Can I start a thread about nostalgic Young Adult/Children's books we used to read in the 80s/90s?

[guineaholic11]

I love going to second hand bookshops or charity shops and browsing the children's sections to see if I can spot any books I used to love reading then?

I used to love anything by Jean Ure, (anyone remember the Peter High school series she wrote?) Anne Digby's Trebizon series, Noel Streatfield, Antonia Forrest's school books with the Marlowes, and endless pony books by Patricia Leitch (anyone remember Jinny and her Arab horse Shantih?) Also went through a serious Sweet Valley phase...goodness knows why, looking back those books were full of fat shaming and bitchiness!

Ooo, also a ballet series called (I think) Sadler's Wells with a heroine called (?) Veronica. She had to travel to near Hadrian's Wall whenever she stayed with family and was always about to fail at the start of each performance before the opening score magically cured her!

Apparently it was Daughters of the Air, up thread, not Sisters of the Light. Close enough...
I’d almost forgotten the Sadler’s Wells books. Didn’t she marry Sebastian in the end?

Aw man! Nostalgia trip.

I loved Point Horror, Sweet Valley and Babysitters Club. The Babysitter in Point Horror was terrifying!

I want to read them again now

Drina! I read all of those too!

pollyhemlock Yes! Thank you so much!

I remember:
Philip Ridley books (Scribbleboy, Dakota of the White Flats...), they were pretty weird!!
Animal Ark series by Lucy Davis (Pony in the Porch, Puppy in the Pantry...)
All Jacqueline Wilson books
The Sleepover Club series by Rose Impey
Pig-Heart Boy by Malorie Blackman (And later her Noughts and Crosses series)
The Secret Life of Sally Tomato by Jean Ure

@endehors, I can't remember. I feel like they married and she was pregnant/had a daughter at the end but I may be mixing it up with another series. It was a melodramatic, book-heavy time

Broomstick - The Song of the Lioness series are my all time favourite books. I can't wait to share them with my daughter when she's old enough. I was about 12 when I first read them.

Also loved Sweet Valley High, anything by Christopher Pike, L J Smith. Love this thread - must dig out some of the old classics to re-read...

Loved so many of these!
I also remember reading Tallahassee Higgins and Kumquat May I'll always love you

Oh and the sisters series! My favourites were Cassie and Daphne

I also loved Ramona Quimby!!

Ptw, DD and I both prefer Kel and Daine to Alanna, although we like Alanna too. DD noticed that my copy of Realm of the Gods falls open at the romantic bit and has teased me about it

Loved Sadlers Wells. Only the first two are really about Veronica (who does marry Sebastian). The rest are about various other characters.

Rockshandy I've been trying to remember the name of Dear Nobody for ages, thank you! Loved that book. Also loved Mel by Liz Berry.

Robert Leeson trilogy about a girl whose Mum walked out- It's My Life/ Jan Alone/ Coming Home. Read them so many times.

Lynne Reid Banks- My Darling Villain, Writing on the Wall, The L Shaped Room.

Centre Line by Joyce Sweeney.

Point Horror, Sweet Dreams, and Point Romance especially one called Summer Dreams, Winter Love that I read repeatedly

Sweet Valley Twins/ High.

Thanks so much for this thread, loads of happy memories.

TheLesser hope your DN will love Tamora Pierce, I'm a bit of a fan as my user name probably gives away. I'd probably go for either the Protector of the Small series (Kel) or Wildmagic (Daine) first as they are a little more grown up for a teen audience. If she loves them she'll work back to Alanna.

Oh and for Broomstick, I just found the most amazing fanfic continuation of Protector of the Small, it is so good it is like gaining an extra two full length books in the series!

Only just seen this thread, but I also loved the Judy Blume books, especially Tiger Eyes and Deenie. I loved () the Sweet Dreams series of books, Second Star to the Right, Homecoming and the rest of the Tillerman series, also a book called Dear Rebecca about a girl whose mum died and she lived with her dad who was struggling to cope.

I love these threads! Dd loves alanna books, and we gave about 10 copies of the first 4 books away the year she and her school friends turned 11 (she's read them about 5 times now, and she's just turned 13)

Loved stranger with my face, the changeover and summer of my German soldier - and the eyes of Karen connors too!

And everything by Robert Cormier, but the chocolate war was the best... (or maybe I am the cheese)

Jinny & Shantih
anything else by Patricia Leitch (favourite Dream of Fair Horses)
Follyfoot
The Kevin and Sadie books
Trebizon
Nancy Drew
Linda Craig (like Nancy Drew but with a beautiful Palomino horse Chico d'Oro)
Noel Streatfield particularly the "Gemma" series (which are on Amazon I've just discovered) and the Bell Family (finally tracked down a second hand copy of the sequel New Town been after that for years)
loads of others but these stand out

So many of these. Also Kessa which was also about anorexia. I'm a teenage health freak too which was from his sisters perspective. The Cherry Ames nurse series.

I've recently re read the jinny books and realised how 70s they were and how much of a social message they had. Completely passed me by as a child.

Ah the sweet dreams books, there were hundreds!
Can't believe I forgot about Paula Danziger

I loved Devil on my back by Monica Hughes. It’s about a future society where you clip information packs into the back of your neck and can instantly access whatever knowledge you like.
The main character leaves the society, loses his packs and meets a group of uncivilised people. He has to learn how to do stuff properly, like fish and hunt and use his brain for once.

I often think of those packs in the google instant info era.

Seeline and Papergirl I’m another Sue Barton fan! I’m 42 now and it took me until last year to meet someone else who knew them (apart from my sister). I still have all 7 that I bought/was given in the 80s, I used to save the last 2 pages of each one to read until I had got the next one to start straightaway! Did you know that Helen Dore Boylston also wrote as series about an actress called Carole Page? I found one of them in the fiction library at school when I was about 14 and was so delighted but have never come across any others.

Such a good thread!
For a whole book on nostalgic reading, there is The Child that Books Built (Frances Spufford). Reading about how the books I remember as a child affected him growing up was very emotional (& liberating!)

Oh my! I'd forgotten all about the Sisters books and the horse one with Chico d'Oro! Reminds me of Horse in the House too. I've never met anyone else who'd read Playing Beattie Bow either!
I loved so many of these - chalet school, Enid blyton, SVH, Babysitters Club, Judy Blume (I saw her at an event about her new adult book and all the questions from the audience were about Forever!), the Silver Brumbies, Follyfoot, the Pullein-Thompson sisters, Point Horror, Jinny, Jill, Flicka, anything by LJ Smith! I also read loads of Stephen King, Jilly Cooper and Marian Keyes around that point too. I loved the Belgariad later on, but I lost interest in the later series and gave up on them.

CourtneyLoveIsMySpiritAnimal god yeh I loved the Caitlin series I still have a copy of it bought it at a car boot sale along with The changeover KeithLeMonde, which was another childhood super fave, just for nostalgia's sake.

Also Christopher Pike, I have heard his books are collectables now. I know I should have kept them.