to ask you for favourite novel as a child?

[grapeswithseeds]

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

The Dark is Rising sequence by Susan Cooper

The Jill pony books (hence my user name!)

Jinny at Finmory series

So so many more!

Oh and The Changeover by Margaret Mahy and Stranger with My Face by Lois Duncan

I loved the Famous Five, the Adventure Series, Malory Towers by Enid Blyton and later the Malcolm Saville series of books. I also enjoyed reading the World's End books by Monica Dickens and read them over and over again.

I also loved a couple of books and I'm hoping someone can tell me what they were called. They were about a young boy who ran away and lived rough on the streets (in the UK). He befriended another boy who I think was facially disfigured, maybe in a fire, but you never learned because he never spoke. Though I think he used to shout out in this sleep.

The second of these books I'm fairly certain had the word winter in the title. I read them in the early 70s and read them over and over again but can't for the life of me remember the author or title.

Does it ring any bells with anyone?

Witchend you are right! I loved those books

It's funny, I read the Witchend books growing up in London and had never heard of the Stiperstones (which in my head I pronounced incorrectly as Stipperstones), now I live a few miles from them. (I may have compared the map at the beginning of the book with the Ordnance Survey map when I moved here aged 30, to establish exactly where Witchend is....).

I loved so many of the books mentioned, especially the Dark is Rising series and the Narnia books.
Does anyone remember a set of books about a group of sisters at boarding school? The 2 youngest were twins called Nicola and Laurie, the latter being really good at acting. This thread has reminded me of them!

Bobbsey Twins series
Anything by Enid Blyton, Jacqueline Pullein-Thompson
The Sue Barton series
Larkrise to Candleford by Flora Thompson is my overall favourite read.

@alibongo5

It's funny, I read the Witchend books growing up in London and had never heard of the Stiperstones (which in my head I pronounced incorrectly as Stipperstones), now I live a few miles from them. (I may have compared the map at the beginning of the book with the Ordnance Survey map when I moved here aged 30, to establish exactly where Witchend is....).

I did similar, only from Lancashire and Monica Edwards books. We moved and I suddenly realised we were near her Punchbowl series and spent a happy few hours looking at a map and some of her books.

Witchend is currently for sale. Anyone fancy indulging my fantasy of owning Witchend and buying it for me?
Witchend for sale

Riverseawoods the Nicola/Laurie books are the Marlow books by Antonia Forrest - I think they may have had a mention on here. They’re fabulous books!

Loads already mentioned here.

I was looking at my copy of Moonfleet at the weekend. It has my mother's handwriting in it, saying, "Weymouth Book Fair 1977."

Weymouth Book Fair featured quite a bit in my childhood. When I was about 11 or 13, my best friend and I were allowed time off school to be taken down to Weymouth to see Anne Digby, and as a result, most of my copies of Trebizon are signed (not all, as she was still writing them.)

I think I may have seen Rosemary Manning there, too. We certainly had a copy of Dragon in the Harbour, which I think was set in Weymouth. Those books were the reason I insisted on going to Kynance Cove when I went to Cornwall. And where I learnt the word widdershins.

I was very keen on Blyton - the Faraway Tree, Secret Seven, Famous Five, Five Find-Outers, St Clare's and anything else which came my way.

Catherine Storr - Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf.

Narnia.
Hobbit then LotR.
Asterix.
Tintin.
Chalet School, Abbey School, Angela Brazil. Fith Form at St Dominics, Jennings.
Laura Ingalls Wilder.
Diana Wynne Jones, especially Chrestomanci.
Pony books - Monica Edwards, Jill, Jackie, Jinny, anything Pullein-Thompson.
Silver Brumby (I went to the Snowy Mountains when I went to Australia because of these. Saw wild brickies, but no silver ones.)
Lorna Hill's ballet books.
Margaret Mahy, especially the Changeover.
Rumer Godden - the Greengage Summer
John Christopher- Tripods trilogy.
Douglas Adams - Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy
Susan Cooper - Dark is Rising series.
KM Peyton, especially Ruth Hollis/Pennington/Jonathan Meredith, but I've read almost all of hers.
Biggles (rereading some currently.)
Nancy Drew
Hardy Boys
Three Investigators
Doctor Doolittle
Animals of Farthing Wood
Elizabeth Enright's Melendy series, as introduced to me by the school librarian.
Hornblower.
I have 8 Mary Plain books, bought at a jumble sale in my cousins' village.
Swallows & Amazons.

We didn't have a TV till I was 14, so I read everything.

Thank you!

Most certainly the famous 5!! Loved them...

The dark is rising sequence
The Sadlers Wells books
The Scarlet Pimpernel
Lorna Dione
Ivanhoe
The prince and the pauper
The man in the iron mask
Loads of other classics. I loved to read more than anything else as a child.

Narnia, ballet shoes, Jane Eyre, dark is rising.

Oh, how could I forget Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. And the Bobbsey Twins. I loved all those.

Charlotte's Web.

Tales of a Forth Grade Nothing.by Judy Blume.....I loved all the Judy Blume books !

Oh Roger Lancelyn Green, Tales of the Greek Heroes. It's mostly his fault I've got a Latin A-level.

@Winniewonka I am pleased it jogged your memory
I loved the book and read it over and over but have met very few people who have even heard of it, never mind enjoyed it as much as me!

Witchend is currently for sale. Anyone fancy indulging my fantasy of owning Witchend and buying it for me?

Aww that's a lot bigger than it was in my head! Lovely. (should I go and view it?)

@Fifthtimelucky oh that's a shame, you'd think they'd make more of the connection between the castle and the book. The wellhouse scene is another terrifyingly tense bit of it! I'd love to see it in real life

EBearhug Weymouth book fair sounds great!

Pp mentioned puffin book club
How I loved that club! Just looking at the magazine- alas we couldn’t afford them. But the possibilities were amazing to my mind.
I forgot to add Little Women,as well as the sequels little men and Jo’s Boys.
The Chrysalids by John Wyndham- I used to search maps to find where Labrador was.

Ooh, this seems like the thread to help with a very obscure book search.

This would be one published probably in the 70s. It was by a publisher that I didn’t think of at the time as a big well-known children’s publisher, so not Puffin or Faber or anyone like that.

It was a collection of short stories that were slightly surreal in tone. One was about the statue of Eros at Piccadilly Circus and how sad he was that people never really stopped to pay attention to him. One was about a little indiarubber (possibly spelled india-rubber). There might have been another one about a scribble, or I might be getting mixed up with another book.

Does anyone have the foggiest what I’m on about?!

The machine gunners by Robert westall

Another Mary Plain lover here.

I am surprised that only one person has mentioned any of Violet Needham’s books, The Emerald Crown.
I love all her books; is anyone else familiar with:
The Woods of Windri
The Horn of Merlyns
The Black Riders
The Bell of the Four Evangelists
And others.

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