What did kids read in the 70s and 80s?

[KnitMeAUnicorn]

Just that, really! It feels like all I can see in the shops these days is the constant Tom Gates/Harry Potter/David Walliams/Wimpy Kid stuff. DC have read loads of that and I want something a bit more 'classic for their Xmas. (12yo DS & 10yo DD). Any thoughts/ memories of what you liked reading back then? Ta

So many good books mentioned on here!

I agree with the points made about generational differences in reading patterns too.

I recently did a 'writing for children' course, and apparently books now have to be fast-paced, cinematic and written in the first or limited-third person. Books with lots of description, an omniscient narrator, multiple viewpoints etc. just won't get published.

I have to wonder if it's because children don't want them, or just aren't offered them, but heyho. I put my four-viewpoint epic fantasy back in the drawer.

I read several of Penelope Lively's books for younger readers, one I remember loving and reading over again (including quite recently!) was the Ghost of Thomas Kempe. I didn't realise for years that she also wrote for adults.

Rosemary Sutcliff. Richard Adams. Anything illustrated by Edward Ardizzone. (So that's a lot of the Puffin books)

Arthur Ransome.

User4xxx (please name-change to something more human!) Brat Farrar is Josephine Tey. She never wrote a single duff novel!

My dad also put me onto CS Forester and Dorothy L Sayers at a young age.

Sweet Valley High, Chalet School, Noel Streatfeild, Judy Blume, at 12 I had also read MASH (!) and any Terry Pratchett and Anne McCaffery I could get my hands on.

Also - how old is a 'kid' - some of these mentioned are suitable for 7/8 year olds, others for 16 year olds....
Those of us who were given all these to read as kids were so so lucky.

yaaaay is that better? I have a real human user name!

This thread is giving me book nostalgia! I loved all Enid Blyton (especially Secret Seven), Heidi, Anne of Green Gables, Secret Garden.

Off to find my childhood books...

I forgot Mallory Towers! I desperately wanted to go to a boarding school.

Enid Blyton Naughtiest Girl in the School books and Famout five....later Sweet Valley High rubbish and Similar, Judy Blume fantastic.

A few I loved that haven't been mentioned yet:

John Cristoper's books (The Tripods, The Prince in Waiting, etc)
Joan Aiken (Go saddle the sea, etc.)
John Wyndham (esp. The Chrysalids and Chocky)
Arthur C. Clarke (Islands in the Sky)
Asimov (Starting with the Lucky Starr books)
David Eddings (They'd have been marketed as YA if they'd been published now)

Roald Dahl, Enid Blyton, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Judy Blume, Agatha Christie, Catherine Cookson.

Here are some of my memories, many already mentioned. I think they're ones I read over and over again which is why I've remembered them!

As a small child (late 60s, early 70s):

My Naughty Little Sister series
Gobbolino the Witch's Cat
The Little Wooden Horse
Teddy Robinson series
Mrs Pepperpot series

Mid-childhood:
Little House series
Chalet School
Malory Towers
St Clares
The Wheel on the School
A Little Princess
Charlotte Sometimes
Time To Go Back (wonderful time travel story by Mabel Esther Allan)
Drina series

Early teens:
Summer of my German Soldier
The Silver Sword
loads of Jean Plaidy - especially the Plantaganet series
I Am David

I also loved girls' comics when I was junior school age - Bunty, Tammy, Sandie and Jinty. I got the annuals as Christmas presents and re-read them time and time again.

My DDs (born early 90s) read far less than I did, mostly because there was so much else on offer for their leisure time - 24-hour TV plus videos on tap made a huge difference to the amount of reading they did. I imagine that's even more the case now.

Lots mentioned books by:

Enid Blyton
Roald Dahl
Judy Blume
C S Lewis
Noel Streatfield
E Nesbit
Francis Hodgson Burnett
Paula Danziger

Also the BBC did dramas from children's books Moondial, Box of Delights, Wolves of Willbourough (?) Chase among a few.

Adrian Mole was 80s wasn't it?

Bet there's a Goodreads list!!

Chalet school, Enid Blyton, Swallows & Amazons, all the stuff mentioned above. I also got into Agatha Christie at around 12.

I was reading David Edding's Belgariad series by 12. I loved all the James Herriot books - but was brought up on a farm - so might not suit your DC. I'd definitely outgrown Enid Blyton by 10/11. My DD1 is 8 and she's not keen on any of the EB series, but loves anything by Dahl and the Hetty Feather series by Jacqueline Wilson, she is currently reading the Wind in the Willows!

James Herriot!! Loved those books, funnily enough I didn't read ant Agatha Christie, this is despite loving mystery/dectective stories as a child (does however give me the advantage of being able to read them for the first time now though!!)

Knew there'd be a Goodreads list:

www.goodreads.com/list/show/24589.Favorite_Children_YA_books_from_the_70_s_80_s_and_earlier_

Wow, thanks for all these ideas –some great ones here! I'm going to spend the afternoon trawling through Amazon. How could I forget Judy Blume?! The goodreads list looks very useful indeed.

BUT I agree it's not as simple.It takes a 21st C child time to aquire the reading skills and persistence that we did. They don't cope as easily with flowery texts and slow moving plot.

Totally agree with this point, though ... just not the attention span these days (I know this is a complete generalisation and include myself in this too, but still!)

I agree with Robert Westall above. The Machine Gunners is probably his best-known, but I think Devil on the Road was my favourite. The Wheatstone Pond was another, which was a Radio 4 play a few years ago, which was a good adaptation. Cats and ghosts feature in quite a few of then.

I read a lot of Enid Blyton when I was around 10 - especially remember Malory Towers.

My favourite series was Trebizon (by Anne Digby & set in a boarding school in Cornwall) & I remember excitedly going to the library to pick up the next in the series. The first Trebizon books have been re-released this year & I've been reading them with my 10yo daughter, who is a prolific reader, & she's loving them!

This is what our English teacher thought suitable (there were others that I did not read or have forgotten). It was a pretty miserable looking selection. However, I did enjoy them - except for the Dickens.

Dombey and son
The History of Mr Polly
Carries War
The Time Machine
Twentieth Century Short Stories
Dotheboys Hall
Radium woman
The Box of Delights
Three men in a boat
A book about Helen Keller - sorry no idea what
Swallows and Amazons
The Secret Garden
The Diary of Anne Frank.

Not usre if the Ballet Shoes series has been mentioned. I loved them - along with most of the others that have been listed already.

The family from one end street and the borrowers