Can I start a thread about nostalgic Young Adult/Children's books we used to read in the 80s/90s?

Daphne's Book by Mary Downing Hahn was my favourite for years (just had to google the author mind you!), I also loved the Robin Jarvis books, Judy Blume (we passed Forever around the class aged about 11 ), Point Horror, Christopher Pike, Berlie Doherty, Babysitters Club, Sweet Valley High, The Borrowers series and The Animals of Farthing Wood (found this in a charity shop recently and can't wait to reread).
I don't suppose anybody else read a book with a girl called Amaryllis who was very resentful of having to move to a bleak northern mining town and changed her name to Ril so she seemed less posh? It was very cliched with her not understanding accents etc but I loved it as a child and am having no success on Google!

Books were my world growing up. I loved:

The Belgariad & The Mallorean by David Eddings.

The Horse Lord trilogy by Peter Moorwood

All the Dragons of Pern books by Anne McCaffrey

The Earthsea trilogy by Ursula Le Quin

The Dragon Prince books by Melanie Dawn

Anyone remember the Alfred Hitchcock series The Three Investigators? Jupiter Jones was one of the main characters. I obsessively read and re-read the one about the haunted mirror.

I used to love Lois Duncan, Betsy Byars and Judy Blume

Yes! Glubbslyme and so on. Her later books really aren't as good.

Oh - Tim Kennemore. Quite Antonia Forest-esque. The Middle of the Sandwich, and The Writing on the Wall.

Does anyone remember the earlier Jacqueline Wilsons? Like before Tracy Beaker and illustrations which showed you if a character was happy :) or sad :(, and you always got a happy ending?

Amber, Waiting For The Sky to Fall, This Girl, and lots more - they were great. Then she discovered her first-person formula and went all lazy in the early 90s.

@TippetyTapwriter You were never uncool. I read Elyne Mitchell's Silver Brumby books over and over, and I remember being so excited (and then disappointed) by the broadcast of the cartoon version. ITV, I think?

Oh my goodness, my kindred spirits!

Gillian Cross' YA fiction, the Changeover by Margaret Mahy, Robert Westall, so many Caroline B. Cooneys, Malcolm Saviles, Noel Streatfeild, Joan Lingard, Patricia Leitch (Jinny and Shantih and other pony novels)...

Anyone else remember the Pullein-Thompson sisters' pony books? Or Helen Cresswell's Bagthorpe sagas?

What a fab thread. I loved Noel Streatfeild and read her books over and over. I collect them now if I ever see them in charity shops.

I also adored Ramona and have just bought one of the books for my son as I think he'll enjoy it.

And then when I was older I devoured Sweet Dreams and SVH. I remember PS I Love You too, and the one where the girl started a new school and it all went wrong so she pretended to be her own twin. And the one where she started a band.

But my top fave was Judy Blume. I actually met her a couple of years ago and just gushed at her without letting her speak. I'm a writer myself now and I think it's because I read Starring Sally J Freedman as Herself when I was 10!

Ooh also, the Joan Lingard ones about the couple in NI.

This thread is proving that I was uncool even for a bookish child! I used to read Monica Edwards and Malcolm Saville. And the horsey stuff, mostly Ruby Ferguson and Elyne Mitchell. And Jane Austen!

CourtneyLoveIsMySpiritAnimal god yeh I loved the Caitlin series I still have a copy of it bought it at a car boot sale along with The changeover KeithLeMonde, which was another childhood super fave, just for nostalgia's sake.

Also Christopher Pike, I have heard his books are collectables now. I know I should have kept them.

Oh my! I'd forgotten all about the Sisters books and the horse one with Chico d'Oro! Reminds me of Horse in the House too. I've never met anyone else who'd read Playing Beattie Bow either!
I loved so many of these - chalet school, Enid blyton, SVH, Babysitters Club, Judy Blume (I saw her at an event about her new adult book and all the questions from the audience were about Forever!), the Silver Brumbies, Follyfoot, the Pullein-Thompson sisters, Point Horror, Jinny, Jill, Flicka, anything by LJ Smith! I also read loads of Stephen King, Jilly Cooper and Marian Keyes around that point too. I loved the Belgariad later on, but I lost interest in the later series and gave up on them.

Such a good thread!
For a whole book on nostalgic reading, there is The Child that Books Built (Frances Spufford). Reading about how the books I remember as a child affected him growing up was very emotional (& liberating!)

Seeline and Papergirl I’m another Sue Barton fan! I’m 42 now and it took me until last year to meet someone else who knew them (apart from my sister). I still have all 7 that I bought/was given in the 80s, I used to save the last 2 pages of each one to read until I had got the next one to start straightaway! Did you know that Helen Dore Boylston also wrote as series about an actress called Carole Page? I found one of them in the fiction library at school when I was about 14 and was so delighted but have never come across any others.

I loved Devil on my back by Monica Hughes. It’s about a future society where you clip information packs into the back of your neck and can instantly access whatever knowledge you like.
The main character leaves the society, loses his packs and meets a group of uncivilised people. He has to learn how to do stuff properly, like fish and hunt and use his brain for once.

I often think of those packs in the google instant info era.

Ah the sweet dreams books, there were hundreds!
Can't believe I forgot about Paula Danziger

So many of these. Also Kessa which was also about anorexia. I'm a teenage health freak too which was from his sisters perspective. The Cherry Ames nurse series.

I've recently re read the jinny books and realised how 70s they were and how much of a social message they had. Completely passed me by as a child.

Jinny & Shantih
anything else by Patricia Leitch (favourite Dream of Fair Horses)
Follyfoot
The Kevin and Sadie books
Trebizon
Nancy Drew
Linda Craig (like Nancy Drew but with a beautiful Palomino horse Chico d'Oro)
Noel Streatfield particularly the "Gemma" series (which are on Amazon I've just discovered) and the Bell Family (finally tracked down a second hand copy of the sequel New Town been after that for years)
loads of others but these stand out

I love these threads! Dd loves alanna books, and we gave about 10 copies of the first 4 books away the year she and her school friends turned 11 (she's read them about 5 times now, and she's just turned 13)

Loved stranger with my face, the changeover and summer of my German soldier - and the eyes of Karen connors too!

And everything by Robert Cormier, but the chocolate war was the best... (or maybe I am the cheese)

Only just seen this thread, but I also loved the Judy Blume books, especially Tiger Eyes and Deenie. I loved () the Sweet Dreams series of books, Second Star to the Right, Homecoming and the rest of the Tillerman series, also a book called Dear Rebecca about a girl whose mum died and she lived with her dad who was struggling to cope.

Thanks so much for this thread, loads of happy memories.

TheLesser hope your DN will love Tamora Pierce, I'm a bit of a fan as my user name probably gives away. I'd probably go for either the Protector of the Small series (Kel) or Wildmagic (Daine) first as they are a little more grown up for a teen audience. If she loves them she'll work back to Alanna.

Oh and for Broomstick, I just found the most amazing fanfic continuation of Protector of the Small, it is so good it is like gaining an extra two full length books in the series!

Rockshandy I've been trying to remember the name of Dear Nobody for ages, thank you! Loved that book. Also loved Mel by Liz Berry.

Robert Leeson trilogy about a girl whose Mum walked out- It's My Life/ Jan Alone/ Coming Home. Read them so many times.

Lynne Reid Banks- My Darling Villain, Writing on the Wall, The L Shaped Room.

Centre Line by Joyce Sweeney.

Point Horror, Sweet Dreams, and Point Romance especially one called Summer Dreams, Winter Love that I read repeatedly

Sweet Valley Twins/ High.

Loved Sadlers Wells. Only the first two are really about Veronica (who does marry Sebastian). The rest are about various other characters.

Ptw, DD and I both prefer Kel and Daine to Alanna, although we like Alanna too. DD noticed that my copy of Realm of the Gods falls open at the romantic bit and has teased me about it