I'm rereading the Swish of the Curtain for first time in 25 years, childhood books you have reread as an adult?

In Flambards Will was killed in WW1 leaving Christina a widow at the beginng of the 3rd book.
She also believed Mark was dead as he was missing in action, believed dead, but he was still alive, just bady wounded.

too many to list, but one of my recent ones is Robert Westall - The Machine Gunners is seriously good.

I absolutely love Ballet Shoes and re-read it often - I'm also an enormous snob about TV and film adaptations of books I love - but the recent BBC version was wonderful. I loved it!

Loved, loved, loved the Swish of the Curtain series. I used to pretend my name was Lynette like the girl in it. And I remember one bit in one of the sequels when one of the girls meets a producer or director or someone terribly important and when she says 'goodbye', he says 'let's hope it's au revoir'. I always thought that was unbelievably sophisticated.

Didn't someone die in Flambards? Was it Will? Did he die in the war? I can't remember...

I've been buying lots of children's books recently, mostly ones that have gone missing but I've ordered Joan Aiken's last two books featuring characters like Dido and Simon, and a collection of short stories by her. I'd really love to reread them all and also some books by favourite authors that have been published since, such as Joan Aiken and Diana Wynne Jones.

Sorry 'End of Term' not 'Cricket Term'

swottybetty, I too dream of meeting a real life Antonia Forest fan!

I always feel a bedgrudging sympathy for Marie - especially as the series continues.
Have you read Cricket Term? If you have, the incident with the netball team on the train makes me squirm for her. I know she is grubby and shallow, but the dismisive way she is treated makes me feel so sorry for the Maries of this world. (Also, I think in school I was perceived as more a Marie than a Nicola )

There are lots of them sunny, starting when Elsie is a little girl living in the American South before the Civil War & ending with her as a great grandmother - she is a very pious character who apparently sees nothing unChristian in owning large numbers of slaves - it's OK because she provides a church for them so they can go to heaven, where they will apparently 'be white'
She spends most of the first book in tears because her father is 'worldly' and tries to force her to play the piano and read story books on a Sunday. Of course his cruel treatment of her brings her near death and causes him to see the light....

Rusty - I've never actually read the Elsie Dinsmore books - but she gets a number of mentions in the Chalet School books.

I have all the Marlowe books too, plus the 'Marlowes and their Maker' book - I've been meaning to get the 'Celebrating' book - now I really must order it!

I love Monica Edwards, KM Peyton, Ransome, also, one not from my childhood, but DD's, Sylvia Waugh's Mennym books.

I also love, for totally different reasons, the spectacularly pious Elsie Dinsmore books.

nicola and patrick kissed??

OMG.

i dream about meeting a antonia forest fan in RL. how has that never happened?

re-read 'em on a near permanent basis. at the moment i am really feeling for marie (autumn term). twas bullying, pomona too really.

I'm currently rereading the Chalet School stories - I think I have the full set. I'm not so keen on the early ones, but like the ones after Jo marries and has the triplets. I've not long finished rereading the Sue Barton books too.

I also love the Arthur Ransome books, though I haven't read them in a long time, and I love rereading childrens books - Streatfield, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Joan Aiken, Elizabeth Goudge and Eva Ibbotson. I've got a nearly full set of the Malcolm Saville Lone Pine series, which I loved, because some of them were set near where I grew up in Shropshire, but it's ages since I last read those.

I do read some grown up books - honest!!

The Jinny at Finmory books by Patricia Leitch. A much less tweedy pony book author. And also has Ken!

grimble grimble grimble grimble i've said it before and i'll say it again grimble. i read it aabout once a year.

Mooki - Autumn Term and Attic Term are part of the Marlow series, although they do come at either end of the series.
Autumn Term is the first and Attic Term is second to last.

They are both brilliant booksand reading them without havng the other books wouldn't be a problem.

The Thursday Kidnapping is a separate novel (probably my least favorite, but still enjoyable)

Freaky Friday - Mary Rogers. Its so much better and representative of it's time than i remembered.

Are any of the amazon available Antonia Forests' worth reading? Any order they need to go in?

Autumn term
Attic term
Thursday kidnapping

Sory, Blue Door Venture.

Full list here

Swish of the Curtain, Maddy Alone, Blue Door Theatre, Golden Pavements, Maddy Again.

I am missing the last one (Maddy becomes a TV presenter - not as bad as it sounds) and its a bugger to get hold of, I borrowed it once from the library when I was about 10 - I should have kept it...

I might have to investage Antonia Forest, I need a bit of easy going comfort reading. I really hope that my DD enjoys these things when she's older.

The Ship That Flew. Re read it to dc in the summer.

It was written in about 1939 though and has some glaringly un-pc stuff in it which bypassed me totally when I read it originally. Dc were straight onto it though.

We had quite a debate about the boy in it carrying a knife in his pocket. It was only a penknife, but dc live in a world where such things are a big big no.

Also references to the 'maid' and 'cook' in a normal family house had them scratching their heads too.

Thanks, I will order it now.

HumphreyCobbler - Girls Gone By produced a book called "Celebrating Antonia Forest" and there were the 'missing' chapters that had been deleted from Run Away Home.

When they are cleaning the church hall Patrick kisses Nicola (very low key kiss, under the stage) and when Nicola has taken Edward to Surfrider she comes back to find Buster dead.

There are also some other bits includeing a conversation between Karen and Giles where she talks about her relationship with her step-children.

I love Anne of Green Gables too and have just started to read The Little Wooden HOrse with my DD which we read at school, and have bought Carbonel (about a magic cat) - another school favourite.