to ask you for favourite novel as a child?

[grapeswithseeds]

For me it was probably The Famous 5 series, I love adventure!

The first one i truly remember being captivated by was Stig of the Dump.

@Viviennemary

I have the 3 Jays books. They are so funny, especially 3 Jays lend a hand.
I've also got a couple of her other pony books.

Witchend great to hear you enjoyed the 3 Jays books too.

Jean Auel's 'Earth's Children' series.
Tolkein's Hobbit, and Rings
Stephen King's shorts and novellas, "Different Seasons" still gets read now and again.

The Little White Horse (still hoping for geraniums in the garden as a result)
The Children of Willow Tree Farm
Famous Five
Fell Farm for Christmas
Secret Garden
The Little Princess
Lone Pine Club
Ballet Shoes

So many more! Too many favourites. I'm having great trouble convincing DD to read many of these and I would hate for her to miss out.

There was a book from the 1950s which my uncle gave me, called "Fire Engine by Mistake", by Leila Berg. It had some hilarious scenes in a factory, in which the manager Mr Middleton shut himself in a room marked "Important meeting; private; do not disturb", so that his haughty secretary wouldn't see him eating peanuts. A gentleman from London who came to test the fire engine was uncomfortable in his thick woolly vest on a hot day (having been let down by the weather forecast), so he tried hard to find something wrong. And the foreman Mr Billings loved treacle pudding, but his wife had forbidden him to eat it because it made him fat, so in his haste to get some at work, he caused "the mistake" to happen, as well as accidentally bursting in on Mr Middleton's "important meeting", which meant that the two men did not speak to each other again for two weeks and two days. It seems it was a trope, these powerful men being bossed about by their wives and secretaries!

Great thread! This has reminded me of how much books have enriched our lives! The Moon of Gomrath, The Owl Service, Narnia books, Eagle of the Ninth followed by Great Expectations, Nicholas Nickleby etc. Characters who became friends and family. All Agatha Christie and the Peter Wimsey books -remember thinking “should I be reading about sex at 12 ?”

Does anyone remember the books about a small bear called "Mary Plain"? I can visualise the bear, but can't recall a lot more. They were sort of in the style of Paddington.

The Little White Horse (still hoping for geraniums in the garden as a result)
YY to the geraniums, also biscuits in a tin by the bed, I never managed to convince my Mother that these were essential requirements in a bedroom!

@FuzzyPuffling

I loved Mary Plain! She lived at a zoo in Berne, Switzerland, for some reason, with several other bear family members who featured as minor characters while Mary went off on adventures with her human friend 'Owl Man'. She used to write letters and 'pomes' [poems] in what can only be described as a prescient emoji language, using pictures for whole or part words (eg signing herself off as Mary ✈️).

I've still got four of the books: All Mary, Mary Plain and the Twins, Mary Plain on Holiday, and Mary Plain's Whodunnit, but I’m sure there was another one where she ends up on some kind of South Sea island and meets the 'natives' there, which was my favourite as a child but it's probably for the best that it's disappeared now!!

I loved Mary Plain too. Much better than Paddington.

@grapeswithseeds Thanks for starting this thread, I can almost feel the metal door open and smell our little local library as I read these lists! Unfortunately, they wouldn't stock Enid Blyton, as, at the time as she was considered too 'weak'. However, this meant I found plenty of other favourites even though I always spent any birthday money on the Five Find Outers, Mallory Towers and St. Clares books.
Party Frock - I desperately wanted an organza dress after reading the description of it being unwrapped in this book
Just William series - bullseyes anyone?
Jennings series - mischievous boys and boarding school, poor Mr Carter ....
Jill's Gymkhana etc.
Charlotte Sometimes - loved the time travel element
What Katy Did series - I recently bought Clover and In the High Valley but haven't got round to re-reading yet
Heidi - I wanted to live on that mountain
Another book I loved and took out regularly was about a girl and a pony - the climax of the story was when they raced a black stallion (and won) and somewhere in the tale is a beetle (?) called Beelzebub but whenever I google the clues the results never include the right book.
Got hooked on Agatha Christie at 13 as they were the only English books available when I went on my month long French exchange trip and at around the same time I discovered Elswyth Thane's Williamsburg series and Tryst (I was ready for romances by then).

@Nicolasix it is! I recognised the cover straight away, thank you for solving the mystery for me! Now off to find a copy.

For me the first books I really fell in love with were the Mr Whisper ones by Brenda Macrow.

The Amazing Mr Whisper and The Return of Mr Whisper - about two children and the tutor who was part fey, who could whistle up the wild ponies and knew everything about nature.

I'd LOVE to be able to get hold of these again but they are unavailable everywhere.

After that it was pretty much every pony book ever written, especially those by Pat Smythe and the Pullein-Thompson sisters!

Black Beauty - still have the original book I was given as a child and still go back and read it :)

Mallory Towers/St Clare's
The ghost of Thomas Kempe

Oh, St Clares! Loved those too!

First love was Enid Blyton. After that I remember a series by Willard Price about 2 boys who went to various parts of the world to capture animals for zoos. Not at all politically correct now but I loved learning about animals and the world and it made me want to travel. I am sure if I read it now it would be dodgy and most probably racist but as a kid I loved it.

Hurrah for the Mary Plain fans!

I was a Founder Member of the Puffin Club (very old) and loved the magazines you got every month. I even had a gold badge. Wish I still had it now!

@Weepingwillows12

First love was Enid Blyton. After that I remember a series by Willard Price about 2 boys who went to various parts of the world to capture animals for zoos. Not at all politically correct now but I loved learning about animals and the world and it made me want to travel. I am sure if I read it now it would be dodgy and most probably racist but as a kid I loved it.

That's the Adventure series with Hal and Roger.

Ds' favourite was Elephant adventure.

There are times when it definitely goes into racist undertones-they're so grateful to the "wonderful white men" and defer to them when Hal's only meant to be 18yo, and Roger's 13yo. However at the same time to do get a genuine admiration about how well they understand the animals from Hal and Roger.

I've still got my puffin club badge and some of the puffin post magazines. I loved so many of these books, though I was never particularly fond of Enid Blyton. I also really enjoyed km Peyton's contemporary work (fly by night, the team, the Pennington trilogy), Jane Duncan, margery all Ingham and Dorothy l sayers. I first read murder must advertise at the age of 7 and was taken aback later on by the sex and drugs references that had gone straight over my head. My parents never seemed to worry about me reading those, although they banned me from reading the terrible temptation by honor arundel until I was fourteen ish. I could never understand why they thought that banning that one book while letting me read anything I liked from the library would achieve anything at all. (I sneaked it off their shelves one evening and had it back before breakfast the next day.)
Is anyone else old enough to remember having library tickets that were card pockets with slots for the slip from the book? Our library issued you with three, so you could only have three books at a time, and their system meant you couldn't return a book on the day you borrowed it. I was a fast reader with no social life and could easily demolish my three books by mid afternoon.

Oh and Edith unnerstad - the spettecake holiday, urchin and little o. I still read those now.

I remember those library tickets, and the date-stamp. You could have books out for a fortnight and pay a fine if you took them back late. I used to go nearly every day during the school holidays, and was very indignant when my aunt accused me of skipping parts of the book because 'no one can read as quickly as that'.

So many!

Loved Enid Blytons Adventure series.

As an older child I enjoyed Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean Auel which triggered a life long love of ancient civilisations and herbalism.

@DrCoconut me too!!!