What’s one story from your childhood that still gives you that warm, magical feeling? - Win cinema vouchers

[EllieSmumsnet]

Some stories stay with us forever. They’re the ones that sparked our imaginations, introduced us to unforgettable characters, and made us believe that extraordinary things could happen in ordinary places. Long after childhood, those tales still carry a sense of comfort and wonder.

Now, as The Magic Faraway Tree makes its journey from beloved book to the big screen, arriving in UK & Ireland cinemas on 27 March 2026, it’s the perfect moment to celebrate the stories that shaped us.

What’s one story from your childhood that still fills you with that warm, magical feeling and why? Was it a book you read again and again? A character you wished you could meet? A world you imagined so vividly it felt real?

Share your memory with us by 22/04/2026 for your chance to win a £200 VEX voucher and cinema vouchers to see The Magic Faraway Tree with your family (T&Cs apply).

Another vote for Rumer Godden here, but Miss Happiness and Miss Flower. My dollhouse was my favourite childhood toy and the thought of building a Japanese one just enchanted me. A really touching story.

A German fairy tale called mother holle, one sister was kind so showered in gold and the other bad sister showed in oil or tar, I wanted to be the kind sister I wanted long blonde hair, the book I had the artwork was so detailed and it was the first book I remember being able to read all the way through without distractions and to be properly transported into a story, wish I still had my copy now as loved it so much.

For me it has to be The Wind In The Willows by Kenneth Grahame. My childhood winters (early 1950s) were marked by severe & recurrent bronchial asthma. At night I couldn't lie down because that would bring on incessant coughing. My mum would push two small armchairs together to make a bed for me in the living room next to the fireplace (these were days when families only lit one coal-fire in the living room, the rest of the house being left unheated) & she would sit up all night with me. The only thing that could soothe my coughing was her reading aloud to me. We didn't have many books in the house. She read The Song Of Hiawatha; Alice's Adventures in Wonderland; Alice Through The Looking Glass; lots of poetry (The Golden Treasury, I remember), and The Wind In The Willows. That was easily my favourite. She would BEG me not to make her read the chapter titled "Dulce Domum" because she knew it would make me cry. But I made her read it all the same and I would blub away as Moley smells his old home and Ratty forges on ahead not realising his friend's distress. Through those night-time vigils and (heroic) readings, she gave me an indelibly life-enhancing gift, a love of literature, poetry & song, which has continued to light my life.
I've agreed with many votes on this thread. I've also made a few notes of ideas for gifts for my own grandchild (who is an avid reader).

I hope all parents will continue to realise the generational gift you are passing on to your children. It is a pearl without price.

Ballet Shoes
The Secret Garden
A Little Princess
Joe and the Gladiator
Stig of the dump
The Lion, the witch and the Wardrobe

Then there were two that i read at school; The Turf cutters donkey and Journey from Peppermint Street
All of these completely transported me to imaginary worlds and influenced all my made up games

We didn’t have a lot of money when I was a child and for Christmas one year my parents made me the most beautiful greengrocers stall. It was made of wood with a striped fabric awning. Beneath this were wooden boxes full of all different fruits and vegetables. They were all individually crafted in clay, painted and varnished. Cauliflowers, leeks, carrots, cabbages, apples, oranges, bananas and bunches of grapes to name a few I remember. I think this was the best present I ever received (Or possibly the year my Mum hand sewed me a whole new wardrobe of clothes for my Sindy doll, about 30 different outfits in all with loads of different accessories 🤔). I spent hours and hours imagining different customers and role playing long conversations where I’d sell them all the different vegetables they needed for a special recipe, as the Queen was coming to visit them for dinner or maybe I’d sell Mrs Rabbit a lettuce and six carrots to feed her babies. Sometimes I was the customer and I’d tell the shop keeper how I needed a melon that was just the right size to hollow out and wear as a motorbike helmet 🤣
Happy times! 😍

I read the adventures of the little wooden horse so many times and was absolutely absorbed by where it went and what it got upto. To the point where I even remember how I imagined the scenes in my head and how reading the story made me feel - full of wonder and awe and empathy.

I’ve recently purchased it for my daughter and started to read it to her at bedtime. I was shocked to realise that I didn’t feel at all how I felt when I read it as a child! In fact, it felt predictable and a little dry. but when I glanced over at my eight year old, her eyes were shining with emotion and she was listening intently. Just like I was all those years ago.

Books. Especially Enid Blyton and The Chalet School. Also the Jill pony books, Milly Molly Mandy, the family from one end street, The silver Sword. I just loved and still love escaping with a book.

Mr Benn by David McKee was my absolute favourite. I know it was also a children’s TV programme, but for me it was always about the book. My dad used to read it to me every night, because he’d grown up with it himself.

The story is lovely in its own right, it sparked my imagination to such an extent that I would drift off to sleep imagining where I might
go if I was like Mr Benn.

But as an adult, that’s not really why it means so much to me. What made makes it special was that sense of it being passed down and my dad reading me the same story he’d once had read to him. I feel like I shared a small piece of his childhood too.

@EllieSmumsnet I just asked my daughter what was her favorite book as a child. She said she just loved any book that I read and even aftershe learned to read she preferred me reading to her. I had no idea. It made my day!

A little Princess is one of my favourites. Also love The Tiger Who Came to Tea (always adored the part where the little girl puts her coat over her pyjamas and goes to a cafe for tea with her mum and dad) and also loved The Secret Island by Enid Blyton

the owl who was afraid of the dark … lovely little plop

The Little Prince

For me it was The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and Mrs Frisby and The Rats of Nimh.
Pure escapism.

One story that’s always stayed with me is The BFG by Roald Dahl.
There’s something so comforting about the friendship between Sophie and the BFG — it made the idea of something big and scary actually being kind feel really magical. I used to love imagining Giant Country and all the funny dreams in jars, and it felt like a whole secret world existed just out of sight.
One scene I always loved was when the BFG takes Sophie to catch dreams and they drift through the air like glowing little lights — it felt so magical and calm, like stepping into a completely different world.
Now I read the same book I had as a child to my 6 year old, which makes it feel even more special seeing that same wonder through their eyes.

For me, it’s The Tale of Lanky Panky, by Enid Blyton - probably not a popular choice of author in the world of today, but I absolutely loved it when my Grand-dad would read it to me! My childhood copy disappeared many, many years ago, but I somehow managed to get my hands on a secondhand one & all my lovely memories came flooding back! It just makes me happy!

the twig thing by jan mark. my sister bought it for me for my birthday at a jumble sale when I was very young. to this day I get huge pleasure from rooting small cuttings and seeing some of them turn into successful plants. plus it was partly about moving house and feeling displaced and we did a lot of that growing up.

The Goalkeepers Revenge.
A book of short stories we read in primary school in the seventies. Bought a copy and read it every few years.

Coming home at lunchtime from juniors to read 'The wishing chair' and other Enid Blyton books after eating, sitting in front of the 3 bar electric fire. It was a magical escape in the days you had time. Xx

Flowers in the attic, when I was a teenager. I didn’t really read much at all upto this point, or anything I would actually remember, and only read this when we’d had a house fire, and it was given to me to pass the time as my bedroom and everything in it had gone in the fire.
I have sat and read that book and the next 2 that followed, and have not stopped reading since.

I started life in West Yorkshire. I was given a copy of The Secret Garden, I think for my birthday or Xmas.

I red it and reread it because loved reading and I didn't have access to many books. I virtually memorised it.

Then we moved to Lancashire, I finished junior school and went to high school.

As a class we were given this to read. I don't think they do this any more but we all had a copy of the book and you would take it in turns to read few pages.

I seemed to read more of it than the others, but then I had the right accent to voice Martha. I generally hated school but this was 35 mins of relaxation for me.

It was my seventh birthday, I had slept in my mums bed the night before. When I got up there was a book and a box of maltesers on her dresser. The book was by Enid blyton Well really mr twiddle.
im 56 this year and have that book still amongst a whole bunch of other Enid blyton books.
still a lovely memory.

The book I loved to read was Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince it was bought my my auntie who was a teacher and really encouraged me to read more wordy books, it really pulled me into the story. I enjoyed the mystery of the Half-Blood Prince and learning more about Voldemort’s past. My favourite part was when Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore go to the cave to get the locket—it was scary and exciting, and it really stuck with me.

I also loved the BFG - all the silly words Whizzpopping, Frobscottle Snozzcumber, Delumptious, Ringbeller - one I still use with my little ones when they have had a happy dream, and when we have had a nice meal - it's always a delumptious one !

Goosebumps, and the 13 storey treehouse were my favourite reads when I was around 8 to 10

This version of the Ugly Duckling, by the Tale Spinners, which was on a record, I loved it, and played it so many times. Narrated by Robert Hardy, and very beautifully done, with the music, and the plummy-voiced mother duck was fun to listen to. Also some clever lines, which I didn't notice at the time, by the narrating bird: "It was then that I had to go on a long business trip, right down to Egypt, and it was only the following spring that I arrived back in Denmark."