What was you favourite book when you were a child?

[Dropinthe]

Mine was The Faraway Tree series.

Dropinthe, do what I do. Look around charity shops and jumble sales etc and pick up all your old favourites (often in the edition you had a as a child!) for 10p a go.

what katy did
the island of adventure by Enid Blyton

what katy did
the island of adventure by Enid Blyton

Makes sense-LM! Will deffo be looking out for them more often-am in charity shops so regularly!

binkie - I forgot about Molesworth! I still say "uterly wet and a weed" thanks to him

I think there are some more which mustn't be missed off:

• Mervyn Peake, Gormenghast; and
• Anatole, the French mouse who likes cheese (can't remember author, it's a v nice series of picture books).

My mother was a librarian and I loved going round the Childrens library choosing books together and then wanting to rush home and read then all. Books and reading have been a great source of comfort and satisfaction for me.

Faves include:-

Black Beauty

St Clares

The Velveteen Rabbit

Anne of Green Gables

The Story of the Amulet

Bobby Brewster and His Magic Torch (?)

As a small child I loved the Amelia Jane books, then particular faves were
The Secret Garden
What Katy Did
Little Women
Narnia books

I loved reading and still do, my highlight was going to the library every week!

Eve Titus and somebody Galdone did the illustrations, binkie. Loved Anatole, last time I checked he was only in print in the USA

You clever Marina person.

Hausfrau, a small publisher in Muswell Hill in London, Barn Owl books, recently reissued some children's classics, including the mighty Arabel and the Raven series that were so wonderful on Jackanory (Joan Aiken/Quentin Blake)

Kingfishers Catch fire by Rumer Godden I remember enjoying

and the rhyme of the Ancient mariner 9not a book obviously)
I was mad about poetry had all the puffin poetry books

It's not my favourite, and I don't know the title, but I loved a book about a girl who set her alarm clock to different times and woke up that age in the morning. One day she was a baby, one day a schoolchild, and one day she woke up married with two children...but wasn't happily married.

Suppose it's not a children's book, more a teenage one. Just wish I could remember the title - would love to read it again!

As for children's books...loved all sorts - CS Lewis, Enid Blyton, Tolkien - but think my favourite was Watership Down.

Yes, those are the ones jura!
MIL was in children's publishing and her best friend had the honour of reading Joan Aiken's first book for children and turning it down ! They worked together on many occasions later on and in fact she commissioned Arabel and the Raven for Jackanory.

And on Binkie's recommendations (others too IIRC) ds' copy of The Land of Green Ginger turned up today. Glad you enjoyed it Sobernow, it is a haunting, memorable classic.

Remember: Rubdub ben Thud has a round deep dim voice; Tintac ping Foo has a nasal scratchy spoilt voice; Abu Ali sounds as like your ds as you can manage; and Silver Bud sounds like you. Sulkpot ben Nagnag takes working up to, as he has to sound as harshly evilly nasty as you can, and it hurts your throat a bit.

Thankyou binkie . It is funny isn't it when you and dh share the reading aloud duties and they do totally different voices for the characters from your own! Rather like disapproving of the casting of a TV novel adaptation !

(I just realised - I have never heard dh do a voice! so my artistic directorship goes unchallenged. He does read to them though, - does he? Hmm. Time for a think. Maybe he just sort of blethers at them about Art and Maths.)

I am resurrecting this to answer one of my own questions somewhere below: the book I was after was The Castle of Yew by Lucy Boston, who also wrote the Green Knowe spooky/magic books - all set in her own very ancient house and garden.

Just in case anyone's interested.

reviving this - did anyone but me read malcolm saville's lone pine club books?