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

I do like the Nancy Drew books (unsurprisingly!).
Sweet valley high / twins / university.

Another Point horror fan, I remember liking the Babysitter series and most of the other RL Stine ones.

My absolute favourite books were A Summer to Die, Lois Lowry, a Christmas present one year from my mum. And There’s a Boy in the Girl’s Bathroom, Louis Sachar, a present from my mum’s friend for a long flight. I think they’re both still in her loft somewhere. I remember both of those being popular when I brought them in for our year 6 book swap.

These bad boys - I was obsessed

Oh and The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole!

Love this thread! I loved Point Horror and also Christopher Pike, who basically wrote very similar stuff.

As a child it was all pony books like Jill's Gymkhana and a series by Josephine Pullein-Thompson about a pony club who had uncontrollable horses and were looked down on by a neighbouring Pony Club. Then they got a new instructor who had been injured somehow, maybe in the war and taught them how to handle their horses. Can't remember the name of the books at all now.
Then it was Judy Blume, Paula Danziger and Sweet Valley High. I thought all teenagers had a phone in their bedroom,had an endless supply of money to go to the mall/cinema/diner with their friends and got given a car when they were 16.Reality was an eye-opener!!!

Playing Beattie Bow is a fabulous book - such an accurate description in it of being a teenager in love (also I love time-slip stories).

Fire and Hemlock may be in my all time top 10 favourite books.

Oh, and Summer of My German Soldier. We read it in school, and years later pretty much all of my A-level English class confessed to a crush on the German soldier.

@aaahhhBump, I've never met anyone else who loved Blood and Chocolate before.

Most of my favourites have been mentioned, but I have a special fondness for Playing Beattie Bow, Fire and Hemlock, the Lark and Laurel series and See you Thursday. I loved the Pennington books, which I think we're by the same author as the Flambards books. I really liked Play Nimrod For Him by Jean Ure, too. Adrian Mole, obviously, and Mary Renault. And my more obscure favourite is a wonderful teen romance called Remembrance of the Sun by Kate Gilmore about an American girl living in Iran who falls in love with an Iranian boy just before the revolution. I learned so much from that book. And there was a book called Julie of the Wolves, and the Tillerman books by Cynthia Voigt.

Oh, and anything by Jean Ure, Anne Fine and Tim Kennemore...

Great thread! I loved:

Lois Duncan (Summer I’d Fear, Stranger With My Face etc)
Lois Lowry (the Anastasia books)
The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline B Cooney
Trebizon (not a patch on Antonia Forest though)
I Was a Teenage Worrier by Ros Asquith
On a similar note, Diary of A Teenage Health Freak by (I think) Aidan McFarlane
Christopher Pike
Not Dressed Like That, You Don’t! by Yvonne Coppard

And of course the mighty Sweet Valley High!

Anne McCaffrey Dragon books! And Flambards

So many good memories here.
I remember all the Point Horror rip offs including one particularly grim one called 'flight 116 is down' where a girl was home alone and her parents were out of town, and a plane crashed in the woods behind her house. Terrified me for years.

I'd forgotten about the other Caroline B Cooney books and want to re-read now.

Want to give Chalet School a go.

Loved Sadlers Wells books by Lorna Hill. Also sweet valley books though as a PP said, they're pretty crap looking back.
Babysitters club etc.
I remember those really sad ones set in a hospice / children's hospital and they followed the lives of the teenagers there. Always made me cry.

There must be so many more. I was a voracious reader and need to start making time to be so again.

Ooh I loved Point Horror books!
Does anyone remember the one set in some sort of underground cave and involving sulphuric acid? I’m sure the cover had a skull on the front

great thread. I have to do something now but place marking to come back!

Oh I just had to Google Point Horror now. Thanks for this thread OP, all those feelings of excitement and anticipation I used to get from reading them flooded back seeing the covers. The Snowman might have to go on my Xmas List from DH

I used to love the Point Horror books, like Beach House and the Boyfriend. My mates and I would get them when the trolley shop thing used to come round to the school. We were all excited as we'd fill in the little order form, pick them up and have a mini book club going for the next few mo this until the trolley can to school again.

Sometimes I would go to the little bookshop in Hythe with my saved pocket money and get a new one though as I read so quickly and the next order was aaaaaaages away

They started a love of Horror books and movies that remains lifelong and I would love to read them all again :)

Loved Sweet Valley High books, even though they were ridiculous.

And another lot along similar lines, about a rich, spoiled girl called Caitlin (I think. Googling brought up Caitlyn Jenner 😳). She paralysed someone so she could steal their boyfriend Jed.

Utter tosh, but they made me want to go to high school in America. Everyone had a phone in their room and got a car for their 13th birthday.

Also all the Judy Blume books, especially Forever.

Did anyone else read books by Caroline B Cooney? Most people remember the 'Whatever Happened to Janie?' series, but Among Friends was always my favourite, along with I'm Not Your Other Half and The Girl Who Invented Romance.

I used to love Paula Danzinger books!

My dd is 8 so I got her the first two Trebizon books out of the library. I read them both before her! I wish I’d kept my collection, I had them all.

The Changes Trilogy by Peter Dickinson.
I’m an English teacher now and I noticed my colleague printing an extract off for analysis with her class. Took me back instantly!! X

Great thread. I loved Children of Morrow, a futuristic young adult book - and loads of others here.

Oh, love this thread!

A Stitch in Time by Penelope Lively

The Flambards Series by K M Peyton

Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild

All the books by Jilly Cooper about young women, Octavia etc

Daisy by Judith Kranz (we used to phone each other in the evenings to read out the rude bits, very quietly as we all used to have to use the phone in the hallway and pretend we were doing homework)

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

All the Claudine Books by Collette

The Rachel Papers by Martin Amis

Goodnight Mr Tom by Michelle Magorian is my comfort book and film. Can't wait to introduce it to my daughters. That and the Outsiders are 2 of the few books I always go back to for a 'quick read'.

keithLeMonde agree - Easy Connections/Freedom & Mel by Liz Berry and anything Margaret Mahy. Love SE Hinton too - The Outsiders/Rumbelfish etc.