Children's books you still love..

Oh yes, I still have copies of these! My children enjoyed them.

Tales from End Cottage and More Tales from
End Cottage by Eileen Bell.
I’ve come to realise recently that these books read to me as a small child actually set the blue print for what I most want in life (which is to live in an old cottage in the country with lots of animals knocking about and spend my days making jam
and such).

@bookworm14ah I'm so pleased someone else read (& loved) this!

Loved these so much. Ramona was so sympathetically drawn and was a really rounded character and the family relationships were portrayed beautifully.

Yes!! I loved that book.

Thanks, and to @EmmaBridgewaterTeapot . I had to look up Helen Cresswell as I did not know her as an author - but had seen her dramatisations on the BBC. Interesting that she did some of the E Nesbitt's in this way. I noted, in her obituary, this quote:

However, Cresswell's star waned somewhat as tastes in BBC children's drama commissioning turned to the tougher damaged heroines of Jacqueline Wilson, typified by Tracy Beaker

I know this thread is about books but I wondered if this change is also relevant to those of us who have been sharing on here?

Obituary: Helen Cresswell | Media | The Guardian

Did anyone read Playing Beatie Bow by Ruth Park? It's about a girl who goes back in time and is initially terrified but grows to love her new life (set in an area in Sydney called The Rocks). I probably read it when I was about 11/12 but it stayed in my head and I managed to find it online a few years ago.

Moondial by Helen Cresswell was a really good story, she wrote another one called stonestruck which was a bit nightmarish, something to do with evacuee children

Does anyone remember the Ramona series by Beverley Clearly? I still have all of mine! Also loved all the old classics like E nesbitt and anyone remember moondial?!

@Pallisers

Hope you enjoy it!

It's just so captivating and atmospheric isn't it.

I say a little prayer every night and I always say this!

O yes, I love those books. I used to live near a dear lady who was friends with BB. He helped them dig their garden pond. Beautiful books.

The story of the last gnomes in England: The Little Grey Men, and its sequel, The Little Grey Men go down the Bright Stream. A love letter to a vanishing England.

Oh I loved Treasure Island too! And Kidnapped. And 39 steps, a bit later.

@ginasevern
Love Treasure Island. It's the only children's book I've read in recent years.

Recalling another favourite of mine not yet mentioned:
The Hill of the Red Fox (Allan Campbell MacLean). A terrific Buchanesque adventure story with a teenage boy's first visit to Scotland in the 1950s. Have reread it many times.

Also I wonder has anyone else read "Satchkin Patchkin" (Helen Morgan, who also wrote the Mary Kate series)? Published 1966, though I only discovered it as an adult and read it to my own children. Collection of short stories about a little green magic man 'who lived, like a leaf, in the apple tree'. The villain of the story was 'a lean man, a mean man, a man without a smile'. Wonderful language throughout and one of my favourites to read aloud to children. There is a sequel, Mother Farthing's Luck.

@Waawo

I've read 'Red Die' (some years ago) and I enjoyed it, though not nearly as much as AD. It's a good book, IMO, and apparently took Roger about 18 years to write, whereas AD took him a matter of about six months, I think.

Going off memory, I would probably rate Red Die as a 7/10 - I'd give Albion's Dream a 9.75/10, I seriously love that book.

I had Norham Gardens on my list. I love Penelope Lively.

I love House in Norham Gardens. The relationship between the teenage central character and her elderly aunts is wonderfully moving , particularly her growing realisation of their fragility . It also hints at what is now known as cultural appropriation, which wasn’t really recognised at the time the book was written.

The Dark Is Rising sequence, loved them all but especially the book of the same name. I read it most Christmases and find the juxtaposition of cheerful festivities with the eerie supernatural so spine tingling. See also The Box of Delights.

All the Moomin books. They were so sweet and cosy with a wistful poignancy on every page.

Weird stone of Brisingamen. Loved how Colin & Susan were allowed to step outside mundane reality into a world of magic. And yes, I have been to Alderley Edge and looked for the gates to Fundindelve.

The Magic Faraway Tree. My gateway book to a lifelong love of magic, fairies and fantasy.

here is the photo

just wanted to say my copy arrived. (photo may take a while to load)

Thank you @SorcererGaheris @Waawo the Journey to the East is a short book. Like a skeleton key to all the Quest books you've ever read. Quite mystical in its own way.

Another huge favourite of mine, which I don't think the thread has mentioned so far, is The House In Norham Gardens (Penelope Lively). A wonderfully atmospheric book set in central Oxford of the 1970s, with a likeably introverted and thoughtful main character, winter weather, a great sense of time and history, and some scenes set in the Pitt Rivers Museum. It stands up well to rereading as an adult.