Which children's books do you STILL read and enjoy?

[Swizzler]

Am re-reading Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising sequence and yes, it is still good

So which children's books did you enjoy as a child and still read - read for your own pleasure, that is, not read to your DCs.

The Doll's House, TM

Holly and Ivy
The Funny Guy
A Stable for Jill

i still have these books.

the first is about a little girl at xmas who didnt have a home.

the second about a girl whose mum was in hosp, and its set in the usa in the 50's.

the last about a girl whose parents are away, and the fun she has in the summer setting up a riding stable!

bit of a lonely kid theme there

I also used to love mrs Pepperpot, and any enid blytons.

Loved one called the Treasure Hunters.

Badelaide

Back to reading my Army Manual About Eggs. Lesson 3, How to Make a Halved Hard-Boiled Egg...

Was going to post my list but found I didn't have to - Gingirl has stolen it! I have recently reread every single one of the books on your list Gingirl as I have slowly recreated my childhood library for my own girls!
Will also add
Louisa May Alcott - Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom as well as the Little Women series.
Lucy M Boston - Green Knowe series
The Owl Service - spooky as anything
The Wizard of Earthsea books
Blackcock's Feather by Maurice Walsh (some Irish MNers will remember this as we did it in school)

Moomins!
Arthur Ransome (Swallowdale is fave)
Alan Garner
Chalet School
Enid Blyton (esp Mallory Towers/ St Clares)
Ramona

etc too many to list. Am to much of a bookaholic

"I read something once about a younggirl and her brother who came across this strange but kindly elderly brother and sister with a house full of automatons.
American I think.
Elderly brother was called Pilar.
God I loved it but can't remember what it was called and would sooo love to read it again.
Came out in mid 70s I think (I am 39)
Anyone know??"

Moondog - I read a series of books like that were set in the 50s in a now-shabby American town that had been glamourous back in the 19th century. These children discovered an old house, these old neighbours and had fun riding around in old cars.... swimming in old costumes and listening to stories about these old people's childhood. Their parents bought one of the houses frequently mentioned in the stories for a summer house (as you do) and the kids spent every summer there spending time with these old codgers. Quite sweet. No idea what it was called but I loved them at the time.

You're right,TheodoresMummy, it was The Doll's House
Very sad at the end though iirc

Is that the book with a doll called Vanessa in it who is snobby and spiteful but has to hide her red flannel petticoats in case the other dolls laugh at her? One of the 'cellouse' dolls melts at the end I think. Good book to read just before going into shared digs .

That's the one, chocolategirl. I think it was Birdie who died to save Apple from the fire

Thank you, thank you whoever it was lower down who mentioned Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley - I was thinking the other day about how kids these days take the easy cop-out with TV and watch loads of cartoons given a choice - we had what was on BBC/ITV and that's that - I remembered a children's drama serial with priest holes, the Babbington household etc - it must have been the dramatisation of this. Off to search Amazon for a copy (building a huge library for DD who is only 4 and would prefer Charlie and Lola)

Have recently red Green Smoke by Rosemary Manning to DD - she loved it, and wanted to have notes under her pillow like the dragon left Susan. Green Smoke

Oh Blimey The Doll's House ! That's brought back memories. I remember it being what I considered the first "proper" book I read to myself! I'd forgotten all about it.

chocolattegirl & Rustybear - Thankyou, Thankyou, Thankyou! At some point when I was a kid there was a TV adaptation of this, I think it was done as a series, and I've been trying for years to find out what it was. I'm going to get the book now.
Thankyou!

I still read kids books about as much as I read adult books (which is a lot.)

My favourites, anything by Enid Blyton, but particularly Malory Towers, Magic Faraway Tree, Cherry Tree Farm and Willow Farm. The Anne of Green Gables books, Roald Dahl, The Jill books, Judy Blume and Paula Danziger.

My absolute favourite kids book is called Rebecca's World, by Terry Nation, about a litle girl who gets sucked through a telescope into another world, the baddie on the world has chopped down all the trees to make glass buildings, but the trees kept away the ghosts, so Rebecca and her friends follow a map to find the last tree to collect the seeds. It's fantastic.
If anyone has a copy of this, DON'T send it to the charity shop. Terry Nation was the guy who invented Daleks and Blake 7. It's been out of print for years and even a tatty paperback will fetch a tidy sum of money.
I'm so pleased the bookseller I got my copy from didn't realise this.

Glad this thread has appeared again .

Did anyone else read books by Jean Ure? I'm sure someone did.

I also read Sue Barton books.

Macolm Saville books - middle-class children who keep coming up against the same she-criminal in various parts of the UK. Good reads though and very descriptive of certain places ie Rye.

Chocolategirl and moondog.

i think the books you are talking about are "Gone away Lake" and "Return to Goneaway" by Elizabeth Enright.

Old people were called Pinder and Minniehaha. They were lovely books, I reread them every now again.

moondog -maybe this isn't what you remember as I don't remember any automatons (whatever they are)

Late to this thread as usual.

Book sleuth on abebooks.com. is good for finding books you remember bits of but can't title or author.

Automans are wind-up toys I think but more sophisticated than wind-up mice or pull-back cars.

Thanks for that - I'll have to re-read them now .

The wishing chair by Enid Bliten (?), read them as a kid and so bought the books again today, there fab.

the owl service
clever polly
Marianne Dreams
the Jill books
anything by KM Peyton
Just so stories
The Little White Horse

dd1 is getting all these slowly but surely

I'm working my way through all my old childhood books with my dds. Ones we've enjoyed lately are:-
Flat Stanley
Faraway tree
Moomins
Paddington
Amelia Jane
Milly Molly Mandy
Ponder & William
Gobbolino the Witch's cat

At the moment we're doing the Laura Ingalls Wilder series

Have just placed order on Amazon for the 'Gone away' series - hope it's as good as I remember .

Housemum re the Traveller in Time. I just reread it too. Babbington Farm is very close to where we live, a beautiful old collection of buildings. The little church is there too, you can collect the key from the diary and go and look around anytime. (Simon Groom ex blue Peter lives there now).

Dairy!

This may already have been mentioned but 'The Family at One-End Street' was very good when I was in juniors. It's about a poor family but the eldest girl wins a place at a grammar school so there's issues about paying for the uniform, the chiildren all get measles, have to go away for recuperation etc. Quite a lot of period details as well - I think that it's set in the 20s.

Oh what a lovely thread.

I re-read the Dark is Rising set regularly - the second book set at Christmas time always makes me want to read it round that time.

• ANYTHING by Diana Wynne Jones - I loved Howl's Moving Castle, and The Ogre Downstairs.
• The Phantom Tollbooth by Norman Juster
• The Moomin books by Tove Jansson
• Sword in the Stone by TH White
• The Phoenix and the Carpet by E Nesbit (well pretty much all her best known stuff is fab)
• A Country Child by Alison Uttley
• Bottersnikes and Gumbles - I've been looking for this everywhere as it is out of print now, and I only have the second book in the series
• I Capture the Castle - Dodie Smith

Anyone know any good websites for finding these sort of books? Charity shops never seem to have many of the really old ones (eg from when I was little!).