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.

That's why I remember the name then - I feel a big old Amazon order coming on. I wonder what happened to all my old books? I still have AofGG, and The Little White Horse, and the Narnia books...but the rest have vanished in the mists of time.

Some must have been from the library but I know I had my own copy of Ballet Shoes and The Secret Garden and A Little Princess.

We moved house when I was 14 - that is a terrible age to move house - my mother just cleared the lot out

Have replaced them over the years but it's not the same...

Was the Little White Horse the one about a girl living in a big house - something to do with salmon pink geraniums I seem to remember as well.

Yes, salmon pink geraniums! Loveday adored them and that's why she had fallen out with...ooh, can't remember his name...and not married him. And there's a cook who is a hunchback dwarf. And swarthy gypsies. Oh it's all marvellously politically incorrect.

I suspect my Mum of clearing out too - but we didn't ever move. My Mum lived in the same house from the age of about 7 - she and Dad moved back there after Grandma died to look after Grandad and lived there til...er...5 years ago when they finally moved to be closer to us 60 odd years in the same house....

Little White Horse is going right over my head, but reminds me of another one - set around the White Horse - about a blind girl (diane/dianna) - lots of mysticism around Weyland Smith, a 'magical' white horse that everyone was trying to catch/would only come to Diana ... was made into a BBC kids series I think... anyone??

funnypeculiar - yup, that's ringing vague bells too.

Chalet School series here

The Railway Children (sob)

Also Ballet Shoes as mentioned by others - and I remember also being confused that they were so poor but lived in Kensington...I loved it though because it was so mysteriously exotic. I used to spend hours wondering what the hell galoshes were.

But my top favourite was A Little Princess. I have recently bought an Indian rug for my living room and I'm sure that the purchase was inspried by the memory of that gorgeous room she wakes up in after all the poverty. Like Changing Rooms for Victorian scullery maids!

Anyone remember the Silver Sword by Ian Serrallier? Amazing.

Swizzler - have you read Susan Cooper's Victory? I have just read it with my ds (7) - we both really liked it.

I adored all the Noel Streatfeild books, especially Ballet Shoes, my mother still had all the copies she'd had as a child, with the pictures that she'd coloured in, I used to read them quite regularly at her place. Then my brothers cleared out her stuff after she died and got rid of all the books without telling me first. I can't bear the thought of reading another copy of those books so I don't know if I'll ever read them again

Lovely thread! There are so so many "children's" books that i still love to re-read now. Basically if I haven't got a book on the go for my evening ritual of reading in the bath, I re-read children's books!

I still adore "Ballet Shoes" - loved Petrova and was convinced that my daughters would look like her, skinny, sallow and dark haired with big brown eyes but ended up with blonde blue-eyed babies somehow. Really wanted to call dd2 either Petrova or Posey but Mr Janeite was having none of it.

"Goodnight Mr Tom" - an amazing, heart-wrenching book. Makes me howl every time I read it.

"Daddy Long legs" - a lovely, fun romp of a book; describing a world utterly alien now I think.

Finally "Charlotte Sometimes" I think it's by Penelope Lively - a great book about time-travelling and boarding school and inspiration for a song by The Cure!

The Little White Horse - Loveday Minette, Biscuits with sugar flowers, Salmon Pink Geraniums & Sir ???? (jugged Port? or Hare...Serena)

The White Horse - Diana (blind) Herne? Weyland Smithy or something

Prefered the first

What Katy Did & others
Marianne dreams - spooky
Dark is rising
Flambards
EE Nesbit
Noel Streatfield
Narnia
Arthur Ransome (loved these & re-read reg)

I love that book! Sir Benjamin Merryweather?

I still read 101 dalmations sometimes...what a great book. Also Superfudge by Judy Blume.
Have always meant to read Robinson Crusoe but have never got round to it.

Oooh, yeah. 101 Dalmations. DH has a copy of it on DD's book shelf waiting til she's old enough for it. Might have to pinch it for a few days.

Back in The Jug Again
Down with School
Ronald Searle (I think) and Geoffrey Willans

Fotherington Thomas is such a star!

I am David - Anne Holm
the boxcar children - Gertrude Chandler Warner
my side of the mountain - Jean Craighead George
the million dollar night (from the peppermint gang series)- Laurie B. Clifford

Ooh yes, Swallows & Amazons. Although I could never quite understand why he'd called one of the children Titty. And then there are Roger, Nancy and Dick, a fantastic collection of names.

E Nesbitt and Noel S here too.

Titty was short for Elizabeth

Noel Streatfeild (and why is it spelt that way), Antonia Forrest, C S Lewis, and Susan Cooper of course.

The Forrest books are genius, she writes so superbly.

oo yes, slowreader. Priceless.

love Forrest - only discovered them a few years ago

Streatfeild is a scandinavian name I think

[pedant] she is indeed the best but only has one R in her name

Ballet Shoes. Anne of Green Gables. What Katy Did. Watership Down. A Little Princess. And Blyton boarding school stories.