'The book I'd give to my 10-year-old self' Join our competition to celebrate the announcement of the 10th Waterstones Children's Book Prize shortlist.

[RachelMumsnet]

The Waterstones Children's Book Prize is 10 years old this year. To celebrate this and the announcement of the shortlists for the Waterstones Children's Books Prize 2014 this morning, we're asking you to tell us

The book I'd give to my 10-year-old self

Post your choice and reason on this thread. Everyone who joins will be entered into a draw to win the FULL SET of SHORTLISTED BOOKS - that's 18 books altogether. Here's a list of the shortlist:

Best Picture Book:
Open Very Carefully by Nick Bromley and Nicola O'Byrne (Nosy Crow)
Harold Finds a Voice by Courtney Dicmas (Child's Play International)
Weasels by Elys Dolan (Nosy Crow)
Penguin in Peril by Helen Hancocks (Templar)
Time for Bed, Fred! by Yasmeen Ismail (Bloomsbury)
The Crocodile Who Didn't Like Water by Gemma Merino (Macmillan Children's Books)

Best Fiction for 5-12s:
The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani (HarperCollins Children's Books)
Darcy Burdock by Laura Dockrill (Random House Children's Books)
Shiverton Hall by Emerald Fennell (Bloomsbury)
The Skull in the Wood by Sandra Greaves (Chicken House)
Rooftoppers by Katherine Rundell (Faber and Faber)
The Last Wild by Piers Torday (Quercus)

Best Book for Teens:
The Bone Dragon by Alexia Casale (Faber and Faber)
Butter by Erin Lange (Faber and Faber)
If You Find Me by Emily Murdoch (Orion)
Paper Aeroplanes by Dawn O'Porter (Hot Key Books)
Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys (Penguin)
Geek Girl by Holly Smale (HarperCollins Children's Books)

To kick off: I'd give my ten year old self Wonder by RJ Palacio - as well as it being a wonderful, moving and uplifting story, I'd hope I would pick up on the lesson it manages to teach without begin too preachy about being non-judgemental and kind to others.

This competition has now closed.

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. A friend at Uni introduced me to this and I loved it then but would have really enjoyed it as a ten year old as the book is so fun and has great characters. It would have seemed very grown-up at the time and living in a provincial small town the family life would have seemed even more eccentric.

It's so difficult to choose just one book, but I think I would go for Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I used to daydream about being Laura. This book (along with Anne of Green Gables) really showed me how wonderful it is to be transported to another place and time, and satisfied my daydreaming tendencies.

I forgot a reason. Interesting strong characters including female ones, challenging (atheist) worldview, and a rollicking great fantasy story to escape into.

The Daydreamer by Ian McEwan. Short chapters, full of magical daydreams becoming real. I only discovered this story when I became an English teacher and taught it to a year 7 class, and I wished I could have read it when I was their age, and still a daydreamer myself.

I would give myself any of the Enid Blyton Famous Five books. At the age of 10 I was an avid reader of them - they were everything I needed: adventure, beautiful islands, the sea, beaches, a great bunch of kids, a Dog and of course lots of lemonade! I absolutely loved to escape into their World and I couldn't wait to snuggle up in my bed and read them. They had a profound effect on me and I love the Dorset coast which Enid Blyton based the places in the books around. We visited the Ginger Pop shop in Corfe Castle and the visitor attraction in Poole - in which you can solve a mystery and go through a secret passage - it really brought it all back to me. My parents have saved the whole set of books and I had hoped my own daughter would love them as much as I did. However, she is now 10 and after reading one of them said she prefers Harry Potter!

The book I'd give to my 10-year-old self would be 'A Little Princess' by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Only found the film when was older and became a favorite of mine. Reading a book after seeing the film is never the same.

Definitely T H White's 'The Sword in the Stone' - magical, fascinating and fun!

I have recently given my 10 yr old dd The Outsiders by SE Hinton, heart wrenching and heart warming all at once.

Also The 12th of July, Kevin and Sadie tales of Northern Ireland teenage love during the troubles. Thought provoking.

And, finally, Forever by Judy Blume. I (and 30 years later, dd) read it cover to cover in one sitting. An eye opener into growing up.

I want to read them all again.

I would give myself The Hobbit by J R Tolkein because I always spent my time reading more realistic books like St Trinians and a girls tennis club.. I always fantasised that I could be like one of these girls but perhaps would have helped my creative self if I had of just read something purely fantasy.

I would give my ten year old self Alanna - Song of the Lioness by Tamora Pierce.
One of the most influential, inspiring and exciting books I have ever read.
Made me appreciate how you can totally immerse yourself into a different world through literature. In fact, dd is off sick and ran out of books, and I have just ordered it for her!

Ronia Robber's Daughter by Astrid Lindgren comes second, by a hair's breadth.

When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr

Definitely a book I enjoyed from my own childhood favourites would be The Borrowers and Little Women. They have good old fashioned
morals

Oh I've got a Phillippa Pearce one too "Tom's Midnight Garden" because it's a history lesson and a sci-fi/ghost story rolled into one and really is one of those rare books which appealed as much to me as to DH (we didn't know each other as children but read it at similar ages) and continues to fascinate children today....Our DCs loved it! And Tom was around the age of ten himself so easy to identify with his 'issues' despite it having been written well before I reached that age!

It would have to be a Roald Dahl book for me. I didn't read any of them when I was growing up and have discovered them for the first time through my son. I have read them all to him and we have laughed and been thrilled by each one. I think as a 10 year old girl my favourite would have been Danny Champion of the World so I would give that to myself. What a decision though ... so many books to chose from. Lovely thread.

'Daddy Long Legs' by Jean Webster. I didn't 'discover' this until I was about 13, but my 10 year old self would have adored it. It has a clever, gutsy heroine who loves reading and writing (all like 10 year old me except the gutsy bit!) and, whilst it's also a love story, you get the impression that she'd have been perfectly fine minus the love interest too. Lovely book.

Forgot to include my reasons! Both books really sparked my imagination.... The Phantom Tollbooth had such fun with language in ways I'd not encountered before (and is probably an early influence in my addiction to Listener crosswords), and From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler was one of those books about resourceful, independent children that encourages one to look for magic and excitement in everyday life. I only wish I'd found them sooner in life!

My ten year old self would have loved Philip Pullman's Sally Lockhart series starting with "The Ruby in the Smoke" or maybe Eva Ibbotson's "One Dog and his Boy" (which my nine year old daughter loved). I couldn't wait for my daughter to read "The Little White Horse" by Elizabeth Goudge, which was one of my favourite books as a child. Daughter loved it too!

Goodnight Mr Tom. I read it first when I was 10 and have revisited it so many times. I absolutely love it even though I cry every time I read it.

So many of these but also 'Flambards' and its sequels. I still settle down for a read of these every so often and loved them as pre-teen and younger teenager. I'm on my third paperback copies!

Ooh yes to Sally Lockhart.

Goodnight Opus, by Berkeley Breathed. Beautifully illustrated, this sly skewering of 'Goodnight Moon' teaches kids young and old that it's okay to get carried away, and step out of your comfort zone. We read it to our child every night, and I cry every night.

The Hobbit. My dad read it to me when I was 10 then I promptly read it again straight after by myself. He introduced the world of fantasy and magic to me which I in turn have passed on to my three children. Everyday life needs a bit of magic.

Matilda, by Roald Dahl. It wasn't published when I was 10; if it had been, I would have devoured it, and never let it out of my sight.

I was a very quiet, bookish, introverted and bright child, reading well above my age by then (not always appropriately; I still wonder about the Librarians that let me take out a number of Wilbur Smiths at 10) and I would have adored this tale of a similar (but oh so very different!) girl.

And the circle would complete itself now, as it's my 9 year olds' favourite book.

I would give my 10-year-old self Kiss the Dust by Elizabeth Laird.

It's gritty, realistic and is the story of a family escaping persecution, told through the eyes of Tara (who is probably about 10). Although it's set during the Iraq-Iran crisis, it tells of forced migration, of immigration, of secrecy and desperation in a way that would have made sense to the 10-year-old me.

I've used it with a group of Y4 children in my inner London school where it unearthed a fascination with the geography and geology of mountains, and generated lots of discussion about how hard it is for many people to travel to a country that will let them settle.