As an Adult, What Children's Books Have You Enjoyed?

Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce.

Yes! Loved this when reading it to DD in January.

Geraldine McCaughrean for 12+. Where the World Ends is astounding. Philip Reeve's Here Lies Arthur is great for this age group too.

Ruta Sepetys for 16+. Salt to the Sea is just so good. Mal Peet for that age group too.

Patrick Ness' A Monster Calls and David Almond's Skellig are THE modern classics.

Siobhan Dowd was such a great loss too early. Bog Child is heart-wrenching.

Tanya Landman is fantastic as is Anthony McGowan.

Room 13 - Robert Swindells. It’s amazing!

The Moomin books are excellent, read them in my 20s, started reading them again recently to read to DS.

I read the books that DD reads so she has someone to chat to them about so I've read a lot of childrens/teenagers books in the last couple of years. Really liked the Alex Rider books, quite liked the Percy Jackson books (was less keen on some of his other series though), loved His Dark Materials trilogy, the 5 Children and It books, the Narnia books.

I want to reread the Swallows and Amazons books, they were my favourite as a child and I want to see if they still hold up to my memory of them but can't find them in the library system, going to have to get my old books from my parents' attic.

The Moomins

Harry Potter. My children were the right age to be caught up in the madness when the books were released and I read them all to keep in touch but also because I loved them too.
Noughts and Crosses and its sequels, by Malorie Blackman.
The Twelfth Day of July and its sequels, by Joan Lingard.

Katherine Rundell - Impossible Creatures - read before Christmas and it was beautiful.

Obviously the Phillip Pullman Dark Materials/Book of Dust trilogies but also I love the Sally Lockhart series - Ruby in the Smoke is the first one.

The Secret Garden

Little Lord Fauntleroy

We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea (my favourite of all the Arthur Ransome books . . . none of my DB's agree with this choice!)

The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd (I recommend it to everyone)

Another vote for Swallows and Amazons and series. Reading them as an adult the peril seems much greater than as a child. No ‘this is clearly a story’ peril such as guns/kidnapping/smuggling etc like Enid Blyton, but truly terrifying ‘this could easily happen’ peril of fog, snow storms, fire etc.

I read the Harry Potter ones as a youngish adult and read them to my DS again between ages 7-11. Enjoyed them both times. Love the Chalet School and Trebizon series from childhood and reread occasionally.

Books I discovered as a mum - The Grunts and the Eddie Dickens series by Philip Ardagh. Loved them! I enjoyed the Kid Normal audio books. And though I love Terry Pratchett, I hadn't read the Bromeliad trilogy and I loved that. I also liked a few of the Eva Ibbotsons I read though they do get a bit samey.

Young adult stuff - I am enjoying The Hunger Games series that my 12 year old insisted I read. I am looking forward to reading him The Black Magician Trilogy by Trudi Canavan when he's a bit older. I also enjoyed the The Hobbit very much.

The Chalet school books - Elinor M Brent Dyer. I’m currently re reading them again, today it’s “A Chalet girl from Kenya”.

Oh they are brilliant! They saved me in the younger years when driving on my own with 3 small DC. The kids loved them, I loved them, they were fantastic.

The thirteen clocks and the wonderful O. Not sure if it's still in print. Have say I read all the Harry Potter books as they came out.

@EarringsandLipstick Yes, Just William is great! I love the audiobooks read by Martin Jarvis

On a side note, there are still great books written now of course, and the selection is so much better than when I was a child. But God, there is such a deluge of grimly-themed books aimed at the pre-teen/young teen market: thwarted love, depression, isolation, bullying, (of course) gender / trans issues, and the endless fantasy themed ones.

I would have hated all those at that age, and I still hate them now.

I really never liked dark, depressing or too 'real life' books (or conversely, very fantasy based books with no real-life link) - I hate Jacqueline Wilson, themes yes, reductionist and patronising to children, also yes, and so badly written. It amazes me how successful they are.

My favourites are books I also read as a child - a lot have been mentioned, but from Enid Blyton, The Five Find Outers. I still love reading those.

Just William is even better as an adult than a child; the language, the comic timing and how lovable William is (as a child you don't see that).

Billy Bunter - yes, problematic as utterly unacceptable in many parts, racist for sure and the fat shaming (I mean it REALLY was fat-shaming) ... but so well-written and the characters were hilariously drawn. I read them all as a child but from the Library. We bought only a few. My DM and her siblings had loads, which we would read in my DGM's house; they all got taken by one uncle without a word, and I still wish I could get even one or two. I found a couple in Edinburgh in a second hand book shop some years ago, when I was on a visit. I was thrilled!

From a very small child perspective, one of my favourite children's books is 'Library Lion', Michelle Knudson. Read many many times, and I still take it out and read it.

The others that I love still, couldn't claim to 'read' them, are any of Emily Gravett's books, Monkey & Me a particular favourite. My eldest loved them so I can't quite pick them up without being transported back in time to those early days of reading to her. Long time ago now!

And finally, The Little Princess, Frances Hodgson Burnett. I love it. Always have.

The Legend of Podkin One Ear - its a bit like a rabbit version of Lord of the Rings and my go to for escapism.

If you haven't already done so, read 'There's a Boy in the Girl's Bathroom' by the same author. It used to be my favourite book of all time until I persuaded my mum to read it. She was sneering of it and has ruined it for me, If you like his other's I'm sure you'll love it! It makes me cry, but in a good way.

Harry Potter. I've read them many times, and in several languages! Anything by Diana Wynne Jones. Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising series.

Just re-read The Tale of Peter Rabbit, The Tale of Benjamin Bunny and The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies for the first time in fifty-odd years and was utterly enchanted.

Also Swallows and Amazon's and others in that series.

Minnow on the Say
Tom's Midnight Garden
Carrie's War

Watership Down would be a desert island book.

The Summer House Loon, Anne Fine

All of the Katherine Rundell books. She is phenomenal. Rooftoppers is 🤯