Obscure children's books that you used to love

Horopu another fan of A Hundred Million Francs! Isn't it wonderful?

A Hundred Million Francs by Paul Berna. Mr Williams read it to us in my last year at primary school.

Oh yes island of the blue dolphin! I remember that one! Loved it so much.

I loved Ant and Bee!

Also "Moon Man" - a short story about how the man in the moon looks wistfully at the happiness on Earth, and one night catches a shooting star and comes to the Earth. But he is treated as an invader.

Fantastic thread, lots of books I remember and lots more that I have now added to my wish list

I have just today taken delivery of Morris's Disappearing Bag and Grandmother Lucy And Her Hats, for DD's 4th birthday :)

Ooh that was the other book I was going to mention (I have seen it discussed on here, on another thread), The Fearless Treasure, by Noel Streatfeild. Loved it so much.

I loved the Wells books AFlorrick, I still have a few and keep foisting them on DD (who prefers the Hunger Games). Loved Trebizond too, they seemed so racy compared with Malory Towers, 'Boy term' and all that!

I also loved all the Noel Streatfeild books, particularly her autobiography, A Vicarage Family.

Bertha and the Racing Pigeon by Pam Ayres

The Princess and the Steam Roller by Boswell Taylor

The King's Damosel by Vera Chapman

Thank you, this has reminded me to look for them on Amazon and they're all there!

Another set of books I remember from very young were the Emma and Thomas books. I think they were first experience type books. My favourite was Emma is contrary. And there was,Thomas goes to the doctors, where he had his vaccination and then comes back and does the same to his teddy. And then sings a song which starts"coughs and colds and sneezes and dangerous diseases"
I think the last book was the only one with the both on and called "Thomas and Emma are different" and was about the difference between boys and girls. They look the same with their clothes on, but different with them off, was the general gist of it.

Aflorrick I have just ordered a copy of The wave from Amazon to give to my 13yr old, I think it would be something, that given the current climate, that should be used in schools.

So many books here that I remember, I mostly got my books from Jumble Sales and can still recall the excitement of bring home a bag of "new" books, I was a voracious reader from a very young age and it is still one of my greatest pleasures.

How about the weirdness that is 'The Shrinking of Treehorn' and his horribly dysfunctional parents! A bit like 'Not Now, Bernard', which I also love!

Blackberry Farm - a weird mixture of farm animals that seem quite ordinary (except they talk) and other animals dressed in clothes and living in their own houses.

The Wind on the Moon by Eric Linklater

Redcap Runs Away by Rhoda Power

Also loved Orlando the Marmalade Cat

A Dream in the House by Josephine Poole - recently obtained a copy and it didn't live up to my memories.

I was reminiscing with my mother about Blackberry Farm and the Green Umbrella only last week!

Also the Beverley Nicholls books "The Tree That Sat Down" etc - very funny but also menacing. And Carbonel, Mistress Masham, and the Lorna Hill books, which I still love.

Anyone remember Tiger Nanny?

Blackberry Farm! We had those - they must have been my mum's and uncle's as they're ancient. My DD, now 6, loved them so much at 3 that I read them nightly for nearly a year.
So, so old fashioned. 'Saturday on Blackberry Farm' is the favourite.

'Piggly plays truant' and 'The Green Umbrella' - ladybird books I think, written it terrible verse!

Withershins - I had The Wave. That was a great book.

Also Children if the Dust, which I read and then cried under my duvet for days after thinking there was going to be a nuclear war and I was going to have to live under the coffee table in the lounge covered by a blanket.

Trebizon and Sadler Wells were also favorites. I haven't met anyone else who read the Sadlers Wells books.

I read and read as a kid. I got a Saturday job in a book shop when I was old enough.

marsh honestly the part I mean well I went there with DM who lives nearby and books were stacked up everywhere, the man owning it was a bit elderly, it looked to be honest a fire hazard...!

Good call re Herne Hill and Streatham re more places to find books.

SuperFly oh yes I know the bit you mean. I have bought a book there, one of those housewives compendiums called Enquire Within that tells you how to lay a table or what sauces go with what roast meat. For kids books the charity shops in Herne Hill and Streatham are my favourite hunting grounds.

marsh there are books there but you have to hunt for them. Crockery the main draw there but you can get all sorts of other stuff from Bakelite telephones (?) to sort of faux Tiffany lamps and all sort of other stuff.

the old book storage space I know of is as you come down the hill you go past main side entrance and down the side hill on left into a yard with stalls - across on far left there used to be a book sort of shop/junk area. literally packed to the rafters with books. I didn't check last time but it may or may not be there. if you ARE after books in the main market you just have to ask.

Crystal Palace Vintage (Westow Street) either sells original or reprint Ladybird books not sure what else.

www.crystalpalacevintage.com/

Another one for "The Cow who Fell in the Canal" also "The Story of Ping". A real favourite though is "Ferdinand the Bull". It is about a gentle bull who just wants to sit under the cork tree and smell the flowers but is sent off to a bullfight. It was written during the Spanish civil war and is meant to have references to the war- can't see it myself.

Mistress Masham's Repose. Had a vast crumbling stately home, a 9 year old orphan, an eccentric professor, an evil governess and tiny people living on an island in the ornamental lake.

We had Black Sambo but I wasn't a fan - not due to my early anti-racist credentials, I was just terrified of the tigers!

This is obviously awful but we loved Little Black Sambo as children - with the tigers and the butter and the pancakes. It's been reissued as the Story of Little Babaji which is much better from that point of view - and still lovely in other respects.

Interesting how many children's stories end in pancakes - we also loved The Elephant and the Bad Baby which ends with pancakes for tea as well.

The Mousehole Cat makes me cry.

I've just remembered Badjelly the Witch, which was always my favourite choice for Reading Corner (when the teacher read to us all as a class) at primary school.

The Elephant and the Bad Baby was a favourite when I was younger.

As I got older, I had a book called The Whitby Witches' and then 'The Warlock of Whitby' which were massive favourites. They had the most detailed pencil drawings in them. Man I wish I had kept them.