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?

Thank you, Deewe!

Love this thread!

I remember loads of these:

Olga da Polga
Ramona books
Rumar Godden books
Little Grey Rabbit

My dc are also voracious readers and I've had a huge nostalgic trip buying and re-reading all my childhood faves.

Not sure if it's been mentioned but....The Bullerby Children? I remember reading the whole book in Hendon Library in 1982 while my mum looked something up. Dd has a copy on her bookshelf now

Break in the Sun - Bernard Ashley - the book from the TV series

I have a couple of very obscure ones, anyone remember these:

I think the title was All About Aldo. Short chapter book about a boy learning about animals being killed for meat and being uncomfortable about it and thinking about becoming vegetarian.

Hi There Supermouse - about 2 sisters who did dance and drama but one was much better/prettier than the other one.....

And this one no-one has ever been able to identify - I am desperate to know! It's a picture book, large, square about a little girl and this group of 12 men (Greek Gods, idols...??) think they were called January, February etc....? Does this ring any bells with anyone?

I THINK the little girl character might have actually been called 'Little Girl'.

So many books bringing back memories!

I loved Starchild and Witchfire by David Henshall - think it was the only book he wrote. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken was another favourite.

And YY to Grimble and Grimble at Christmas. The later editions were illustrated by Quentin Blake ... a match made in heaven!

I've still got The Tree That Sat Down and it's two sequels and prequel - very whimsical and moralizing, but delightful!

Loved Grimble ('do not eat this biscuit as eating green ink is bad for you').

And Hi There Supermouse, plus sequel 'Nicola Mimosa', as well as all the other Jean Ures. One of them I only ever had from the library - I think it was called Frankie's Dad. Bloody awful - this little girl is either in care or living with unpleasant mum and stepfather, and her father, who lives in Jamaica, returns for a bit and is lovely, but I think for whatever reason it ends with her back in the horrible home on a urine soaked mattress! I think the craze for comforting endings must have been a very 1990s/21st century thing in children's books!

Great thread; thanks, OP!

Flappingandflying mentioned The Little White Horse and the wonderfully named Loveday Minette.

When I joined MN I wanted my NN to be LovedayMinette, but was told the name was taken. Wouldn't mind, but the poster with that name has either never actually used it or has had all her posts deleted, as no posts come up in Advanced search.

My obscure children's book is a collection of Victorian fairy tales called (surprise surprise) The Necklace of Princess Fiorimonde and Other Stories. I still have my copy, though it's lost its front cover. It was beautifully illustrated with engravings, though sadly I wrecked mine with felt tips when I was about 8. Many of the stories are a bit of a sobfest...

Lots of books mentioned here I've never heard of! But yy to things like Children on the Oregon Trail, The Silver Sword and I Am David.

Anyone else remember Ash Road, which is about children surviving a bush fire in Australia?

Just remembered another one a - picture book called Hop Along Jenny - about a little girl with a bad leg who befriends a group of donkeys.....

Oh Dancergirl that is another one I have been looking for! If it is the same one it is a Cinderella type tale of a girl living with evil stepsisters who make her go and find strawberries in January, violets in ...whenever violets are not around...Rather than saying "piss off you delusional sadists" she wanders around in the wood and finds the months of the year having a meeting and they make the appropriate month for her and she skips off back to the unappreciative sisters with a basket of violets/ strawberries/ apples/ whatever.

It may be called Violets in the Snow or Strawberries in the Snow. But the version I am looking for was in a school reading book, in the Elf Light and Candle Light/ Fire Light and Taper Light type title series, which were gold and silver. There was also a story about a winged horse, probably Pegasus. I have bought a few of those books but they never have chapter listings so its a bit random - haven't found the one so far.

outofcheese, your point about views on age appropriateness is interesting. I was a voracious reader with a precocious reading age. I remember our neighbour asking my mum whether I ought to be reading, at 9, 'Anna and the King of Siam', the book on which 'The King and I' was based. It was full of concubines and ill treatment. Mum airily said she encouraged me to read whatever I wanted.

Oddly though, a year earlier, Mum stopped me reading a book called 'Forty Odd' by Mary Bard, which appears to be about a woman's feeling as she aporoached the menopuase (according to Amazon). Before it was taken off me I was finding it very funny. I can't think why it was prohibited and keep meaning to get hold of a copy but get put off by the price.

I remember it began "I awoke on my fortieth birthday......". I was so indignant at its removal that I decided to write my own version. It began "I awoke on my forty first birthday......... " .

ThomasRichard the last two Trebizons are both £3.48 for Kindle (you can read on your PC if you don't have a kindle).

I had a book called War of the Computers by Granville Wilson, that I think was my intro to sci-fi and I read it pretty young, 8 or 9 maybe, and immediately turned back to the beginning and read it again!

Out of Cheese Error Waterbound, by Jane Stemp.

So many more books that I loved as a child - and many I still love now!

The Rumer Godden books - The Diddakoi was a childhood favourite, and I have In This House of Brede, and Thursdays Children, which are adult books.

I collected most of the Malcolm Saville Lone Pine books - I grew up in Shropshire from age 10, and knew some of the locations mentioned, at least to drive past. I longed to be one of the Lone Pine gang - I was a lonely child.

Some others have come to mind - The Little White Horse, by Elizabeth Goudge; anything by Eva Ibbotson; the Sue Barton nursing series by Helen Dore Boylston, and though they probably don't count as obscure, all the Arthur Ransomes.

I still have a lot of the books I loved as a child - all the ones I have mentioned on here, apart from the Diddakoi - plus all the Chalet School books, and I do reread them from time to time - I think good children's fiction carries on being fun to read however old you are.

I think you are right SDTG, I read The Children of Green Knowe every year in December because I love the depiction of Christmas.

Glad to see Bottersnikes and Gumbles making an appearance! one of my favourites.

I have the Olga da Polga books for DS1 to read - bought them some years ago in preparation! We have guineapigs, so hoping that it will encourage him to read them. He managed to read Paddington but I think found them a bit longwinded (he's only 7 though, plenty of time).

Also Snugglepot and Cuddlepie - I was given the album by an Australian friend of my parents, and oh I loved it! May Gibbs - classic stuff.

Also the Princess and the Goblins, and the Princess and Curdie - lovely books.

I have the Carbonel books too - I used to look longingly at the big glass decanters in the chemist shops after that, and wonder if it was all true!

And when I got a bit older, The Aunt Hill, or Seven Cousins, followed by a Rose in Bloom, written by L.M.Alcott and actually I preferred them to Little Women etc.

Laura the story of the girl looking for Strawberries in the snow etc. was in the (I think) blue Fairy book by Andrew Lang. There are a few and this was definitely in one of them!

Oh, I remember 7 cousins and Rose in Bloom..... I was a bit at the casual inbreeding later on though!

auberginesrus Brother in the Land was one of our set texts at school - you're the only other person I've come across who has read it! Have I remembered correctly that the title come from the protagonist's mother having another baby who died from radiation sickness?

came

Meh, cousins. Happened a lot.

Okay, off-topic but why can't I see this thread anywhere? It's disappeared from my Threads I'm On list, it doesn't show up in Chat and I have to keep doing an Advanced Search on the title to find it. I thought I must have accidentally hidden it so I clicked on Hide thread hoping to unhide it and promptly got a message telling me I'd hidden it, so it's not that. Help!

ComeLuckyApril - thank you!

If you have hidden it, Pagenotfound (peculiarly apposite name under the circs! ) then you have to go into Customise to unhide it. :)

PageNotFound, the title came from a quote: "he who buries his brother in the ground is everywhere." The protagonist has a brother, who dies near the end of the book. But the protagonist's girlfriend's sister had a baby described as a 'Hiroshima baby', who dies as a result of severe radiation-caused birth defects. And considering I haven't read the book in thirty odd years, it obviously stuck in my mind.

The other nuclear apocalyptic book that we all read was 'Children of the Dust'. Less realistic. And having read it very recently I can say that it wasn't great. And appeared to be a fairly lame rip-off of 'The Chrysalids'.

Thanks jeee, that's all come screaming back to me now.

And thanks Thumb, it is appearing on my list of hidden topics under Customise, but clicking on the 'show' button isn't making any difference. At least I can find it in there though.

Robert O 'Brian The Silver Crown . This book was pretty scary when U was eleven. Does anyone else remember it?