What were your favourite books to read over and over again as a child?

[sprigatito]

I'm currently rereading some of my childhood favourites on my Kindle and it's lovely ☺️

So far I've read A Traveller in Time, Marianne Dreams, Green Smoke, Charlotte Sometimes, A Stitch in Time and loads of Enid Blyton.

What were your beloved books as a child? I also loved Carbonel, Gobbolino the Witch's Cat, Tom's Midnight Garden, the Noel Streatfeild books and E Nesbitt.

All the classics that have already been mentioned especially Enid Blyton (the Five books and Mallory Towers), Noel Streatfield, any of the Jane Austin books and the Katy books. I think Little Women and Good Wives are probably my most reread books.
And to add to the list - all the Swallows and Amazons books (especially We Didn’t Mean to go to Sea) and the Sue Barton Nurse series by Helen Dore Boyston.
One of the best things about having children is being able to introduce them to my favourite books and seeing them devour them too 🙂

@OMGInShock Drina Ballerina is only £197 on Abebooks.co.uk (I have a copy of this and it's really lovely but not £200 lovely!)

Anything by Michelle Magorian esp. Back Home
Enid Blyton
Roald Dahl
The Point Horror book series

@LegoLandslide unfortunately I still can't justify dropping £200 on a book from my childhood right now!

Did anyone read Honor Arundel's Emma books? 1970s I think. The High House, Emma's Island, Emma in Love. Conventional English Emma, orphaned, goes to live with leftie artist aunt in Scotland, disapproves of her massively at first, grows up, moves with her aunt to a Hebridean island etc. Enjoyable and not totally to formula.

I also loved Elizabeth Gouge, Elizabeth Enright, Tove Jansen.

@OMGInShock I loved Drina! I've only read about 5 though, I've never been able to get the other books, I was reading them in the late 90s/early 00s and they weren't available!

@Taytocrisps - could they be from the other series of Elinor Brent Dyer?

they sound a bit like “A Head Girl’s Difficulties” and “Seven Scamps” although not identical

What Katy Did

The Sleepy Village by Naoma Zimmerman.
Now out of print.
Both wonderful story and illustrations; I completely understand how I loved it so much as a small child, and I love it now though so dog-eared.

@deeplybaffled it's quite possible. I'll keep that in mind.

The Children of Green Knowe by Lucy M. Boston was my most read book.

When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr and Back Home by Michelle Magorian were also firm favourites.

I loved the Drina Ballerina, Swallows and Amazons, and The Chalet School series. Also the Faraway Tree when I was younger.

My sister is 6 years older than me, so I had lots of hand me downs; loads of Enid Blyton: Famous Five, Secret Seven, The Faraway Tree, The Wishing Chair and many more. I loved The Railway Children, Five Children and It, The Phoenix and the Carpet. I had two all time favourites, Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfield, which I remember reading in one sitting on many a Sunday afternoon, and Carrie's War, by Nina Bawden. I loved that so much, my daughter is called Cari, though it's spelt the Welsh way.
Do you remember the book club leaflets we used to have from school? I used to be so excited when they came out, and remember having Rumer Godden's The Diddakoi from there.

@TitusMoan I remember The Bobsey Twins!! I have a memory of a yellow hardback which I read on the beach on holiday once!!

The Faraway Tree books, St. Claire's, The Secret Seven, Famous Five. So anything by Enid Blyton I guess. I loved Alice in Wonderland, I had a really thick version and reread it so many times. As a teen, I loved Christopher Pike and the Point Horror books.

I loved all these to along with the Katy books,Heidi and the Lion the Witch and the wardrobe.

Loads:
Malcolm Saville
Monica Edwards
Violet Needham
Antonia Forest
Gwendoline Courtney
Noel Streatfield
Enid Blyton
Joan Aiken
Katie Did series
Little Women Series
Anne of Green gables
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit
Swish of the Curtain (I read the rest of the series as an adult)
Narnia Series
Elizabeth Goudge
Arthur Ransome
Chalet School
Trebizon

and lots more...

The out of the Hilter time Trilogy

The second one sounds like The Naughtiest Girl is a Monitor. She has to resign from being a monitor but at the end she rescues a little girl from drowning.

Winnie the Pooh (whole lot) still got the full volume, read to kids, still won't throw it out

Peanuts

Jinny and Shantih at Finmory
The Jill Pony Books
Phantom Horse
Famous Five
Malory Towers
St Clare's
Black Beauty
A Little Princess
The Secret Garden

The Pullein-Thompson sisters
Enid Blyton's other books
Joanna Cannan Pony Books

My Naughty Little Sister
Mrs Pepperpot
Famous Five
Mallory Towers
Jennys Adventure
The Folk of The Faraway Tree
Georges Marvellous Medicine
Naughty Amelia Jane
Meg and Mog books
The Worst Witch

When I was little it was Balloonia, Very Hungry Caterpillar and Tooth Fairy.

When I was little older I read Heidi, Anne of Green Gables, What Katy Did, Enid Blyton's Secret Island and Little Women over and over. I also have a collection of all the Hans Christian Andersen stories that my nanna got me from
a car boot sale and particularly liked to read the Emperors New Clothes and the Little Match Girl.

These days with my grown up money I am spoilt with books and never read the same book twice!

The second book is set in a boarding school, but it's not the Chalet School or Malory Towers or St. Clare's. One of the pupils is appointed a prefect at the start of the academic year, but she's quite anxious and lacking in self-confidence. The younger girls don't respect her and they play up when she's in charge. In despair, she hands in her prefect's badge. Then something untoward happens (I can't quite remember the details) and she comes across the scene and handles it all brilliantly. The headmistress insists she takes up the duties of prefect again and the younger girls now respect her and defer to her authority.

one of the Dimsie books by Dorita Fairlie Bruce had a similar storyline. The prefect in question was called Ursula. I don't remember how it was resolved. But I think it was probably quite a common plotline in school stories.

I don't think it's that Dimsie book. Ursula ends up as head girl (or school captain or whatever they have) rather surprisingly. Because some of the school wanted (it's a voted for position, but the head asks the more popular person to stand aside) a particular person, they rebel and are as awkward as they can be.
She doesn't hand her badge back again at any point, but she does take up her role and handle a difficult situation well. And I think lands a music scholarship at the end. I think that's Dimsie moves up (again?)
But I think the first Dimsie book has a similar storyline with Dimsie's cousin/older sister in the head girl role, although I haven't read it.

There are also a couple of other series that the author wrote, so it could be in one of those. I thought GGBP had done the Dimsie series, but I can't find any evidence of them on their website.

tayto the first of your books is Elizabeth of the Garrett Theatre by Gwendoline Courtney.