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.

E Nesbit - found a copy of Hardings Luck recently and was ridiculously excited

Loved Tom's Midnight Garden, Marianne Dreams (so spooky!), I capture the castle, also a thing about a girl going back to the times of Mary Queen of Scots...re-read it recently can't remember the title

Oh and just finished Treasure Island with my son - oh it was exciting to read it again after so long.

DH introduced me to the William books as an adult and I loved them

I recently saw an old film of A Little Princess starring Shirley Temple - they mucked about with the story something chronic (Queen Victoria was in it ) but ST could act, there was a fab scene where she chucked her panful of ashes over snotty Lavinia

I longed to live in a garrett and endure Real Hardship

Another book I adored as a child (and must re-read) was The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge. My copy is falling apart at the seams. I read an interview with JK Rowling where she said she'd loved it as a child too and that was the level of detail she strived to put in the Harry Potter books - Goudge has pages and pages describing the food they ate, the crusts on pies etc. Like the list of what Harry will need to take to Hogwarts in the first book - it's all down to Elizabeth Goudge, you know.

I used to love Shirley Temple films as a child - she also had these fabulous frilly bedrooms that I wanted so much. Actually I still watch films just for the decor.
Rooms stay with me in films and literature. I am very shallow!

I collect Noel Streatfeild (have about 40, I think) and also love E. Nesbit, Antonia Forest, K.M Peyton and others

Oh oh oh, and A Painted Garden (Noel Streatfeild - where sad Englsih family goes to California, grumpy daughter makes film of Secret Garden and meets Pauline Fossil - had trouble getting my head round that!)

A Painted Garden...that is ringing a very faint, very distant bell for me, Janh.

Just William
TH White, Mistress Masham's Repose.

Oh yes, The Painted garden - don't they end up meeting all the Fossils? As I remember it, there are 3 kids in the British family - the grumpy one, a younger girl who is a dancer, and perhaps a boy called Tim (or is that the dog??)

Ummmm, lots of these, but Dark is rising is a particualar fave...

The older girl is the dancer - she was always going to be the star and was a bit overshadowed by grumpy getting into the film but meets Posy and goes to a dance class with a Russian.

Grumpy was Jane - I don't remember the other names. Jane befriends a dog on the beach and tells off its owner when it eats bad fish and the owner turns out to be the film producer who spots her for Mary.

Petrova is the grumpy one and she isn't grumpy, just sensible . Pauline reminded me horribly of my big sister

was always a bit disappointed by The Painted Garden

Dark is Rising is book of the moment - second one with Will in it is my especial fave

Ah, PG not BS. As long as you aren;t dissing Petrova I don't mind

That's right, JanH (you've obviously reread more recently than me!) - I remember lots about the Dickon (wp?) character as well, being this lovely calming influence. And seem to remember the sickly boy is a PITA...
Did I make up Tim ... thought there was one of them who needed a piano to practice too ... ??

It's the name that rings the faint bell - Fossils. Does it start off something like "there were five Fossils..."?

slightly off-topic but I was in a school library recently and they had 'The FAmily from One End Street' by Eve Garnett which I had completely forgotten about. Just funny to see a book you read as akid.

that's a great book

Think there was a Tim - pianist - in the PG.

The Fossils are in Ballet Shoes, moo - Pauline, Petrova and Posy, brought home one by one as orphans by GUM (Great-Uncle Matthew)

well not read for yonks but The Borrowers

Hmm, there were 3 Fossils. Can't remember how the book began

Aha - The Fossil sisters lived in the Cromwell Road
apparently

Room on the Broom.

Oh. I've read the original post now.

I don't read Room on the Broom for my own pleasure.

Yes, fp, the Dickon actor actually has animals, and also a lovely calm mother who brings Jane round when she's on the verge of ruining the film by continuing to be horrid (because the spoilt-rotten Colin boy is winding her up) after Mary is supposed to start being nice.

The Dickon mother gets her to imagine the Colin boy as a snotty little chipmunk or something and she can ignore him after that.

Noel S is just fab