Books you read as a child/ teenager that you would love to read again!

I'd probably be bored with the books I read as a child and having checked out my local library, many of those books have been supplanted by Harry Potter . I do remember reading a book called 'The Family at one-End Street' which I loved - I was about 9 I guess, it may have been more than one book. Another Arthur Ransome fan - I treated myself to the entire range of S & A, CC books for a self-birthday gift a few years ago. Anyone rememeber Marianne's Dreams? That book gave me nightmares .

I can remember taking piles of books out from the library each week - they seemed to stock so much more then. I would work my way through a whole series of books - you'd never find all the Arthur Ransome books on the shelves nowadays.

I enjoyed E Nesbit, Alan Garner, Chalet School, Noel Streatfeild, Antonia Forest (yes, I still have Cricket Term & End of Term). I reread The Dark is Rising (book 2) most Christmas's. I hadn't heard of the film until I found this thread but I can safely say I will NOT be watching it.

There was another book about a boy called Christopher and his sister called something like Susan and they had wizardly adventures in woods - was that an Alan Garner one? (I just remember the line, "Christopher, you're getting into the bath with your socks on!". There was no way I would be watching my brother get in the bath...)

Favourite Enid Blyton was 'The Boy Next Door'...

Anyone else love Nina Bawden? - The Runaway Summer, The Witches daughter, Carries war, The White Horse Gang. Loved 'em. She had that knack of making you feel that at 10 years old you were reading a really adult book.

Blackhearts in Battersea and all Joan Aitken
Dark is Rising Sequence
Swallows and Amazons
The Box of Delights
Loved Antonia Forest too

Sorry my inner librarian is showing! I work with computers in a school now, but I've been re-organising their library for the last couple of weeks & it seems to have reawakened it all....

rusty bear, i looked being out geeked on the subject of antonia forest!!

There are two historical ones, The Players Boy & The Players and the Rebels, but they are actually about a Marlow ancestor from Elizabethan days(the one mentioned in the old farm logs on Peter'r Room/The Cricket Term.)
The Thursday kidnapping is about a large family (very Marlow-ish but not actually Marlows) who live in Hampstaed & by a series of accidents manage to 'kidnap' a baby for a day. I read it while it was in the stacks at the library HQ - I used to work there once a week & read it in my lunchtimes. But one week I arrived to find them in the middle of a massive discarding & it had gone, though I found the other two in one of the piles.

that rings a bell RosaL - thanks. Was one of them called White siomething? White Swan? White feathers? Only have 2 dss, so unless one of them turns out to be a budding Billy Elliot I don't suppose we'll be revisiting.

excellent liberation work rusty bear! i haven't got a copy of falconers lure - my mum let me read hers if i didn't leave her house with it ;-)

the only non-marlow one i know of is player's boy? or something? historical?? never read it...

must be careful not to hijack this thread and make it an antonia forest thread, but it's so good to find people who've heard of her

ooooh! Sue Barton books too - i read the lot - fab

Midnight Express - the ballet books you are thinking sound like the Sadlers Wells series by Lorna Hill.

Kate and KAty doll - does anyone remember?

I love Antonia Forest too - I have all the Marlow ones, but only because I used to be a librarian & 'liberated' The Marlows and the traitor and Falconer's Lure from the discards pile. Unfortunately I missed The Thursday Kidnapping - the only non-Marlow one and I only have sketchy memories of it.

Furzella mentioned Beverley Nichols 'The Tree That Sat Down' - I loved those books. Also

the Moomins.
Famous Five and the schools ones, but not Secret 7.
And a series of old ballet books about a girl from a back-to-back in Newcastle who gets to the Royal Ballet School (natch). Can't remember what they were called though.
Also loved all the L Frank Baum ones - Wizard of Oz and all
And does anyone remember Emil and the Detectives?

One of my favourite sets of books, and all of my DDs liked them too are - My Naughty Little Sister. I also loved the Malory Towers/ St Clares series and used to spend many a dull moment wishing I was at boarding school!

www.abe.com usually has most out of print kids books you'd ever want, usually at reasonable prices

xc

splish splosh - when i was younger i always used to think miranda for a girl! but now, 18wks with my first, i'm praying for a girl so i call her esther

nooka and frankie3 - cynthia voight rocks! my sister is a big fan too and, aged 28, religeously re-reads them every xmas when we go back to my parents. she reckons they're best the ninth/ tenth times ...

Another DWJ fan here. I have all her books (although some of the more recent ones area bit disappointing) have just started to read the Ogre Downstairs to ds and dd - have been holding off because I would be so disappointed if they didn't like them. I re-read the Dark is Rising because of another thread a couple of weeks ago which mentioned the film (which sounds utterly awful - apparently Will doesn't get on with his family in it - it's a pervertion!) and having said that last time I reread it I was a bit disappointed, this time I really enjoyed it. I was a coomplete bookworm as a kid (still am) so millions of books that I enjoyed. I still have several hundred children's books, most of which I have re-read many times. the only ones that I read as a child, would like to reread but haven't are the Andre Norton sci-fi/fantasies because they have gone out of print, and a few books that my big sister has hung onto, so I can only read when I visit her.

frankie3 you are thinking of Cynthia Voight, and there are I think five books in that series.

Splishsplosh

Thanks - that sounds familiar (Come Back Lucy). I'll look around for it; I remember being very spooked by it, but I was (ad still am) a big ole scaredy cat.

I have got a couple of Antonia Forests - End of Term and Autumn Term, but they are hard to get hold of. DD1 has inherited my fascination for boarding school literature, odd really as I actually hated boarding school and she is a real home bird too.

Are you thinking of Come Back Lucy? - it's about a girl who's orphaned, goes to live at her aunt's house, and makes friends with a ghost called Alice

Or there's When Marnie Was There, but I don't remember that as spooky.

Tyaca, I don't think I've ever met anyone who knows about Antonia Forrest either, but I loved them too, and have re-read them loads. Even made me consider the name Miranda for my dd

Brilliant thread - has made me all nostalgic and excited about re-reading some classics.

Anyone else remember 'The Battle of Bubble and Squeak' by Philippa Pearce? I loved it and used it as part of my desperate battle to get a pet gerbil. Didn't work though.

I can remember a really spooky kids' book about a lonely girl who befriended a child who turned out to be a ghost. I can see myself in the library staring at the cover, but can't recall the title for the life of me.

Another one is 'a traveller in time' by Alison Uttley - loved it! And prompted an obsession with the Tudors.

splish spalash i still read antonia forest! reckon i've been reading them for 20 years now.... at moment "end of term" is in the bog

best kids writer ever, really underrated and noone ever heard of ;-(

splish splash you right! summer to die..
just googled.

good spot

Tyaca - not sure the leukaemia book was by Lois Duncan, she wrote slightly spooky books - wasn't it Lois something else... Lowry? If I'm thinking of the same book - a family moves, and the older sister gets sick and dies??? Is that the one you mean?
I remember reading that on a train when I was about 16 (I never did grow out of teenage books) and felt embarassed by by snivelling!

Anyone read the Silver Crown, think by someone O'Brien maybe?

I'd forgotten all the Trebizon books, I loved them, also liked the Antonia Forest boarding school books.

Malory Towers & St Clares I liked when I was really young, but me and a friend re-read them when about 13, and I thought they were really mean to each other, making apple pie beds, sewing up coat sleeves & outting pebbles in wellies, til the bad girls pulled their socks up and conformed!