to ask what your favourite children's/adults books of all time are?

[SundayBea]

I am wanting some inspiration for myself and for the DC. Children's and adults books of any age and genre, fiction and non fiction. Basically what I am asking is if there are books that are great enough to be hands down your childhood favourites / your DC favourites / your own favourites then please pass on your recommendations. Thank you

The secret island, Enid Blyton. Everything good about her novels encapsulated in one.

Milkweed - a beautiful book about a little boy growing up in nazi Germany.

My toddler's faves - The Giant Jam Sandwich.
What the Lady Bird Heard.

My 6 year old's - The Really Weird Removals Company
How to train your dragons series
The Person Controller by David Badiel
Fortunately the Milk by Neil Gaiman
And he's developed a bit of an Enid Blyton thing

Mine- One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
House of the Spirits by Isabelle Allende
Anything by Kate Atkinson and Margaret Atwood and Doris Lessing. Loved the Stieg Larsen books. Guilty pleasures are a bit of Marian Keyes and Dan Brown.

The Brothers Lionheart by Astrid Lindgren
Ludo and the Star Horse by Mary Stewart
The Wind on the Moon and The Pirates on the Deep Green See by Eric Linklater
I second the Beverley Nichols ones too - The Tree That Sat Down, The Stream That Stood Still, and The Mountain of Magic and then The Wickedest Witch in the World has Miss Smith from the trilogy in it too.
Podkayne of Mars and Have Space Suit Will Travel by Heinlein are good - if you do get into RAH though, make sure you get the "juveniles" for the DCs, some of his adult ones are pretty "unsuitable for children" so to speak

"Green Sea" not See

We love the giant jam sandwich! Also giraffes can't dance, stick man and how to catch a star.

Adult books: the book thief, room, and sister by Rosamund Lupton.

Thanks so much for all the replies, I've really enjoyed looking up all the book suggestions! Of all the ones I had not read already, almost all have made it onto my to read/buy list. Can't thank you enough, so many books that were recommended sound brilliant!

Giant jam sandwich is one of the best children's books ever!

It would be interesting to hear what you think of them afterwards.

Lone Pine series by Malcolm Saville (ds cried when he found he's read them all)
Cue for Treason by Geoffrey Trease
Anything by Monica Edwards, but particularly The White Riders
Antonia Forest's historical pair (Players Boy and The Players and the Rebels)
Power of Three by Diana Wynn Jones
Anything by Elizabeth Goudge especially Linnets and Valerians
Chalet School
Demon Island by (I think) Cecil Baldock
The Fred and I series (John Putney, I think. Very funny)

Adult.
To kill a Mockingbird
Anything by Josephine Tey

Baby : Orange, Pear, Apple, Bear
Primary School age: Danny Champion of the World
Adult: Rebecca

As a young child, and when mine were little:
Gobbolino the Witch's Cat
My Naughty Little Sister
Teddy Robinson
Mrs Pepperpot
Flat Stanley
Ramona Quimby

Middle childhood (pre-teen):
Malory Towers, St Clares & Chalet School series
A Little Princess (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
Charlotte Sometimes (Penelope Farmer)
Noel Streatfeild's Gemma series (and anything else by her)
A Traveller in Time (Alison Uttley)
The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

Teenage:
Jean Plaidy - anything she's written (yes, really, I was hooked and so was DD2)
The Greengage Summer (Rumer Godden)
Annie On My Mind (Nancy Garden)
The Moon By Night (Madeleine L'Engle)
Time To Go Back (Mabel Esther Allan)
Noughts and Crosses series (Malorie Blackman)
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (Jeanette Winterton)
Maya Angelou's autobiographical series, starting with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Adult:
Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
Wide Sargasso Sea (Jean Rhys)
The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood)
The Color Purple (Alice Walker)
Cry, The Beloved Country (Alan Paton)
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
The Siege (Helen Dunmore)

At least, those are the ones coming to mind right now. Ask me tomorrow and the list might be completely different!