What really stands out when you think of your childhood books?

[invisiblegorilla]

For me:

The Chalet School series. The early ones, when Jo was still a pupil! I brought them second hand. Eustacia, Elisaveta and so on. I remember when Jo and co. were given their prefect rooms in the new building and being in love with the descriptions/idea of it all.

Nancy Drew. Can't remember which ones, it's just a lot of investigations and stories blended it together in my memory.

The Chronicles of Narnia. I found the last book a little strange, but I read the first three over and over again.

And anything by Roald Dahl. There's a lot more (anything to do with boarding schools and midnight feasts had me obsessed) but I'm curious about what books other people remember the most.

I used to love:
The Magic Faraway Tree. Remember being completely outraged when reading it as an adult and seeing that PC'ness had done away with Dame Slap (who used to sometimes slap, hence the name) and replaced her with Dame Snap who just used to raise her voice!
FFS. Not quite the same effect!

• Famous Five

• Roald Dahl (especially The Witches, and the girl disappearing into the painting

• Roger Hargreaves Timbuctoo series of animals

• Anne of Green Gables (adored this book and mini series on TV, and still long to visit Prince Edward Island where it was filmed!)

Just re-reading the treads, and of course - Milly Molly Mandy!
How could I forget that?! Loved it. Milly Molly Mandy and her Little Friend Susan...
such an innocent and lovely book may or may not have re-read as an adult upon re-finding

The Secret Seven. They were read numerous times. The Enchanted Wood and The Magic Faraway Tree were my early favourites. I liked Enid Blyton a lot, apart from Noddy.

I also vividly remember the glorious day I discovered that The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe wasn't just a programme on the BBC at Sunday teatime, but a whole set of books. Seven of them. Actual books I could get lost in. Gorgeous, wonderful Narnia. 👑 🦁

Oh Yy, Roald Dahl! Of course! George's Marvellous Medicine and The Twits were both read to us by our teacher. She did the voices for the characters and everything. I asked for them both that Christmas.

Still love Matilda.

Bambambini Thank you! I've been trying to remember the Gemma books for years. I had a vague mishmash of the plots but nothing solid enough to even ask about them on here but it just clicked when I saw your post.

Ladybird books. I love that they've caught onto the nostalgia market and re-released a lot of them.

Topsy & Tim.

Victoria Plum.

The Munch Bunch, and the Garden Gang. Shoe People. Timbuctoo.

Richard Scarry.

Janet & Allen Ahlberg.

Pat Hutchins (loved her illustrations, kind of Orla Kiely like!)

I love finding obscure books and book series' from the 70s/80s that I used to read- the Junglies, the Blobs, A.Mazing Monsters. Lumpo the Postman, This Is Betsy.

Then later -

Flossie Teacake's Fur Coat

The House that Floated Away

Which Witch

Demon Headmaster

Miss Happiness and Miss Flower

Help, I am a Prisoner in a Toothpaste Factory.

Judy Blume.

I think I have more love for my old books now than i did then!

A County Child - Alison Uttley (haven't seen it mentioned, though other Uttleys)

Elidor

Many others cited above. Want to find and reread Carbonel now.

Green Smoke. Lovely book.

The Flossie Teacake books were brilliant.

OP, I hope you don't mind - I've reported the thread and asked if it could be moved to the Children's Books topic. It would be a shame for it to go up in smoke :)

Shadows - thank goodness someone else remembers Regina. I can still picture her with her lovely thick dark hair.

I don't mind if it's moved! There's a great collection of books here and it'd be a shame for it to be lost.

I remembered my childhood Stephen King obsession this morning. Stand By Me, Firestarter, the short story collections, and then the creepier stuff like IT and The Shining. I spent a lot of time in the library during school breaktimes (another lonely child here) where I found his stuff. I'd forgotten how important those books were to me at the time.

The magic faraway tree!

Secret Seven.
Famous Five.
The Boy Next Door.
The Blyton one where the kids live under a waterfall.
So: mainly Blyton for me.

Also LOVED Lion, Witch and Wardrobe.

My Friend Flicka, Black Beauty.

DD hasn't looked at BB or Boy Next Door

Anne of Green Gables and Emily of New Moon series
Little House in Big Woods series
Trebizon
St Clares
Malory Towers
Children of Green Knowe
Charlotte Sometimes
Goodnight Mr Tom
Point Horror
Sweet Valley

Have so many of them still here for me DD to read

I loved
Ramona
Point Horror
Famous Five
Sweet Valley Twins

MumOnTheRunCatchingUp I thought I was the only person of around our age who'd ever read A Peep Behind the Scenes! (assuming that it's the same book that I remember - about a girl called Rosalie with a wicked father and a dying mother and they lived in a caravan. Extremely religious). My grandma gave it to me to read when I was staying at her house and had a headache. I must have been about 6. It had been hers when she was a child. I found it hard going because of the old fashioned language, but I was fascinated by it, especially the girl's mother dying and nobody being able to do anything, no hospital for her etc.

So many old favourites here!

Anything pony related, especially Jinny & Shantih, The Silver Brumby series, the Pullein-Thompsons particularly Josephine's West Barsetshire PC series, Jill by Ruby Ferguson...

The Dark is Rising, I still re-read these regularly now.

Chalet School, Trebizond and the Abbey books of Elsie J Oxenholm.

Famous Five and Malory Towers (I never got into the Secret Seven though).

Ballet Shoes...I read this until my copy fell apart, ditto Watership Down.

Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, with those fabulous Tenniel illustrations.

And many, many, many more!

The books I loved were:

Anything Enid Blyton, especially Malory Towers, but I devoured anything she wrote and loved all the different mystery series books.

The Jill Series (Jill Has Two Ponies etc). I so wanted to be Jill. I wanted to be 'horsey' and wear jodhpurs (which I pronounced 'jod-hoppers') all the time. In reality, I joined the local pony club, promptly fell off and got a sticky toffee squished into my hair on my third lesson because it had been left in a riding hat. Love affair with horse riding over.

The Secret Garden - read this every summer holiday for years for unknown reasons.

Ramona - fascinatingly American. My Granny went on holiday to the US and brought back another book by the Ramona author called Emily's Runaway Imagination - it was both fascinatingly American AND fascinatingly old fashioned because it was set in the 1920s I think.

Moondial - so so creepy.

Arabel's Raven series by Joan Aiken - hilarious.

So so many more - way to many to list. I devoured books as a child. (Still do).

The Weirdstone of Brisingamen got me into the unsettling world of Alan Garner.
Hobberdy Dick by K.M.Briggs was a great introduction to English folklore and the country ways that were already being lost in Jacobean times. I looked for it for many years but it was out of print. It made a comeback with JKR's interest in house elves!

I too was a member of the Puffin Club and a frequent visitor to the local library. DM's policy was "If you can justify a new book I'll buy it for you on top of your pocket money". What better way to encourage reading?

They were all Readers Digest in red binding with gold "leaf" and dull as dishwater. Classics like Little Woman, Great Expectations etc. Had a couple of Enid Blyton that was more age appropriate but that was all.

Parents thought getting the Classics was a good idea, and probably cost them a fortune, but in realty they never got read.

Narnia series.
The Midnight Folk.
Tom's Secret Garden
The Tree that Sat Down
Gobbolino the Witch's Cat
Pride and Prejudice
Precious Bane
Also, lots of poetry.

There were thousands of books in our house from Ladybird-age up to (very adult - Lady Chatterley unabridged for instance). All higgledy-piggledy. We could read whatever we wanted, no censorship at all; the parents had decided that if it were 'too old' for us we would get bored with it, mostly that worked. I did try to plough my way through Games People Play when I was 8 or 9 but understood none of it!

Hi all - we're going to pop this over to Children's Books with the OP's permission.

YY kungpopanda to A Country Child by Alison Uttley. I found a copy in a charity shop and loved reading it again after so many years.
Also loved The Faraway Tree and The Wishing Chair books, Mary Poppins, Ballet Shoes, the Jill stories by Ruby Ferguson, Heidi, What Katy Did. Jennings, the How to be Topp series... So many more. I read my little collection of books over and over.

Ooh The Wierdstone of Brisingamen, had forgotten all about that! Must have read that aged about 10 and loved it, off to see if DM still has a copy and hunt it down on eBay if not

Loved A Country Child as well - I need to track down a copy and get it. In fact, I love those books that are basically just descriptions of life as it was - one of my favourite Laura Ingalls Wilder's was Farmer Boy - not a children's book, but I do love Lark Rise to Candleford as well.