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Children's books

Join in for children's book recommendations.

Original poster

Forgotten Classics

114 replies

beatricequimby · 23/01/2015 20:06

Any recommendations for an 8 year old girl? I am a bit of a children's book hoarder so we have all the obvious ones - Katy books, E Nesbits, Frances Hodgson Burnetts, Little Women, Noel Streatfeilds etc.

Recently discovered Nancy and Plum by Betty MacDonald which I had never heard of. It's lovely and perfect for an 8 year old.

So has anyone got any forgotten classic recommendations? The

OP posts:
Loulou0615 · 09/03/2015 19:28

I absolutely loved Enid Blitons, The wishing chair and The magical far away tree, I will definitely be buying these to read to my daughter when she's old enough

AngusAndElspethsThistleWhistle · 09/03/2015 19:34

Great thread!

I loved lots of the above and also the Flossie Teacake series Smile

PausingFlatly · 09/03/2015 19:43

A Cat Called TooToo, and all the other TooToo books by Warren Chetham-Strode.

Yy to Joan Aiken, including the Mortimer the Raven books.

I loved the Hardy Boys at that age, and as for Biggles - well hands off, he was mine.

Ubik1 · 09/03/2015 19:45

Yy to all these

'Iggy and Me ' very popular. My eight year old currently ploughing through Harry Potter .

She also enjoyed the How to Train Your Dragon series.

PausingFlatly · 09/03/2015 19:45

Gerald Durrell the naturalist did some rather fun children's books too.

BabyClam · 09/03/2015 19:51

Can I add these;
Moondial - Helen cresswell
Rebecca's world - terry nation
Marmalade Atkins
The cuckoo sister

PausingFlatly · 09/03/2015 19:53

Oh yes yes to any Helen Creswell.

Rebecca's World was one of my favourite ever books.

That and A Dog So Small by Philipa Pearce.

Raahh · 09/03/2015 20:01

Baby and Pausing- I loved Rebecca's World . It was read to us at school, and I have been searching for a copy for years (that isn't a spoken word version, or REALLY expensive!).

MeAndMySpoon · 09/03/2015 20:02

Everything here makes me smile fondly. Grin

What about The Swish of the Curtain? (the others in the series too, but maybe a bit more grown-up) Fab if your child already likes Ballet Shoes, etc.

RustyBear · 09/03/2015 20:13

I'd totally forgotten A Cat called Tootoo until you mentioned it, Pausing! that was the one about the cockney Siamese living with a 'posh' one, wasn't it?

BadPenny · 09/03/2015 20:18

What a trip down memory lane... Animal stories were my thing:

My Friend Flicka, Thunderhead and The Green Grass of Wyoming (Mary O'Hara)

I think I was somewhere around 8/9 when I read the James Herriot vet books - which were great!

SerenaJoy · 09/03/2015 20:23

Not sure if it's the right age but I loved Bottersnikes and Gumbles by S.A. Wakefield. It's out of print, so I spent twenty a few ok thirty five quid getting it from Abe Books. But please don't tell my DH Smile

AnneOfCleavage · 09/03/2015 20:27

I loved the Jill series - pony mad Jill Crewe was my idol growing up

DD loved:

Goodnight Mr Tom
Malory Towers series
Twins at St Clares
Pippi Longstockings
Hollow Tree House
The Borrowers

SorrelForbes · 09/03/2015 20:38

I still have my copy of Rebecca's World.

So many of my favourites on this thread. Can I also add:
Beverly Nicols: The Mountain of Magic, The Tree that Sat Down, The Stream that Stood Still.

FH Burnett: The Lost Prince

(There's an E Nesbitt type sequel out now about the Bastable children, set in WWI)

PausingFlatly · 09/03/2015 20:52

That's it Rusty. Ooh yes, I'd forgotten about TooToo's posh girl friend.

BIWI · 09/03/2015 20:59

OMG for years now I've been trying to remember what the book was where the children pooled their pocked money on a Saturday! Thank you so much Takver (and others) who named the book!

I loved:

The three Katy books
The whole Mary Poppins series
The whole Anne of Green Gables series
The Railway Children
Little Women/Good Wives (and was there another one?)
and of course, the Chalet School books

BIWI · 09/03/2015 21:00

pocked?! pocket, obviously Blush

yummytummy · 09/03/2015 21:02

I loved the little princess and secret garden I think by frances hodgson burnett

MeAndMySpoon · 09/03/2015 21:36

I'm finding that DS1 (7) doesn't seem to have the appetite for nostalgia - well, maybe it's not nostalgia, perhaps more a curiosity for a different age - for 'old fashioned' books that I did. Most of what I read in the 80's was set in (and written in) the 50's or earlier - the Astrid Lindgren books are all set in the past, the Elizabeth Enright (Melendy children) books were wartime or post-war, Ballet Shoes and all those ones, Swish of the Curtain, Green Knowe, all of Rumer Godden was written long before I was born ... I loved immersing myself in a time that was long past. I loved the antiqueness of it.

I've been reading him Astrid Lindgren's Emil books (Clever Pig, Sneaky Rat, etc) and while he likes Emil getting up to mischief, the 19th century stuff bewilders him a bit. I lapped it up.

Can I add Penelope Lively to the list if nobody has yet? Wonderful writer. A Stitch in Time is fab, Thomas Kempe is good and quite sinister, Astercote is downright spooky.

Hobbes8 · 09/03/2015 21:39

Lots of people love goodnight Mister Tom but I loved Back Home by the same author.

Also the Trebizon boarding school series was more modern than Malory Towers - they had boyfriends!

What was the book about the Labrador called Emma who was training to be an guide dog?

MovingOnUpMovingOnOut · 09/03/2015 21:43

I read EVERYTHING by Penelope Lively as a child and yet I've never read Moon Tiger that I have had on my bookcase for years.

I'm pleased to see the Beverley Nichols books on here. They had been a fuzzy, half forgotten memory for so long and now I remember :)

Inspired by this thread I've just bought Alpaca by Rosemary Billam which isn't the right age range but was my absolute favourite when I was tiny. My daughter can have it read to her now and I'm sifting through more Picture Lions which I had forgotten even existed.

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 09/03/2015 22:03

BIWI - there are four LM Alcott books that I know of - little Women and Good Wives, and Little Men and Jo's Boys - the last one is about the school that she and Franz Bhaer set up at Plumfield, iirc.

CelticPromise · 09/03/2015 22:57

Fab ideas and memories here. Which Witch? was my favourite Eva Ibbotson. Also loved Pippi Longstocking and Peter Pan and Wendy is still one of my favourites.

How about 101 Dalmatians and the sequel The Starlight Barking? Loved them very much.

Betsy Byars books. The Eighteenth Emergency and others by her; they are very American but I really enjoyed them.

Watership Down.

SanityClause · 09/03/2015 23:13

LM Alcott also wrote a book called Eight Cousins, which also had a sequel, which I can't remember the name of.

More moralising of the same sort as the Little Women books, TBH, but I did like them as a child.

TheOneWithTheTerribleName · 09/03/2015 23:17

I see a couple of people have mentioned Carbonel - wanted to bump it up there! There are 3 of these.

Anything by Noel Streatfield.

And things like The Boy with the Bronze Axe, Eagle of the Ninth.