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?

The Rebels of Journey's End by Diana Frances Bell. She was only 12 or 13 when she wrote it. It was published by Puffin when I was young, and I wanted to re-read it so bought a copy off Abe recently. It was only about £3, and I hadn't taken in till it arrived that I was buying a hardback 1969 first edition with dust jacket! Rather chuffed by that!

LauraChant The Matthew books were written by one of my Mum's best friends. She died a couple of years ago. Am going to tell my Mum you have read them to your children. She will be so pleased.

www.amazon.co.uk/Greatest-Store-In-The-World/dp/0340743360

I bought this recently as it took me forever to remember what it was called and it stuck in my head forever. Who wouldn't want to live in a shop?!

Capewrath - my Granny has a copy of Ferdinand the Bull at her house, and I read it to DS 2 (6) recently and he adored it!

Other favourites I remember or have come across at my Granny's house are:

Harold Hare's Garden Party ( where he mixed all his favourite foods together and can't understand why it tastes DISGUSTING!)

Moorland Mousie - ( about an Exmoor pony who grew up on the moor and then got rounded up and sold)

Orlando the Marmalade Cat

The 'Jinny' pony books - she lived in Scotland and had a beautiful Arab called Shanti iirc

The 'Jill' pony books - yes I was a pony mad kid...

Love The Giant Jam Sandwich and a few others mentioned previously

Jojay, so glad. It deserves to be better known. The illustrations are wonderful. I especially love the corks on the cork oak trees. My mistake, burned by the Nazis, not banned by the U.S.

I found Gobbolino scary. And her other famous one The Little wooden horse sad. But DS loved the little wooden horse.

I've just reread The Cuckoo Clock by Mrs Molesworth. How I loved it. Along with Frances Hodgson Burnett.

for those of you who loved five dolls in a house, I actually corresponded with the author as a child for a few years and was lucky enough to go to her house for tea- she was lovely and I remember we had chocolate rice crispy cakes. my dad built me a replica of the house and I spent years collecting the dolls and furnishing it and finding the monkey on the roof.
She also wrote a sequel called five dolls and their friends.
my father also built me a replica of Miss Muggin's shop from the Milly Molly Mandy stories - which I still have. I was a lucky child.

Elizabeth Enright's four novels about the Melendy children, starting with The Saturdays. Haven't rtt so apologies if someone else has mentioned them. They are terrific.

Children of the Oregan Trail
The Incredible Journey
Anything involving ponies, Josephine Pullien-Thompson, Ruby Ferguson's Jill books
Swallows and Amazons series
The Kon-tiki Expedition when 10 years old, followed by most of the books my dad bought and read. I was the ultimate bookworm, often reading several in a week

Bottersnikes and Gumbles - read this in junior school and loved it so much. But couldn't quite the title until now. Thank you.

Necklace of Raindrops - quite magical.

Farthest Away Mountain - I so wanted to be Daykin, and cleverly out smart gargoyles.

Land of Far Beyond - quite chilling, and it was only years later that I realised it was about Christianity.

Moomin Midsummer Madness - Ioved them all, but this was my favourite. Such a sweet melancholic atmosphere.

The Satanic Mill - bleak, dark and sinister. Terrified the ten year old me.

A Traveller in Time - my all time comfort read.

But I've got some truly obscure ones. Anyone else remember:

The Sister's Tale - set in pre Christian Ireland. Two sisters, daughters of wealthy farmer. One is pressured to marry her father's (secretly) corrupt overseer but escapes and marries a heroic, local rebel instead. The other falls in love with local lad who turns out to be illegitimate son of a Danish prince, and she follows him to Denmark and marries him. Beautifully written and full of adolescent yearnings.

When the Night Crow Flies - set in the Seventies. About a middle aged, bumbling white witch and her niece and nephew. They take on the local witches coven of 'black' witches intent on doing evil. And win. Jokey in parts but also sinister.

Island in a Green Sea - set in the Seventies on a Hebriddean island. 13 year old local girl with 'the Sight' gets be friended by visiting female student researching the history of the island. Haunting book.

Bonfire Night - young boy moves to a new town. Intrigued by girl next door who acts mysteriously. Turns out she is the leader of group of local kids conspiring to have their own bonfire and fireworks. Lots of hidden dens. Secret signs. Whispered codes. Brilliant stuff.

I Own The Race Course - young boy overhears a conversation and mistakenly thinks he is suddenly the owner of a run down race course. He starts trying to smarten it up and make it successful again. Really heart warming and uplifting.

Thought of another one, but can't remember the title. A group of animals living in a wood. It's winter, and deep snow makes it really hard for them to get ready for Xmas. But they manage it in the end. Sorry, not much to go on, I know!

Also a children's picture book about a female mouse who makes herself fantastic dancing dresses out of handkerchiefs and scraps of cloth. Illustrations were lovely, especially the one of her wearing a pink & white candy stripped one and matching bonnet.

Land of Far beyond is the Enid Blyton take on John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress isn't it?

Was the Kon Tiki expedition the one that was hand written rather than typed? I remember being fascinated by that too.

Anyone come across the Important People series by Dow?. Strange tales but fantastic drawings, influenced how my mum draws people.

Smith the Lonely Hedgehog.

I loved a book about a little girl called Lotta. She had older brothers and sisters. In one of the stories, she ran away to a little playhouse but came back when it was time for bed. It was beautifully done and I'd love to share it with my DD.

Was there also a TV series about a Lottie and a doll's house? Seem to remember loving that too.

From a long way back in the thread but LoloKazolo you are thinking of The Vandal

www.goodreads.com/book/show/2041579.The_Vandal

One I've always wondered about was a book I read at primary school about a boy having an adventure on what I think was a toy train set somehow but he was actually very ill and in the end died. From something vaccine preventable and I think the adventure was somehow related to discovering the vaccine. Anyway it was very very sad!

The Lotta books are by Astrid Lindgren, who also wrote Pippi Longstocking. They are back in print - I bought them for dd a few years ago.

The Little Bookroom - Eleanor Farjeon - especially the 'How gold's the king of Egypt?' story.

Minnow on the Say - Phillippa Pearce

And loads which have already been mentioned.

Also loved the Miss Bianca books, about an elegant crime solving mouse and her trusty side kick. Especially loved Miss Bianca in the Orient. The Disney film 'The Rescuers' was based on this series of books. Really charming.

And can anyone remember the book, might have been called 'The Littlest Witch' or something like that? She is a rubbish witch always getting spells wrong. The Witches Law states she can't practice magic on Thursdays, but practices in secret and then gets found out! Can't remember the ending but I loved this book when I was 7/8.

The Little Witch by Otfried Preussler?

Wasn't the Lottie and the doll's house TV series that strange one where they all got burned at the end? I was very scared.

Another obscure one I loved so mum dm bought it for me when the library withdrew it was "Clara's Country Year" written about farming life in 19th century. It has a lot of information about farming back then. I shout the harvest rhyme when we see a hay truck still. Dh thinks I'm strange at times:

We ploughed
We sewed
We reaped
We hoed
And we carried it all into the barn with ne'er a load throw'd.

(But I also sing "Riding along in an army truck" from Trumpton when we see an army truck)

Wasn't that Tottie, based on The Doll's House by Rumer Godden?

The Uncle series of books by JP Martin in the 60s and early 70s. Fantasy effortlessly mixing animals and humans. Uncle is an autocratic elephant millionaire in a purple dressing gown who lives in a vast mansion and battles constantly with the hooligans who live in a ruined fortress opposite him. At first I sided with Uncle but gradually realised he was a smug snob and third rate would-be intellectual. Wonderfully subversive, especially when you realise it's written by a vicar.

Tim The Traveller by Dulcima Glasby. Published in 1943. Ostensibly about a cat who treks home to London after being sent away to the country. Again, I missed the point when I first read it. It's actually about the loneliness of child refugees sent away from bombed British cities in WWII.

Jason's Quest by Margaret Laurence written in 1970. Jason is a young mole who's considered to be a bit of a tearaway in Moletown. But he's the only one who realises that the colony is being infected with a creeping sickness of boredom because they are afraid of change. He goes to find the cure by venturing above ground with an ancient map to Londinium with Oliver the Unwise Owl and two cats - the motherly Calico who's determined to prove that cats aren't villains, and flighty Topaz who goes along for the ride.

Yes; Tottie and only Marchpane (bad doll) got burned, I think.

The Last of the Really Great Wangdoodles