Did you love boarding school books? If so tell us why for chance to win a tennis-themed prize worth over £100 incl Trebizon books + tennis garden set

I was a BIG Chalet School fan, it was the imaginary world of being with friends all the time, a bed with a curtain round it, adventures, being in the mountains, on a Welsh island later, the excitement of The Chalet School in Exile. I just loved it all. I read them WELL into my teenage years, I still enjoyed them in 6th form. I remember being told off in Yr7 because my reading diary had so few entries in it but I was too embarrassed to write in all the boarding school books I had been reading so had nothing to write! I have some of my collection in the loft waiting for my daughters to be old enough for them. I have no idea if they will like them as much as I did but I do hope so and if not then I will just reread them all myself.

I loved Mallory Towers and St Clare's AND Trebizon. I've just saved all my old Trebizons from being given to charity! I loved the sense that school could be fun and the sense of comradary and all the sport- and Trebizon had BOYS in it. Oooo. I always thought Rebecca was very glamorous and wanted to be her.

I loved, loved, loved Mallory towers & the Twins at St Clare's. They always made me think that wanted to go to boarding school. They had so much fun & the weather was always so nice. Brilliant

I loved all boarding school books, because they described a world that I could just not imagine. I had never met anyone who had been to such a school, and they sounded like somewhere I would've loved to have been.

I loved all of Enid Blyton's boarding school stories and would absolutely have given my right arm to actually go to one. They always sounded liked the jolliest of places to be (although I'm not sure this would actually have been the case) and everyone had such fun. For me, it was definitely reading to escape - my school days were never such fun!

I read the Malory Towers series which made school appear to be like having a big family. Loves the 'idea' of dorms and lots of people to play with. Not sure that it would have been like that in reality though!

It has to be the midnight feasts and all those hampers of goodies from home. I was hooked on the Enid Blyton books - Mallory Towers sounded such fun - jolly hockey sticks and all that

LOVED the Trebizon books. Not quite similar but also loved the 'eventers Dream' series by Carolyn Akrill. Again, a young girl studies away from home. It's funny as neither series particularly glamourises boarding life but it seemed such an escape / world away to me. Ah, loved them!!

One Christmas my Great Aunt gave me an Angela Brazil book. They were already old fashioned but I loved it and borrowed more from the library, though I didn't really get into any other series - except Jennings, because that was on Children's Hour on the radio! I think what I liked was the fact that they were so different to everyday life; we lived in an isolated area and I rarely saw friends out of school.

I liked Malory Towers and I'm sure my daughter would love these!

As a boy, boarding school books passed me by, that is until p4, when The Worst Witch books swept up my entire class! Harry Potter eat your heart out! I'm sure my nieces would love these!

I loved them because I always imagined it to be so much fun, then at high school I got a friend who had actually been a boarder and realised it wasn't anything like the books!

I'd forgotten all about Trebizon. Loved these. Tish's brother Robbie was my first literary crush. I agree that it was good to read a boarding school book with a more modern feel (although I guess they'll feel like period pieces to my DC by now).

9yo DD1 loves Harry Potter, Malory Towers and St Clare's. 5yo dd2 is all about The Worst Witch series.

I still love boarding school books, as may be obvious from my username . I have a nice bookcase at the top of the stairs with "my" books in it.

DD loves Malory Towers the best and has re-read them many times. Have told her she can read the Kingscote ones when she is a bit older (she's 10) so she can appreciate them properly. Have lots of chalet school for her to read too. I have most of the Trebizon books - don't enjoy them as much but they're still good

I've always been fascinated by them. From stories such as St.Trinian's all the way through to Harry Potter. It's funny to read how groups of children form a natural bond together when thrown together in that type of situation away from their parents.

I loved Malory towers as a child, now my daughter does. Great uncompleted books that teacher kids all sorts of lessons. Especially never to doubt yourself.

Not trying to enter the competition here, because although I liked boarding school stories, I never liked Trebizon much - none of the characters really rang true for me (and it annoyed me that Rebecca was called Rebeck).

The ones I really liked, the Kingscote books, had an attraction not just because they were well-written and convincing, but I think because there's something intuitively very appealing about this little discrete world in which apparently small things are really given space to matter - the school play, the cricket cup, etc. I think I probably missed an education in which things like that did matter, too, so that's part of the draw. A world in which everyone cares who is head girl, and being head girl really makes you someone special, and it's okay to be invested in that, is a very safe and comforting one for young (and older!) readers.

For me, and perhaps for others, I was also intrigued and drawn to this world of rules and complex uniforms and so on - would have loved a school with 'denim day dresses' and hats to show you were a junior or a senior! Boarding school narratives also offer a world in which being older given you status - younger girls invariably look up to older, in a way which doesn't happen so much in RL, and there's something wonderful about getting to the Upper Fifth or whatever, and being a figure of some importance.

I think they are, at their core, about strong, lasting friendships in the face of adversity. I loved them as a child and found that, when sent to boarding school from overseas, aged 11, I loved them even more. At my school, the books were used as a sort of blueprint of how to behave - the characters were shorthand for who we were. Best friends. The sneak. The bully. We also had midnight feasts sand played pranks because we wanted to copy the books.

I encouraged my DD to read some of them and she too was hooked, in spite of a more ordinary day school education. So, they seem to work. DS loved Harry Potter - a variation on the genre, also with friendship at its core.

Love them. Am reading Curtis Sittingfield's "Prep" at the moment - same genre but for adults.

As a child I absolutely loved boarding school stories to the point of begging to go to one myself! Malory towers and st clares and then the Trebizon books came out which had more modern appeal and featured a normal girl as the lead character. What appealed was the escapism, a school where it was a sleepover every night, swimming pools, midnight feasts, playing tricks on the teachers. And in the Trebizon books, the tennis competitions and of course the honour of being published in the Trebizon Journal! Now my dd is reading boarding school books and I am enjoying them all over again, the don't date! Of course since then Harry Potter has launched a whole new world of boarding school stories in a different genre. It's a setting that never ceases to enthral, adventure don't stop when school ends they can go on all term. Long live the boarding school stories of every type may they continue to entertain future generations I look forward to reading them with my grandchildren!

I used to imagine my school was like that

Oooh yes takes me back!

I loved Malory towers and Trebizon at different ages. I think it was the excitement and hope that I would be able to go to a boarding school and have the same type of adventures.

I loved Trebizon! I had a thing for the name Ishbel for ages

I read everything I could in the boarding school genre. Malory towers, Trebizon, all the chalet school books, ballet ones like Drina, and loads of really old ones of my mum's and grandma's - set in the 1910s and 20s! Absolutely loved them.

I begged to go to boarding school to the extent that my parents sent me. It didn't live up to any of the stories and I soon came home again

I used to live the naughtiest girl books

I had a picture in my mind of boarding school girls being goody two shoes but the naughtiest girl books seemed more realistic and relatable

I read and re-read them all so many times

Boarding school books gave me an insight into a different world. Boarding schools seemed exciting and so much fun compared to my grey, rundown comprehensive. I'm still fascinated by boarding schools now, often rereading some of my childhood books.