To not merrily give away my Christmas lunch to a German family I've never even met?

[HarrietKettleWasHere]

Ok not me but Jo March.

I'n watching the travesty BBC adaption of Little Women.

The mum comes home and makes them feel awful just as they are about to tuck in to all the lovely food, because of the poor immigrant family, who are, by all accounts, having a really horrible time. Even though Marmee has already given them all her firewood. And they skip out the door so jolly, with all their bacon, sausages and maple syrup, and cream that they get only at Christmas to bestow upon the family. Even selfish Amy!

I was just wondering if I'd have been quite so joyful about doing that at a similar age

Beth then gets scarlet fever from the baby, which goes to show no good deed goes unpunished.

It looks like it'll be a clementine for dinner, 1 segment apiece, but luckily the rich family from down the road then take pity on them and send a lovely ham.

This is lighthearted by the way. It can't be serious really because the adaption is quite awful.

I don't know is where they filmed it but it can't be Massachusetts as I keep hearing a Great Tit call and they don't have those there pedantic

Also Amy is supposed to be 12 and she looks 27.

What other classics has television managed to ruin for you with their adaptions?

in the 70s !

Might well have been around 79 though.

There was a very good adaption of the Diddakoi in the 80s. The book is shockingly sexist now - the girls all bully her but are stopped by the noble boys , which is a pity because it's a great story.

Yes to them all, Piggy though possibly some were repeats

Was it not he 70s??

Wanders off to google...

When Marnie Was There was made into an anime film recently. Loved that book.

The Diddakoi was 1976!

God, I am old.

Yes, but I'd love a new version of the Diddakoi. And The Phoenix and the Carpet!

Pink Rabbit is amazing, they really should hurry it up so it can be done while she is still alive and with creative input.

I would love a good Magicians Nephew too. And Children of Green Knowe. Children of One End Street too!

It just seems that anything post 1950 is out for adaptation.

Watched Little woman last year whilst recuperating from an op. I was slightly surprised to see Captain Kirk of Star Trek fame play the professor, complete with German accent. I really enjoyed it, and a quick Google tells me it was filmed in 1978. I think i recorded of. Recorded it of True Movies, or Film 4 or one of those film channels. It may still be on.

Sorry if already mentioned, not read the whole thread.

While we are on a nostalgia trip, how about Stig Of The Dump??

I think they may have remade that one a few years back.

DS2 read the book and really liked it.

Charlotte's Web televises well, too.

Oooohhhhh and The Peppermint Pig!

There was a good Children of Green Knowe in the late 80s or early 90s.

Charlotte Sometimes. That's the one. I LOVED that book and my best friend and I longed for a timeslips, left notes everywhere for our past selves.

These are basically American co productions , hence they need to be recognisable to Americans and adult enough to be on in primetime slot.

Not sure what that leaves us with next.

I absolutely agree about the instagram filter comment. There was a Go Between on TV recently. One of my favourite books and I couldn't sustain n any interest in it because it was so like a Timotei ad.

The Machine Gunners could be done brilliantly now too. I use it in class and the last adaptation is decades old. They all love it but it'd be excellent now. I love that book. It has the added bonus of hooking all the boys and also not making me cry in class like Mr Tom does.

The Phoenix and The Carpet was scary, wasn't it? I would have been about 4. What was the thing where she looked in the morrow and her reflection had a life of it's own (maybe a ghost or haunted mirror?)? Girl with long brown hair.

The Titus Groan adaptation broke my heart, too, Bubblegum.

I had only ever met one other person who had read the books, so I was quite excited.

Not for long, though.

Was it Playing Beattie Bow? That's an Australian book and adaptation and it's proper scary!

I'm pretty sure Beth was based on Alcott's own sister, who died young. That's why she is so irritatingly saintly, and devoid of flaw and character. She was based on someone loved, who was dead. It made a lot more sense, once I knew that. Just seemed so strange that the other characters are so vivid and human, and she's this angel floating passively and sweetly around.

When I read the Hunger Games recently I was struck by how similar Prim is to Beth. Complete with shocking death. Though the fact you only see her through Katniss's eyes also influences things, presumably, as she also idealises her completely.

It's one of the many things I love about Mercutio: he's so brash and crude and funny and... well, alive. Makes his death a complete kick in the guts. If Jo, or even Meg, had died it would have been a lot more powerful, because you invest in them as people.

Here's a thing I've always wondered. In Goodnight Mr Tom, Willie is sewn into his underwear for the winter by his poor and nutty mother. So he can't have a bath etc. But how did he go to the loo? And this is more pertinent for females surely, esp when old enough for periods.

I love all these books. It's making me nostalgic - but I'm scared my own two won't like them. My son doesn't, and my 3 year old... who knows? I have Streitfield and Godden and so on on the shelves, but she may be bored to tears. A 1950s book must read incredibly differently in 1980 and 2020. I just really want to share them with my kids.

I think that sewing thing (Streitfield also mentions it) may well have been a myth from the upper-middle and upper classes, about the working classes.

I accepted it at face value as a child when reading it, but it simply seems implausible when set against actual memoirs from working class families of the time. Patronising myths that 'other' the working classes seem far more probable.

perfect my DS2 (now 13) is a reader. He loved:

Stig of The Dump
Charlotte's Web
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit
He also liked most Philip Pullman and Morpurgo stuff
Four (5?) Children and It and the new rewrite (4?)
He tolerated The Railway Children but did not like The Borrowers or The Machine Gunners (sorry PP!)
He doesn't like Tom's Midnight Garden
He also really liked Susan Cooper, if you know her stuff.

All is not lost!

( I didn't try him on Ballet Shoes...)

The most schocking is probably ITV taking it upon themselves (repeatedly) to actually change Agatha Christie's Marple plots. Isn't the plot pretty much the whole point in a work of detective fiction?!!!

Perfectstorm. When my DDs were young they rejected all my childhood favourites in favour of more contemporary books by Jaqueline Wilson and of course Harry Potter. I was disappointed but really just happy to see them reading. They are both in their twenties now and as I get more and more of the old favourites on our family Kindle account they are starting to read some and enjoy of my favourites although older DD is vociferous in her dislike of Anne of Green Gables.

She recently read The Saturdays and The Four Storey Mistake and was outraged that I hadn't forced her to read them as a child.

I keep bombarding the publishers of Pamela Sykes, Antonia Forest and Noel Streatfield to make more titles available on Kindle.

God, don't get me started on what we call The Fake Marples in our house. John Hickson is the only true Miss Marple and I'll fight anyone who says otherwise!

JOAN Hickson not John obvs!