to ask you for favourite novel as a child?

[grapeswithseeds]

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

I loved Tom's Midnight garden, still get goose pimples at the end when he realise who the elderly landlady is. I didn't read the children of Greene Knowe until I was an adult, but have visited the house where the author lived, which is the inspiration for the stories, and is by a river, the entrance hall and nursery are exactly as described, the authors daughter in law, shows groups round and relates the interesting history of the house, and of her mother in law.

Oh I have seen many of my favourites listed here!

When I was quite young I think it would be Enid Blyton's "The Secret Island" which I read again and again.

Many people have mentioned "Ballet Shoes" which I also loved. Still do.

But another favourite as I got a little older was "The Children Who Lived in a Barn"

@The80sweregreat

Jill book fans , I loved the one where she impersonated someone called Amanda and they ended up calling her ' 'JillAmanada' ! She had so many adventures with her ponies and her mum wasn't super rich either, which was nice! Made me think I could have a horse one day , but I never did! Great books.

Was that the one where she had to pretend to be horrible because she was so cross with Amanda?

What Katy Did, What Katy did at School, What Katy Did Next & Clover by Susan Coolidge.
Heidi
Little Women
Then when I was at secondary
Sammy Going South by W H Canaway
Pennington's seventeenth summer quartet by KM Peyton

Yes, Amanda was the horrible one and Jill was nice and normal. Was she her cousin or something? She was awful.
I loved it when Jill and her friend went to live in the new forest to try and train the ponies up there! The lady boss was a nightmare and kept reading ' pride and prejudice'.
I wanted to be Jill ( or Jennings ) as a kid!

Tottie the story of a Doll House. I loved loved loved this. It was a story but also made into a tv series. I used to race home fro lm primary school to watch it.

Alan Garner: owl service, red shift etc
Joan Aiken: wolves of willoughby chase etc
Another one for Laura Ingels wilder
And rather more weirdly in early teens georgette heyer’s and Mary Stewart’s books ( mums books on the shelves!)

Loads of those listed here:

Arthur Ransome (my favourites of which are Swallowdale, Pigeon Post, and The Picts and the Martyrs)

Antonia Forest (I only knew about the school ones as a child)

Enid Blyton (initially The Five Find-Outers, then the Adventure ones, then the school ones) - my mum had to limit me to one Rnid Blyton per library visit or I’d have read nothing else

Susan Cooper (The Dark is Rising is my favourite)

The Rebels of Journey’s End (Australian, I think, and by a child author)

Anne Fine (A Pack of Liars, Crummy Mummy and Me, etc.)

The Demon Headmaster - Gillian Cross

C.S. Lewis (I like most of Narnia, but especially The Voyage of the Dawn Treader)

All the Green Knowe series

Redwall and sequels (Mossflower, Mattimeo etc.) by Brian Jacques

Charlotte Sometimes

Goodnight Mister Tom (I found the film version disappointingly mawkish)

I’ve always preferred naturalistic stuff to fantasy, but to be honest as a child I read pretty much anything.

The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Gouge
The Spicewoman’s Basket By Alison Uttley
All Enid Blyton, Joan Aiken, Roald Dahl, lots of books about horses, adventures and boarding schools!

Children of the New Forest.
Then when I was around 10 I read Wuthering Heights and I used to read it once every year until I was seventeen and it was the novel we had to study for the Leaving Cert (last set of public exams at second level). I never read it again after that and to this day I HATE the idea of over analyzing a book (so I could never join a book club-it’d fry my head.)

Pony books esp the Pullen-Thompson sisters
The Wool Pack by Cynthia Harnett
Charlotte's Web - EB White
The Hobbit
What Katy Did

The animals of farthing wood and ballet shoes :)
Plus the Harry Potter series as I got older 😁

Another one for Enid Blyton, especially Famous Five and The Magic Faraway Tree.

The 'Adventure' books by Willard Price at primary school but by the time I was in year 7 I had moved onto the literary heights of James Herbert - Lair was a particular favourite to be passed around on the school bus - for some reason it always fell open to the same set of pages...

I can't remember what they were called but loved a series of adventure stories. There was a girl in them with a boys name maybe Peter (not George from the Famous Five) Does it ring a bell with anyone?

Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner
The Put Em Rights by Enid Blyton
The Five Find outer series by Enid Blyton
Charley by Joan G. Robinson
Anything by Jaon Aitken but esp the alternative Jacobean adventures such as Blackhearts In Battersea
Sppok at Jane Little
anything by Alison Uttley

Anything by Rosemary Sutcliffe.

Someone upthread mentioned The Little Grey Men. I loved that book and pictured the Folly Brook as the Highland burn near my house. Many years later I moved to the (very different) area it was actually set and was thrilled to find the local library had a BB collection.

Great to see @LaPoesieEstDansLaRue mention The Wind on the Moon. Never known anyone else who's read it. My other favourite is The Twilight of Magic by Hugh Lofting.

Other than that, lots of things others have mentioned, but in particular:

The Narnia books
Ballet Shoes and other similar ones by Noel Streatfeild
The Lost Prince, and others by Frances Hodgson Burnet
The Ghosts by Antonia Barber
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aitken
Treasure Island
Black Beauty and lots of other horsey books
The Dr Doolittle books
The Mary Poppins books
The Paddington books
The Jennings books

Showing my age with many of these, so will also say that I also love certain children's books I discovered as a parent:

The Star Of Kazan and lots of others by Eva Ibbotson
Goodnight Mr Tom
Lots of Michael Morpurgo books
The Noughts and Crosses books
The BFG and a number of others by Roald Dahl
Harry Potter

His Dark Materials trilogy (if they count as children's books)

Mandy by Julie Edwards (was actually the actor Julie Andrews publishing under her married name).

Danny The Champion Of The World, James And The Giant Peach and Charlie And The Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl.

The Lily Pickle Band Book by Gwen Grant.

Ooh yes, Goodnight Mr Tom, Little Women and the What Katy Did books, too.

@WokusPocus - I'm so envious! People usually look at me like I've had a few too many when I start talking about Bogwoppit. It's a great book.

@Campervan69

I can't remember what they were called but loved a series of adventure stories. There was a girl in them with a boys name maybe Peter (not George from the Famous Five) Does it ring a bell with anyone?

Again Lone Pine Series by Malcolm Saville. Peter or Petronella Sterling, the deputy of the LPclub

Witchend thank you would never have remembered that. Loved those. There was a bit of romance IIRC

The Hollow Treehouse by Enid Blyton

Followed by The Witches and The BFG by Roald Dhal

I also loved reading my parents’ James Herriot, Catherine Cookson and Lena Kennedy books. It was what we all graduated to before YA was a thing.