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 Last of the Really Great Wangdoodles by Julie Andrews

Absolutely loved it, still do, kept my (autographed ) copy, and now dd adores it too.

The Greene Knowe books

Midnight is a Place

The Laura Ingalls Wilder series. Such good books, so cheapened by the tv series.

Oh, and there was a pony story, with Tamsin, Rissa, Meredith and another couple of children. They camped in a field, performed in a pageant, and caught a gang of horse thieves.

omg just come back to this and several people know what I'm oon about! thank you! reading thread properly now

Loads of Tamsin, Rissa et al stories - they are by Monica Edvards. Still my dd's favourite comfort reading!

I loved the Drina books too. I've still got them all somewhere

Also, Anastacia Krupnik but I think I only read one. Didn't she like making lists or am I getting mixed up?

I used to love the 'Making Waves' and 'Making Out' series by Katherine Applegate and of course, The Baby-sitters Club by Ann M. Martin

llaggerub - yes, that was Trebizon - one of the girls had a rich Greek dad and a bodyguard.

thanks madamehooch - I remembered her name but as that's also my name I wondered if i'd made it up! wish I could help you with yours.

Balthasar - that's it, the dot instead of the line. let me know if you remember any more!

Did anyone like Nicholas Fisk? On the Flip Side featured a girl who could communicate with animals and it was all deeply weird.

Also a collection of stories by Roald Dahl called Henry Sugar? some really spooky stories in there that have stayed with me.

Occasionally Just Seventeen gave away free short stories and I remember the plot of several of those . I clearly wasn't a discriminating reader...

GG - I had a favourite by Nicholas Fisk called Grinny - it was a really gripping tale about a boy who discovered that a long lost relative was really an alien? or a robot - can't remember exactly, but it was soooo exciting! I think that my book review on that was the only thing I got an A for at school!

Yes I remember Grinny, and there was the Demon Headmaster too!

I think Grinny was an alien robot so you've covered both bases CNF

Sequel to a Proper Little Nooryeff was You win some You Lose Some. I think.

Oooh Just Seventeen, GoldenGreen

Used to spend Wednesday afternoons hanging round the letterbox waiting for the paperboy to deliver it
Until I became too cool and graduated to NME

Anastasia did like making lists- there was one at the start of each chapter. She also wrote really good poems that were totally unappreciated by her teachers.

Did anyone else read a trilogy of books by Jean Ure called See you Thursday (and two others) with a girl who fell in love with a man who was blind?

The Runaways by Ruth Thomas is another I read over and over

It was about a boy and a girl who runaway and camp out near Exmoor. The girl bought make up and clothes to make her look older so she could pretend to be the boy's big sister. Loved that one.

Prinnie, we have "The little witch" by Otto Preussler (or similar name), an old German book I think.

this isn't really a kids book, but I read it when I was about 10.
World Class, it's a novel about tennis players moving from amateur to professional tennis. Completely fictional
But the characters!! Christopher!!!
If you like tennis find this book.

The front cover of Grinny still gives me the creeps.

the Enid Blyton book with Fatty is the Find-Outers I think. I remember a good one involving Siamese cats being stolen and one where he pretends to be a waxwork in a museum.

I read everything by Blyton but I think my favourite was the one with Mike, Peggy, Jack and Nora who are mistreated by their relatives (parents are missing presumed dead) and live by themselves on a little island. I really got lost in the fantasy of them providing for themselves and no adults to supervise. The parents do turn up in the end though.

I loved one about a girl who was very similar in appearance to the daughter called Camilla of a v rich woman who tried to make the original girl be the replacement daughter, in the end the girl realises and almost drowns, can anyone help me with that one?

I loved "Mrs Frisby and the rats of Nimh" and anything by Robert O'Brien, we had to write sequels to Z for Zachariah at school and it was interesting to see who wanted a happy ending with her marrying Mr Loomis, and who wanted her to stagger off into the nuclear whatever and have a new life.

Also Cherry Ames nurse books, a whole load given me by a kind auntie when I was in bed with measles..... Noel Stretfield Ballet Shoes, Apple Bough, with fantastic illustrations by Shirley Hughes. John Wyndham - not strictly children's books, but Day of the Triffids, the Chrysalids.....

The Five Find outers and It, I think. It was a dog maybe?
I loved them, lesser known Enid Blyton books

Grinny - Nicholas Fisk
the Fairy rebel - Lynne reid banks

Teddies - it was called The Bewitching of Alison Albright - I loved it too!

ooh thank you coldtits, I will get it out of the library. We had a book b,ub with saving stamps at school, and I remember it was one of the first I had enough stamps for.

And is "The Changeover" by Margaret Mahy the one with a really steamy kiss just bfore something really dramatic happens to the female character? Just looking at the review on amazon but I can't remember if this is the one I am thinking of.

Did anyone else read the Changes Trilogy by Peter Dickinson? It's set in Britain in the (then) modern day but a "sickness" comes over everyone and they reject modern machinery and society moves back to the dark ages.

In the end you find out why this has happened and it's a brilliant twist. It also introduced me to Sikhism and is the reason why I know what the 5 Ks are!

I can't believe so many of these really great books are op

I loved one which I think was called The Silver Sword, or something like that, about some children who lived in a forest during WW2. Seem to remember it was quite sad though, and that there was a bit which always made me cry buckets when the dog ran away at the end.

Also another sad one (with a dog!) about a girl left alone on an island for years and years. I can't remember much about it at all, but I know I was 6 when I first read it because I still remember which classroom I was in! It was very very poignant and there was something about Dolphins in the title, I think. I think that was the first really sad book I ever read.

noahandthewhale - LOVED that book. See you thursday, character was called marianne and he taught her to sing.

He taught her a few other things too ;)