books from the 1980s that no-one else remembers!

[GoldenGreen]

For some reason I have been compulsively trying to track down half-remembered books that I read as a young teenager - not sure why as they are not classics but I would really like to revisit them. I had hoped my younger sister might have picked them up but she never liked the same books as me.

Does this ring a bell with anyone:

Series with the children of detectives - I think a brother and a sister and an adopted sister (her parents were police officers who died - I think she was Irish, red haired and fiery - obviously) - they solved mysteries based around school. In one they caught a vandal because of the paricular way he wrote "H". In another there was a school trip to France with an old fashioned type of Polaroid camera - this was a key part of the plot but can't remember any more!

The other book that I remember reading obsessively was a teen romance one with a girl whose parents were repressed and abusive. She was not allowed any freedom at all but managed to meet a boy and sneak out. The thing I most remember is that she had no clothes apart from school uniform so she had to embroider flowers on her school shirt when she went out to meet him.

Anyone else got any vague memories of books they once loved and that no-one else ever remembers?

The only books I have held on to are 'The Babysitters Club'

{fenvy}

I loved the Willard Price books, didn't realise they were now considered really dated/racist/sexist - all went over my head as a child!

Can anyone remember a book about an old house. There was a character called Harriet, one character used a grandfather clock to go back in time to the house in the past and met up with another character there (can't remember which one was Harriet, the past or present). At some point whilst in the past they went skating on the river.

ooh I think that might be Tom's Midnight Garden by Phillipa Pearce.

I read When Marnie Was There at primary school - who wrote it? I would love to read it again as it made a big impression on me. Is one of the little girls a ghost? I remember it had a brown cover...

Does anyone remember this American book, probably 1950s? A family of 3 children, I think, who enter their housekeeper's breadpudding recipe in a competition, she goes off to the finals in another town, leaving them in the care of some ancient prune of an auntie who comes to stay with them. But the youngest has received a mail-order magic set, and he proceeds to voodoo the auntie into staying in bed, and majics up a massive local snowfall, resulting in their little town having a picture-perfect White Christmas.

I loved it, and showed it to my mum, who made her first ever breadpudding from the description in the book.

Oh - the sMe author as Dear Teddy Robinson. Thanks!

thank you tinsel that's the one! Will have to buy it for DD.

Loved When Marnie was there...

Babysitters club! I used to love that, but they were all only about 13 weren't they, and used to babysit loads of kids. Can just imagine the thread in AIBU

Loved When Marnie Was There, also Charley by same author. Your friend Rebecca was brilliant. I read all the Cynthia Voigt books too...ahh, I loved Dicey Tillerman.

Anyone remember Love and Betrayal and Hold The Mayo - and Hanging Out With CiCi by Francine Pascal, both about the same girl, Victoria, and very funny.

Does anyone else remember Daphnes Book by Mary Downing Hahn? Such a moving story.

Also Night Kites by M.E Kerr

Thats right Scouse and they ran it like a right little business too.
I read pretty much every babysitters book, bit like the teenage literary version of a soap.
Stacy and her diabetes, Claudia the Japanese american girl with the parents with V high expectations of her, kirsty with her absent father living in her setep dads mansion, mary-ann dating Logan and so on.

Udderly THANK YOU!!!

GoldenGreen - yes, that's right. In the final book, Gemma plays Juliet in the university production (she is on loan from the drama school) and her cousin Ann has a number one hit with 'Rose-Coloured World'.

Wry grin at "I work in a school and our store cupboard is full of dusty old classics from the 80s." I must be even older than 5 thought I was!

Lois Duncan always wrote sinister stories- Stranger with my face was one of hers.

Willard price is still largely in print.

I thought When Marnie was There was called Marnie's Ghost - or was that another one related to it?

I remember Daphne's Book!

This is a long shot, but can anyone remember this? There were a series of science fiction books written by a teenager ( they made a big deal about this on the cover, I think they said he was a genius). All I can remember is that people travelled around space and probably time using portals, where you would dematerilaise and then materialise at your chosen destination. I think you were only supposed to use them now and again as the process wasn't perfect and some cells changed every time, so you get get messed up and come out missing a finger, or with three eyes or something.

I think I'm the only person that ever read it.

I've read loads of these, including Flowers for Algernon only a few months ago. He's mentally retarded, and given a miracle drug so gets more and more intelligent. He falls in love and becomes a complete genius, but the drug starts to fail an he reverts to his former state. I loved it.

Does anyone remember an American book about a teenage girl who discovers she was a missing child, turns out her parents thought she was their grandchild but raised her as thier own. Her sister/mother was part of a strange cult and they kidnapped her then left her with the grandparents.
There was a sequal as well but I didn't really like that one (she was dealing with the emotional fall out, working at a radio station) because they split her and her boyfriend up.

I thought he chose not to take the drug any more in Flowers for Algernon?

The Homeward Bounders by Diana Wynne Jones
The Kevin and Sadie series by Joan Lingard
Anne of Green Gables
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Judy Blume
Z for Zacharia
all of Ian Serralier that I could get my hands on...

the best thing is I still have most of them. I can't wait for my children to get to that age

thank you!

The Gemnma books were awesome!
She had such a cool life....

Anyone read Greengage summer or An Episode of Sparrows? Think they were both Rumer Goden

Re: Flowers for Algernon - you could be right, the plot us very similar to an Oliver Sacks story which later became a film ...Robin Williams? Can't remember name.

Did anyone read My afriend Flicka or the Jill books on if which was titled 'Jill Has Two Ponies' which made me think Jill was a touch greedy.

The Oliver Sacks story/Robin Williams film is Awakenings, and it is a true story of his own experiences as a relatively young doctor, not a novel. The character RW plays is based on OS himself.

I wonder whether Flowers for Algernon was influenced by it?

Who mentioned Back Home? I loved that book, wasn't she called Rusty? And she came back from being evacuated to the US and is sent to a really strict boarding school and is very unhappy. She thinks about throwing herself off the scaffolding at one point I think.

And The Drina series.Must find those again. I have a few chapters of one in a ballet compendium type thing. I'm not sure I ever read the later ones.

We did Red Sky in the Morning at school, and Z for Zachariah and Flowers for Algernon too. I'd completely forgotten until this thread!

Back Home was adapted for TV a while ago I think. The woman who played Raquel in Corrie was in it.

One that has just come to me is about a girl who lived on a planet called Isis with a robot. She meets a boy who I think is from Earth (called Mark?) and they fall in love, despite the fact that she has green skin. It might have been called Isis but I'm not sure.