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.

Jacqueline Wilson although I did get upset about some of them- The Illustrated Mum had me sobbing- very close to home.

Judy Blume- tiger eyes was my favourite and of course that well thumbed copy of Forever and the infamous Ralph

point horror books which i now see were lame!

when i was younger: Ramona Quimby, The secret seven (NOT the famous five though- yuck!), the worst witch, all the Roald Dahl books, Narnia, My naughty little sister and all of Shirley Hughes books I still love the pictures in them

Came back on to add some more as I can't resist!

Tottie: The Story of A Dolls' House - oh when Birdie is burnt in the flames saving Apple, that cruel Marchpane!

The Shrinking of Treehorn by Florence Parry Heide with the beautiful Edward Gorey illustrations

What-a-Mess the Afghan pup!

Remembering reading Meindert De Jong's 'The Wheel on the School' and 'The House of Sixty Fathers' quite vividly.

'Marianne Dreams' by Catherine Storr still creeps me out a bit to this day with the stones that move menacingly about the place!

And everyone else mentioning 'Carrie's War' reminded me of another Nina Bawden that I loved - The Peppermint Pig.

'The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tyler' by Gillian Cross - never saw the twist coming!

'Albion's Dream' by Roger Norman, absolutely thrilling.

Oh and 'Trillions' and 'Sweets from a Stranger' by Nicholas Fisk.

I've been eyeing some of these up on Amazon. But I remember as being so amazing that I'm almost scared to re-read them and break the spell!

AWhistlingWoman: Tyke Tiler was actually by Gene Kemp, not Gillian Cross. She died earlier this year.

I loved the Jonny Briggs novels, and the TV shows that followed. Just wanted to come back and register that!

Roald Dahl. Ive married a dane and this vital childhood reading makes bonding with his norwegian cousins very easy.

Bramberly Hedge. I used to pour over the illustrations to find new details.

The Mousehole Cat.

Malary towers.

The Worst Witch.

Oops it was a long time ago! Should have looked it up! Oh course. Gillian Cross wrote 'The Demon Headmaster' didn't she? How sad. I didn't know that Gene Kemp had died.

Just remembered The Eighteenth Emergency by Betsy Byars as well.

Y,y to lots of the above -
Anne of Green Gables series
Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series - re-read them all recently, fascinating to read from a food preparation/preservation viewpoint!
Malory Towers
Arabels Raven
Nancy Drew
Milly Molly Mandy

but also
The Family from one-end street (The Ruggles)
Sue Barton - Student nurse, and the rest
Flowers in the attic series (can now see how trashy they were)
My Naughty Little Sister

I was also in the Puffin Club
Sniffup? (The secret code question!)
Who remembers the secret answer apart from me??

Does anyone remember "A Necklace of Raindrops?"

I wore that book out, I bought it for my daughter and the illustrations are beautiful.

Definitely anything and everything Blyton. I still have most of them packed away in the cupboard for the DC to read in a few years.

yy to a Necklace of Raindrops - had completely forgotten that one.

Watership Down and 101 Dalmations/Starlight Barking

Magic at Midnight about the characters on pub signs coming alive at midnight. I was interested in pub names/signs for ages after.

The Owl who was Afraid of the Dark

Surprised that no-one has mentioned Adrian Mole - loved it as a young teen!

Also anything by Dr Seuss. The whole idea of playing with language, making up new words, clever rhyming and amazing illustrations. I especially loved the Lorax, I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew and the 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins. Have just started reading them to DS (3). He loves A Wocket in my Pocket.

Babysitters Club
Enid Blyton - anything I could find in the charity shops
Judy Blume - ditto,and Paul Danzigar & Ann M. Martin
What Katy Did & others in the series
Sweet Valley Twins
Olga da Polga I had a friend whose little sister used to read a chapter to her guinea pigs in the garden every night, I still think that's so adorable
Drina Ballerina (Jean Estoril)
Trebizon
Eight Cousins
Alice series by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
LOVED the Chalet School! Loved the idea of Grizel setting off to climb the forbidden mountain, eating apples & speaking broken German! and the funny wry little observations about school kids, gifted kids, unhappy kids, talented, studious, mischievous etc
Crusade in Jeans
Noel Streatfeild, almost everything she wrote, but especially the one where the family moves to America, with bad-tempered Jane as the main character. Jane was so easy to understand I couldn't understand why the author kept making such a point of her being disagreeable when I totally got why she was being like that!
& lots of weird American series & one-offs that were going cheap in charity shops. I think they're brilliant, I could never have read as much if they hadn't been so cheap.

My dad made me read Uncle Tom's Cabin when I was about 8 I remember that cos it took me so bloody long to finish. Also boring stuff from Dumas, but adapted for kids. Comtesse de Segur also.

But the main thing was really Anne Frank. I'm not sure why I was so interested in her (maybe that she was ''bi-national'') but it sparked off a long interest in her time & got me reading lots of Holocaust lit & memoirs when I was really too young to really get it. I was just addicted really, anything Holocaust related I fell upon. She had this adopted nation and language, where the language she'd adopted was the very one I was trying to get away from so I could be more British. Maybe it just spoke to me more because of that. I liked that someone spoke so openly about loving my nationality because I felt I couldn't. Also the idea that someone can just feel that they are a nationality and become it because of that.

Oh god! Even just scrolling back up a bit reminds me of how much I've forgotten...we are lucky with how much amazing children's lit is out there :)

Loved Tottie! I'd forgotten about that one.

Jane was based on Streatfield herself I believe. Her family considered her the disagreeable one.

Read The Owl who was afraid of the dark recently but dd1 is still a bit too young for it.

Does anyone else remember the books by Gene Stratton Porter? Girl of the Limberlost, Laddie, Freckles... There are more apparently but those were the three I had.

The Velveteen Rabbit was an early favourite.

I didn't have many books but I re-read the ones I had a million times. These were
The Colin Dann 'Animals of Farthing Wood' series - my favourite was Fox Cub Bold. He also did other books based around animals. 'King of the Vagabonds' was brilliant.

I had a set of 2 books called 'The Witches of Whitby' and 'The Warlock of Whitby' which were really, really good.

I had a few St Clares book, which again were brilliant, especially when Claudine arrived.

We've just read all the Little House on the Prairie series of books (as much for my pleasure as DD's!).

About to start on the Anne of Green Gables ones next.

Oh and Chalet School ones beckon, although aren't they quite difficult to get hold of?

Ballet Shoes for Anna stood out as better than Ballet Shoes, even though I loved Ballet Shoes.

I adored the school stories- I have a copy of some sort of most of the Chalet school ones, Malory Towers et al, but I didn't really get into the Trebizon series. I also loved the Sadlers wells stories and the Drina ballet stories.

The Little White Horse, When Hitler stole Pink Rabbit and the sequels, Charlotte Sometimes and The Ghost of Thomas Kempe were huge favourites too.
The Diddakoi, Thursday's Children both by Rumer Godden.

Does anyone else remember the horse stories Misty of Chincoteague?

I asked for, and got all of the Narnia books for my 8th christmas- my mother didn't see me much for a couple of weeks. :) That year I also got into reading the proper Grimm fairy tales in a massive anthology- my parents didn't realise how gruesome some of the fairy tales were.

I remember reading My Naughty Little Sister books to my sister who was a late reader, also she loved Mrs Pepperpot and Meg and Mog.

There are so many others I have forgotten, even though I loved them at the time.

A country child ,yes
gene Stratton porter, girl of the limberlost, yes,
comtesse de segur, Les malheurs de Sophie yes,
Uncle Tom, yes
The wide wide world
The painted garden yes. She's also Victoria in a Vicarage family.
Richard Scarry
Dr Seuss, esp the one about the moose. Thudwick?
The little Grey Men
Tarka
Durrell
Susannah of the Mounties
The ( insert noun) twins, about 20 sets
The Abbey girls series
Sally's family
Susan cooper later.
Orlando the marmelade cat
Eloise
Mary Poppins
Nurse Matilda
100 million francs, brill book.

Brisingamen scary but loved The Owl Service

Swallows and Amazons, Biggles, the Chalet school, Nancy Drew

Yes to Narnia, also Joan Aiken books. I'm going to have a list as long as my arm at this rate, one of the reasons for doing English for my degree was because I love children's books.

Malory Towers
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
St Claire's
The Kevin and Sadie books, set in Northern Ireland, looooved them. I think the first was called The 12th Day of July.
The Gemma books, she was a rather spilt young teen into drama etc sent to live with more down to earth cousins.
Noel Streatfield featured heavily in my books.

Oh I remember the Gemma books, wasn't one of them adapted for television and had Sarah Greene in it?

Tom's midnight garden!

The Faraway tree series
The Three Jays
Pat Smythe pony stories
Betsy Byers
Back home - I read that as an adult

So many! I'll probably think of them in drifts and drabs:
Little Women, Little Men, Jo's Boys
What Katy Did, What Katy Did Next
Pollyanna
Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea
The Gemma series by Noel Streatfield: Gemma Alone, Gemma and Sisters etc
White Boots, Ballet Shoes
Anything by Enid Blyton
Chalet School
The Endless Steppe
Children of Green Knowe
Alice in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass
Nancy Drew
Tom's Midnight Garden
The Wool Pack
Swiss Family Robinson
Swallows and Amazons - the whole series

For starters!