Obscure children's books that you used to love

[LadyPlumpington]

Mine is 'The Island of the Skog' by Steven Kellogg. The DC love it too :)

What are your old obscure favourites?

So many lovely books remembered here! I've always been a huge fan of Alan Garner and Diana Wynne-Jones, plus I love Joan Aitken, especially A Necklace of Raindrops. And 'the thirteen says of Christmas' is now my daughter's favourite book.

Does anyone remember 'The silver crown'? I recently reread it, it's really very strange but still just as good.

You Are Ri-Di-Cu-Lous by Andre Francois

Fannyupcrutch - the book you're thinking of is called A Taste Of Blackberries, by Doris Buchanan Smith. The little boy that dies was called Jamie, and he had an allergic reaction to a bee sting. It's very sad but beautifully written.

I had the book version of the TV series Children of the Stones - very, very scary. Also The Whispering Knights by Penelope Lively which scared the crap out of me.

How can the Wells books be out of print?! We loved them - my sister was a proper pink ballet girl and I had a crew cut and played football but we both loved those books. Mrs Crapper and her kippers and the ongoing mystery of Veronica "making her toilet" every morning.

I shipped Veronica and Sebastian like crazy. I didn't know there was a Vicky in Venice. I haven't read that one!

I also loved this book and I can't remember the name of it, but it was set in near future Britain and every night everyone drank a drink that erased their memory, which meant all crimes were prevented and nobody was ever really sad. Each person had a little dictaphone type machine called "The memory", on which they could store important things but otherwise it was all gone. The main character was called Paul I think. And there was a little shoot of a tree growing up through the pavement. But for some people their memories broke through, they remembered sort of folk memories? Like bonfire night and soul cakes and the running of the bounds, and it burst out of them so they had to be sent away to the country, into the fields, to live in the old ways without disrupting modernity. I LOVED this book when I was a child and i wish I knew how to find it! I thought it was called The Gift but I've mixed up the title with another book I had.

Does anyone recognise this book?

I panicked as this disappeared from my Threads I'm On list!

DeeWe the Cornish Gold story wasn't a proper book, it was a comic-style spin off from Bunty or Debbie or one of those girl's comic - what we'd now call a graphic novel, I suppose. I can remember one of the illustrations was CG lying on the ground with someone (probably the heroine) feeling his ears to assess how near death or otherwise he was!

I can remember a snippet of a book I loved to read when staying at my gran's house. It would have been my aunt's so was probably written 1920s-1940s. I can't remember the title or author; I just remember a bit of the plot - the family had lost their income or were short of money for something, and the children started selling homemade produce round their (idyllic middle-class) village from the back of their pony and cart. I remember it was the first time I came across the term "seed cake" and it sounded impossibly exotic.

I also loved the Abbey books by Elsie J Oxenholm, but I doubt they'd be considered obscure.

I also used to love the A5 ish size comic books with extended stories from comics at the time like Bunty

Oh, yes - I can remember several stories which I think were from Mandy/Bunty and possibly even Twinkle annuals:

The Strawberry Handkerchief - about a young actress in a production of Othello

A Cinderella type one where the main character has to stand under a magic rowan tree and recite "Rowan tree, rowan tree, shake your berries down on me" to be transformed

One where a child's mum had phobia of germs/OCD as a result of her toddler sibling picking up a dirty dummy in the street and contracting a fatal illness

And another where a young woman was getting married and a fortune teller says she forsees her in white dress covered in blood. She chooses a pale pink wedding dress to try and break the 'curse' but in the end it turns out to be an incident with a tin of paint!

There was some very strange children's fiction around in the late seventies/early eighties !

Just remembered:

Bridge to Terabitha - sad story about a boy who befriends an 'unusual' little girl and she dies.

There was one about a world where a golden wall divided the haves and the have-nots and a boy got through to the rich side and had to decide whether to stay.... he befriends a boy whose dad keeps bonsai and lobotomy is casually mentioned. Can't remember the name of it.

Another one about a boy who could split himself into twins and did magic shows, but had to re-merge into one after a period of time or terrible things would happen. Twins, maybe? Split?

The Horsemasters by Don Stamford - perfect for a horsey-mad girl.

DH found a copy for my 50th this year and I could nearly recit the whole book!

Great thread, thanks.

YY to Linnets and Valerians. My mum handed down her old copy to me, I'm hoping DD will like it one day so I can read it with her

*recite

I was a voracious reader as a child.
I remember one called Twice in a blue moon, about a goblin and a missing prince, and being totally absorbed in it. From time to time over the years Ive looked but have never been able to find a copy .

Annabel and Bryony - fairies as soldiers (very detailed on the regiments/uniforms). And Bryony was a deeply sexy fairy.

Also, illustrated by Pauline Baynes of Narnia Chronicles fame.

Lady Plumpington, your bonsai and lobotomy book is 'The Guardians' by John Christopher (he wrote the Tripods trilogy). Great book, and unfortunately not available on kindle.

On the subject of dystopian pre-hunger games young adult books, Futuretrack 5 by Robert Westall was brilliant - but very disturbing.

Haven't read the whole thread but I used to love a book called The Saturdays. I think it was very old and definitely american.

Can anyone remember this book? It was set in the future and probably aimed at approx 8-12 year olds, about a society where no-one knew what a disability was, because medicine was very advanced - but then it turned out that there was enforced termination of pregnancies where the foetus was diagnosed with disabilities. I think one of the main characters had a brother who was deaf, and they kept him in hiding but the authorities were suspicious and they had to help him escape.

Perspicacia I haven't read Spiderweb for Two but I loved some of the others in the Melendy series - The Saturdays and And Then There Were Five. the latter made me want to have a sprawling garden so I could can rows of tomatoes, pickles, jam etc.

Giddy It is funny you mention Mr Benn and left wing leanings - have you read Denver by the same author as Mr Benn (and Not Now Bernard, I think)? It is the least left wing children's book I have ever read I think! A massively over-egged message about rich people being rich because they deserve it and if you give poor people money they will squander it fecklessly.

Don't know it out but it doesn't sound much like a children's book!

Cross posted Symphony - The Saturdays was great, I wished I was allowed to wander around New York and do glamorous things.

wyrdbyrd I remember the strawberry handkerchief one! Was it in Tammy? I think the hankie was cursed and the actor playing Othello almost strangles the girl playing Desdemona for real. Also the wedding dress and the blood that turns out to be paint - the sister sees the fortune teller and keeps trying to sabotage the wedding. The "Rowan tree, Rowan tree" one sounds familiar but I can't remember what happens.
Anyone remember Misty annual/comic? Some great stories from there

I remember the story with the tin of paint, think it was from Mandy. Does anyone remember another one from an annual? It was about a girl who found a painting of a Victorian scene and it told the story of the people in it? I think two siblings found each other and died of hunger under a tree? Also Valda, she never aged, but they found an old WW2 plane and she had been in love with the pilot?

Prepperpig - yeah, in hindsight it probably shouldn't have been in our primary school library, though it was written in a less stark way than I described it - it's only remembering it as an adult that I realise the full horror of the concept. I do remember being allowed, even encouraged, to read books with some pretty dark themes at quite a young age - Sophie's Choice when I was about 11, for example. I wonder if ideas about what is age appropriate have changed in the last 30 years or if I just grew up in an overly permissive environment!

I loved Missy Trotter by Elizabeth Taylor which has just been republished and is still fab. 7 yo ds loved it too - can't recommend highly enough.
I had a copy of The Tree That Sat Down by a male author called Beverley Nichols. Think it was some sort of magical tale. Have googled and its out of print now, but was originally published in 1945 so may have been something my dmum read as a child.
Also loved The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier about polish children in WW2, a book called Brother in the Land (possibly by Robert Weston?) about a post nuclear holocaust dystopian future north of England and remember reading The Ghost of Thomas Kempe (Penelope Lively?) at school - about a poltergeist. Found that one quite scary!

*Mossy Trotter (stupid autocorrect phone)

Tusk Tusk

Thanks jeee - 'Bonsai and lobotomy' sounds like a fab book title btw!

Brother in the Land was by Robert Swindells - thanks Google