Books that you never managed to read as a child . . .

[Takver]

I was thinking this as I sorted out dd's bookshelf with her at the weekend. We threw out Moonfleet, Children of the New Forest, and The Far Distant Oxus. All three were mine, and despite starting them lots of times (I always thought I ought to like them, they sounded so promising) I never got past the first few chapters. DD has also never read any of them.

It made me wonder if other people have books like that; ones they always wanted to like, but never quite could? (Also prompted by the fact that The Children of the New Forest is quite often recommended on here, obviously other people didn't have the same problem with it!)

I had to read Moonfleet at school. I loved reading and would give most things a go, but never really had a clue what was going on in that one! You didn't miss much

Swallows and Amazons.

When I said I didn't enjoy it and couldn't get into it, my English teacher told me that clearly it was because I was so stupid that I couldn't read a book. What a way to inspire a love of reading

That's awful, treaclesoda :(

I could never get into the Famous Five! It just never took me.

They made Children of the New Forest into a tv series which I loved but I couldn't get into the book either. I never managed to finish the Narnia books. Loved LWW, quite enjoyed Magician's Nephew, limped through Silver Chair and then gave up.

I think I tried Children of the New Forest and gave up as well.
Moonfleet I read as an adult. It's a good book but the language is complicated so probably more suitable for teens or adults.
I feel the same about Treasure Island which we had and I remember failing to read.

The Hobbit.

I just found it dreadful and then it all came up again with the films etc. and I had to say all over again that I hated it and would NOT be seeing the films and sound like a spoilsport.

(Actually I did have to endure one of the films and it was just as bad as I had expected).

There's so many. I had lots of books but just wasn't into reading stories as a kid. I did have story tapes- without these I'd not know any children's stories at all!

Never read/listened to:

Black beauty
Alice in wonderland
Narnia (but watched tv series)
Enid blyton
All but 3 of Beatrix potter
Dr Seuss
Read only the first chapter of children of the new forest
Same with railway children
Sweet valley high (saw on tv)
Point horror
All but one judy bloom
Wind in the willows
Tom Sawyer & huckleberry Finn
Tolkien
Anne of green gables
What Katy did (what did katy do?)

All I did read was Ronald Dahl, the babysitters club, anastasia something (series) and some Nancy Drew

Moonfleet as well, here; also Kidnapped, and The Prisoner of Zenda, all of which my mum night me thinking I would love them, and I never could quite get into them :( she gave me The Prisoner of Zenda one birthday and I was horribly disappointed as I'd hoped for another book in a series I was reading (escapes me now...) - I had to keep pretending I'd read it and felt really awful. I did like Children of the New Forest, though!

*bought me!

Swallows and Amazons was too worthy and outmoded for my young taste.

I remember trying to read Heidi on several occasions, but never got beyond the first few chapters.

Loved the TV series with the dodgy dubbing though!

Harry Potter. cant stand it, hate the films too but ds (6) is now obsessed and has all the books (given to him by his dad) which I have to read with him every flaming night. and the box set of films. grr. I now know more than I ever wanted to about the stupid flaming wizard! to be fair to ds he is only six....he will grow out of it.....I hope

Takver my teacher was an utter knob and I inwardly did the at him . Ironically I'd always been a keen reader and although he did manage to shake my confidence and put me off for a year or two, I bounced back in the end. I feel like tracking him down to tell him that I even read books with big words in them. For fun

Another vote for Heidi, I eventually finished the book after watching the series on TV. Lorna Doone. I think I read most of the others I had, but preferred Enid Blyton's (The Land of Far Beyond, I think it was called) version of Pilgrims Progress to John Bunyon's. Jackieharris I'm amazed you remembered all those!

I never read the Swallows and Amazon series for a really silly reason. At about the time I might have read them, they rearranged the library and took out a number of the Five find-outer books, which I was midway through reading, and replaced the whole shelf with Arthur Ransomes. The really big hard-backed books. So when dm tried to get me to try one, I refused and never touched them out of principle.

I read them as an adult and I would have loved them as a child if I'd let myself. . The dc love them though.

My dsis refused to read the Lone Pine Series after reading in the foreword that Dickie and Mary were "identical twins". She had a sense of outrage disproportionate to the mistake.

I never really liked Roald Dahl. I think he goes over the line between fun and plain silly at times. But I did read most of them.

I think I read most mentioned here and loved them though . I got dd1 Moonfleet for Christmas, and I think she liked it. We read itat school in year 8 and I think mostly enjoyed it.
The copy I had of "Children of the New Forest" I loved the language, and was most put out when dd2 was reading it to find they'd updated it. Mind you, the copy I read was at dgrans, which we would go down to regularly and she had to read various copies of Boys Own, Aeroplane spotters, "Winning her way" (Sunday school prize from 1920s! which is very much waht "Daisy Pulls it off" is taking off.) and a Toby Twirl annual... so there was very little competition.