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?

I have the full set of Wells books plus every children's book that Noel Streatfeild wrote.

Other old favourites include (and I have copies of all these):
Rebecca's World
The Lost Prince
The Whispering Knights
The Midwinter Violins
The Tree That Sat Down, The Stream that Stood Still, The Mountain of Magic and The Wickedest Witch in the World - all by Beverly Nichols.

I also loved the books Masha and The Circling Star by Mara Kaye but can't find copies that don't cost £££.

Oh, and the Silver Crown. Creepy!

Henrietta yes I had them as Sunday school prizes. There's two more. Turin's revenge and Something's (tugbad?) Lair if I remember correctly. They're also released them under different names (and renamed the children too)and there's a musical based on Hagbane's Doom too.

Although Hagbane's Doom was so clearly an imitation of The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe it was irritating, but Gublak's greed was excellent.

DeeWe - that musical must be something to behold!!

And yes, very CS Lewis derived...

I also loved What-a-mess. I had a strange book called Rackety Packety House which was about dolls living together. They were all rather irritating I seem to remember. My really obscure one was Fifth Form at St Dominic's by Talbot Baines Reed. It was written in the 1880s and I just loved it. I was born nearly a hundred years later. And a girl. But archaic boys' school stories really floated my boat.

Oh please: has anyone heard of a set of books (3 I think) where the children went through, not over, a wall into another land called Aquilegia? Been trying to track them down for ever.
I really liked the Kemlo books, about children living on a sort of International Space Station, and because they were born there they dudn't need breathing apparatus.
Then I also love, still do for reading aloud to children, The Voyage of QV66 by Penelope Lively. Wonderful anthropomorphic characters, a dog called Amal (because if the picture on a can of dog food), a motherly cow, a kitten who is brainless and pretty etc, all trying to find what Stanley is. It's brilliant to do the voices.

Dog called Pal, stupid autocorrect. Nothing to do with a Clooney at all.

DeeWe, we know Hagbane's Doom The Musical rather too well, as DD was Hagbane in the school's version (she has the hair for it), but I hadn't heard of the other books. Might have a rootle on Ebay and surprise her.

I'm currently reading Power of Three (Diana Wynne Jones) - we were given it in a bundle of old books from step-MIL. It's rather good!

Oooh, Power of Three is fantastic. One of my very favourites when I was younger. Must get it for DD.

Tai-Lu abroad 50s book about a Siamese cat. Can't remember much about it now but I kept re-reading it - probably because there weren't many books in the house.

Fannyupcrutch! You did NOT dream it! I remembered I saw that book in the library, only you misremembered the title - it's A TASTE OF BLACKBERRIES by Doris Buchanan Smith - done some googling - it's still out there so you could get a copy! Best of luck!
I remember so many of the books people are mentioning - William The Dragon (loved the roast potatoes!) Two Thumb Thomas (loved the talking cats) Bogwoppit - Bottersnikes and Gumbles (family favourite, we still have all the books) Paula Danziger, Olga Da Polga (I had pet guineapigs of my own!) Ahhh, memories!

Phoebe and the Hot Water Bottles - it was my favourite. Phoebe gets a new hot water bottle every time she does something good, I think, although she really wants a puppy. Then there's a fire and she puts it out with the hot water bottles and is a heroine and then finally gets a puppy. Hurrah!

I remember Phoebe and the hot water bottles.

Not read the whole thread. These may have come up.

Loved - The Little Go To Sleep Book, Little Owl, The Intergelatic Omniglot, Save The Last Dance For Me and Girlfriend in a Coma.

Little kids books up to big kids books.

Massive spoiler there notnow

Sorry

How have I missed this thread? On page 7 so far and, before I forget, check to Olga da Polga, Ludo and the Star Horse, Cynthia Hartnett (seen these in the library recently), and Children of the Oregon Trail. Off to read some more of the thread now.

I'll raise you ladies "Pookie", Alison Uttley's "Enchantment"' "Travels of Oggie" and Eric Thomson's Magic Roundabout stories.

Leon Garfield, anyone?

My favourite book as a child was The Greyhound by Helen Griffiths. I recently bought it from Amazon for my 8 year old daughter but she doesn't seem too impressed. She's plodding through a chapter every few nights but in the meantime has devoured about 20 Goosebumps!!

BlueChampagne - have you read Children on the Oregon Trail as an adult? I remember reading it in primary school, making maps of the trail, waiting desperately for the next installment. I searched out a copy for dd, and was sadly disappointed - at least in part because I'd always thought it was autobiography not fiction.

Can I add two more that I'm surprised no-one has mentioned: The Fair to Middling by Arthur Calder Marshall, and The Man who Was Magic by Paul Gallico. Both slightly strange semi-morality tales, but not with the conventional moral resolution you'd necessarily expect.

Oh, and another one - The Dribblesome Teapots, by Norman Hunter. He wrote the Professor Branestawm books, but IMO his Incrediblania books are even funnier, I struggled to read this one to DD when she was little because half the time I couldn't stop laughing long enough to finish the sentences

I loved Thursday's children! The Diddakoi (sp?) by Rumer Godden

I really like all Noel Streatfeild's books especially her autobiographical "The Vicarage Family,

Jill the pony books, Mary O' Hara's horsey books - my friend Flicka and Thunderhead, and the Pullen-Thompson sisters - there were loads.

School books -the Chalet School series, I so wanted to go to boarding school (why)?

Did anyone else like Penelope Lively's children's books - Going Back, A Stich in Time, Astercote? They had a dreamy magical quality as did Marianne Dreams can't remember who that is by? Our library doesn't seem to have most of these authors anymore when DC are looking for books to read. I must be getting old!

Lastly when I was a teenager I had a book called 'Mischling Second Degree' - it was a puffin I think with a yellow cover. My dad gave it to me and wrote in the front with a quotation from the book. I lent it to a friend and never got it back. I think about it sometimes because it was a lovely inscription and he is sadly no longer with us.

I loved "An Old Magic" by Ruth M Arthur - I used to borrow it from the library frequently. I tracked down a copy on eBay recently and it's just as good as I remembered

Other favourites include When Marnie was there and Charley.

I also had a battered green hardback that was probably ancient even in the seventies - it was about a little girl who was in Scotland on holiday and the local children were horrible to her - I think one of them was called Elspeth. Remember them all going blackberrying but I cannot remember the title of the book

Oh and I forgot two very obscure ones - probably written in the 1940s - my mum had some old books of hers and my parents were keen on auctions and used to come back with job lots including boxes of musty books . Two I liked were "the children who lived in a barn" and "we went to live in Scotland" Exciting titles were obviously not deemed necessary.. The main attraction for me was the absence of adults as children were left to fend for themselves. There was a another thread on Mumsnet today on what you dreamed of as a child and I think this could have been something. Obviously at that point I hadn't read Lord of the Flies...