Sandwich and a few others mentioned previously

www.amazon.co.uk/Greatest-Store-In-The-World/dp/0340743360

I bought this recently as it took me forever to remember what it was called and it stuck in my head forever. Who wouldn't want to live in a shop?!

LauraChant The Matthew books were written by one of my Mum's best friends. She died a couple of years ago. Am going to tell my Mum you have read them to your children. She will be so pleased.

The Rebels of Journey's End by Diana Frances Bell. She was only 12 or 13 when she wrote it. It was published by Puffin when I was young, and I wanted to re-read it so bought a copy off Abe recently. It was only about £3, and I hadn't taken in till it arrived that I was buying a hardback 1969 first edition with dust jacket! Rather chuffed by that!

Not obscure in its day but maybe moreso now, Gobbolino The Witch's Cat by Ursula Moray Williams. Teacher read it to us in school, around 1969 and then I read and re-read it myself.

Again, not obscure then but maybe now - Lizzie Dripping, by Helen Cresswell.

The Machine Gunners, Robert Westall. Discovered this as an adult but it is a great kids' book.

Z For Zachariah - read as a teenager - very bleak but was an emo before we had the word 'emo'.

Yes! That's it, thank you! Have just found it on Amazon and bought it for my Kindle - perhaps not as obscure as I thought.
Love this thread, so many memories, and I now have a very long reading list!

Was it Jennie by Paul Gallico? I remember that one.

My favourite book ever is just a hazy memory - a story about a boy who turns into a cat and is befriended by a girl cat. I remember being heartbroken by it but can't remember quite why. Has anybody read it?

The Minnipins by Carole Kendall. A sort of sub Tolkien fantasy about a group of misfits/freethinking rebels - parts of the concept quite ingenius, some of it dodgy. I still re-read it most years.

Oh and the crown of violet. Brilliant trease.

Ps, you have to simmer the casserole or whatever for twenty minutes before you out it in the hay box. But it's then fantastic. Goes on all picnics now. It looks like a large pumpkin, not a hay box though.

I loved the children who lived in a barn! And I have just bought a modern South African version of a hay box because I always wanted to try one.

Love Harnett, Sutcliff, the Happy Orpheline, Eloise, Orlando, Carbonel, Kate Seredy esp the open gate, didn't realise not now Bernard came in English as have only got pas maintenant Bernard, the earlier Noel Streatfeilds, fatty puffs and Thinnifers, 100 million francs, the day the ceiling fell down, children if the Oregon trail ( recently read the original memoirs) the owl service, a traveller in time

Other obscure books
Ferdinand the Bull - reputed to have been banned by the US censor..
And still she wished for company ( spooky)
The witch's daughter
Sally's family
Susannah and the Mounties
An improbable series about twins, each book being about twins from diff countries
I can jump puddles
Girl of the limberlost
The cuckoo clock

Oh and 'Choose your own adventure' books were fab!

Flat Stanley, The Jolly Postman (not v obscure, just great!) Harriet The Spy. Blyton's 'The Secret Island'.

The one in the zoo was by Donald bisset I think (with the animal,stories).

Only on page 5 so far. Remembering lots of these books. And oh my god, I had the biggest crush on Robbie in the trebizon books .

The really obscure book I've just remembered is "the children who lived in a barn". Parents lost in a plane crash, children kicked out of home, they learn to fend for themselves. Their surname is "Dunnet". Brilliant book.

Am trying to convince DH these are all highly collectable 'investments'

I have the same issue. I even managed to find an article for him where Malcolm Saville books were named as some of the best investments that year. He pointed out that if I never planned on selling them then they weren't an investment, more an asset.

He was also rather non-plussed when they were talking about extensive flooding in our area and I said I wasn't worried as there was nothing on ground level we couldn't replace. He looked round at the computers, carpets, etc and I pointed out it was fine as my collectable books were almost entirely on the top two shelves. He didn't seem to find it the comfort I found.

How have I missed this thread? Some of my more obscure favourites:

'An Old-Fashioned Girl' By Louisa May Alcott.

'Roller Skates' by Ruth Sawyer.

"The Saucepan Journey' by Edith Unnerstad.

Thanks to the wonders of t'interweb I have managed to compile a complete collection of Gillian Avery's books, some of which I'd never read before! Took me 2 years to find an affordable copy of 'James Without Thomas'. I also tracked down a copy (in America) of 'So Wild the Heart' by Geoffrey Trease - a historical romance for teens, set in early 19th century Italy, which I read in the school library and never managed to discover again. I love all the 1960s historical writers, Leon Garfield, Cynthia Harnett Elizabeth Sutcliffe, and have gradually replaced favourites which have fallen apart over the past 40 years.

Am trying to convince DH these are all highly collectable 'investments' .