old fashioned gentle books

[mumwon]

Talking on another topic 2 of us mentioned "Mrs Harris goes to Paris" a lovely uplifting old fashioned book - ia there any books that other people like - either as a child or as an adult that you can suggest & tell us about them - briefly!
Mrs Harris is about an old fashioned char who saves & goes to Paris to buy Dior dress
& "Family at One end Street" children's story about a family with several dc before the ww2

Just bumping this for you, mumwon - hoping for some more suggestions.

For children I love Milly Molly Mandy. Super lovely adventures that are both gentle and charming.

Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day
The St Clare’s and Malory Towers books

I'm re-reading all the Famous Five books. Lovely bit of escapism just before bedtime.

Actually, have just remembered a couple of charming children's books by Paul Theroux (yes, the travel writer, father of Louis). Not really very seasonal, I'm afraid, but very lovely books - A Christmas Card and London Snow.

Diary of a Provincial Lady. It's the nice bits of Mumsnet in 1930s format, and very funny.

Elizabeth Goudge's books are a bit old-fashioned now, but very comforting.

Dds enjoyed the My Naughty Little Sister books.

And decades later they still talk about The Magic Faraway Tree.

I still remember the naughty little sister being left at home instead of going shopping with Mummy, since she was too 'draggy and moany' to take around the shops. Classic!

I absolutely adored all the William books as a child and still re read occasionally - they're so funny.

I Capture The Castle by Dodie Smith. Just a lovely, gentle coming-of-age classic novel about a girl and her eccentric family.

The Adventures of Pip, Enid Blyton. Short stories with a nature theme.

Noel Streatfeild

Ballet Shoes

The blue castle by LM Montgomery. Lovely book about a young woman and her family.

Chalet school books too are great for a gentle read.
Although I also disagree with pp as I wouldn't class either Malory Towers or St Clares as nice gentle reads. I was actually quite shocked when I reread them at the amount of bullying and really nasty behaviour from the so called heroines.

Milly Molly Mandy as above
Barbar the elephant (sp?) with the naught elephant Arthur, and the war with the Rhinocerouses, and painting eyes on their bottoms.
Mr Gumpy's Outing - goes out on his punt and a load of animals join him and fall into the river
Paddington - from darkest Peru
Issi Noho - a panda who did magic squares but generally got them wrong so the magic didn't quite work.

All the O’Douglas books - the sister of John Buchan. Such gentle 1920s-30s middle class lives, all mostly set in Scotland.

Rebecca Shaw books, Rebecca Tope is another one . She writes crime novels but they are not graphic.

A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley - A child in Victorian London is sent to stay with elderly relatives in their farmhouse in Derbyshire and time slips her way back to Elizabethan times where she encounters a plot to free Mary Queen of Scots.

The Making of a Marchioness by Frances Hodgson Burnett - a fairytale like book about a woman called Emily Fox-Seton, a genteel but penniless spinster who earns her living working for wealthy patrons.

The Secret Countess by Eve Ibbotson - Anna a Russian Countess has to flee to England where she earns her living as a housemaid. Will anyone discover her aristocratic origins?

The Cazalet series by Elizabeth Jane Howard

Victoria Holt? Georgette Heyer?

Monica Dickens wrote some lovely funny books about working as a cook/housekeeper and then a nurse I the 1930s and 40s. I think they were called One Pair of Hands and One Pair of Feet.

Also the James Herriot books.

I'm re-reading The Cazalet series by Elizabeth Jane Howard. They're set just before ww2, to the 1950s which is the newest book, just published. They're an upper middle class family and their servants. Really easy reading, but enough of a story to be a page turner.
Cross post JaquesHammer! I hadn't seen you were reading it too! How weird is that?

I hadn't seen you were reading it too! How weird is that?

They’re lovely aren’t they? I re-read them on a regular basis!

The Family from One End Street - probably my favourite children's book Have you come across the two sequels? - just as nice as the first. And Mrs Harris is also lovely.

I think you'll like Lark Rise to Candleford and Alison Uttley's A Country Child. Also the Little House on the Prairie books. One of my top favourites for gentle reads is Gwen Raverat's Period Piece - it's very chucklesome.

Also the Little House on the Prairie books

Oh yes.

Also the James Herriot books

Another yes.

What an absolutely lovely thread!

I'm reading the Cazalet books just now, the whole series was on kindle for £1 or something recently. You have to keep your wits about you (HUGE cast and she pops in and out of them all the time) but they're lovely books. The Anne of Green Gables books I have loved since childhood and always will, ditto Little Women series. Also Chalet School.