What was you favourite book when you were a child?

[Dropinthe]

Mine was The Faraway Tree series.

Does anybody else remember an author called Nina Beachcroft? She wrote fantastic, atmospheric slightly spooky stories-- one of my favourites was called Cold Christmas, and I hunted it down and read it to oldest dd last Christmas. She loved it as much as I did.

Also The Ghost of Thomas Kempe by Penelope Lively, Carrie's War by Nina Bawden, When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit (always a waiting list for that one in our school library) and When the Siren Wailed by Noel Streatfield...

Knickers to Harry Potter.

Harry the Dirty Dog
Anything by Quentin Blake (eg Patrick) or Roald Dahl or Richard Scarry
Doctor Seuss
Milly Molly Mandy
The Ten Tales of Shellover
The Farthest Away Mountain (Lynne Reid Banks)
The Ghost of Thomas Kempe (Penelope Lively)
Anything by Joan Aiken
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (couldn't get into any of the others)
The Land of Green Ginger (Noel Langley iirc)

I can think of loads and loads - far more than I can think of that I have read as an adult.

My overall favourite series was the Laura Ingalls Wilder series which I read countless times and know back to front. I so admired Laura!

LM - I loved Little House on the Prarie too!

My sister could never get into them, but I loved them all. My sort of thing even now I suppose - tales of real life in times gone past.

I can't remember what they were called - I wish my mum had kept all that sort of thing

All of those mentioned just about plus

The House at Green Knowe
The Little Princess
The Secret Garden
A Necklace of Raindrops
The Velveteen rabbit

I have kept my Little House box set and my Narnia one for the dd's. I hope they enjoy them like I did.
Did Judy Blume write the book with a a reference to 'Ralph'???

Lonely mum - Did you read Farmer Boy too about LIW's husbands childhood?

spacedonkey - your Penelope Lively mention has reminded me that she wrote Fanny and the Monsters (not Dinosaurs as I remembered).

Enid and cupcakes
Please tell me what happens at the end of Marianne Dreams!!!!!
I was reading it in the library, just got to the bit where she went to visit the boy and there were bars on his window, and it was time to go home!
I never read the end of it

So please tell me, how did it end?????

"playing Beattie Bow"

don't know who by

i loved it so much i stole it from the school library

Yes Skyler, I did although I preferred reading about Laura.

I remember finding our they were publishing her notes on what happened to her after her marriage: it is called The First Four Years and it came out when I was a child. But it is not written in her usual style as she never got round to developing it into a novel before she died, and such depressing things happened to them in their early marriage that I found it a rather haunting finale to the whole story.

There was a brilliant two part documentary about her on Radio 4 once which I have on tape.

Never really thought about it before, but I am a serious addict!

Does anyone remember 'Strangers at Green Know" I think there was a series but this was the first. it was fabulous. I also loved swallows and amazons and all the really old enid bylton books with cooks, boarding schools, box rooms and monkeys.

childrens books were divided into 2 types:

the ones that you knew the grown ups thought you should read (Helen Cresswell, Arthur Ransom, Rudyard Kipling, Noel Streatfield, Roald Dahl, "Where the wild things are", anything illustrated by Edward Ardizzone, etc etc..

and the ones you liked best, but you knew the grown ups hated - Enid Blyton, Sweet Valley High, type of books.

Nightynight, I think she went back, couldn't find him in the landscape, then met him in real life. Wasn't she ill in bed with a fever? I think he'd been ill too, they had a mutual febrile hallucination.
I have a Faber reissue from a few years ago (in baby's room, so can't get at it till the morning). Title on spine: 'Marianne Drems'
It's a collectors' item, I expect.

Nightynight - I love Edward Ardizzone's illustrations, the Tim stories were a big hit in our house.

ooh, thankyou bakedpotato, wow, what a brilliant ending!

seems a bit unfair though, that only the little girl had the pencil, the boy didnt seem to be able to control the house at all.

I dont remember the words "mutual febrile hallucination" in the book though

I hated Ardizzone!

my taste in literature was definitely popular till about 2 years ago, and I am now enjoying all the classics.
I think I appreciate them more at my mature age, than if Id raced through them when I was a teenager. Might have learned some useful life experience from them though!

oh yes, and Ardizzone's The Little Girl and the Tiny Doll, about the doll lost in the deepfreeze. She makes up a game with frozen peas and icecream paddles.

Holly and Ivy, Rumer Godden

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Little House books and anything by Enid Blyton. I still read the Little House books regularly, and bought myself the Little House cookbook a couple of years ago.

Shadow the Sheepdog - that was number 1, it's now on Lotties book shelf, my funny writing on 1st page saying 'this book belongs to..'

Fantastic Mr Fox
Danny the Champion of the World
All Famous Five books
The Naughiest Girl in the School and the ones that followed it
Harriet the Spy
What Katy Did

oooh, i'd forgotten milly molly mandy - when they get back and start frying onions and potatoes, I can still smell that as well

boggis, bunce and.......bean!!!