Who still reads children's books?

[mummydoit]

Does anyone ever re-read their childhood favourites? I won't part with my full set of Chalet School books or my Narnia books and have re-read both as an adult. I also still have most of the Lorna Hill ballet stories (lent a couple to a niece who lost them). Also kept the Jinny/Shantih horse stories until another niece borrowed them (must get those back!). DH thinks I'm mad to read them as an adult - he wouldn't even read Harry Potter. Assure me I'm not alone!!

Just come back to this thread again, and for years I have wondered about a Boudicca book that I read in middle school which I loved and could never remember it's name. I wonder if it was the Rosemary Sutcliff one. Ooh, I'm going to get it from amazon now. Someone is selling it for 99p (or £20 - I know which one I'm getting!)

Glad others read the Drina books too! No-one I know has ever heard of them.

We used to have a mobile library which came every Friday and I loved it as a child!

Roisin - you didn't like it! Even DH said it was one of the best books he'd read in a long time!
May I just ask - what was it that you didn't like? I'm genuinely curious as to what makes a book appeal to one person and not another.

I found it a bit pretentious tbh., a bit 'trying too hard', assuming too much and explaining too little.

I think in this day and age writers can assume so little from their readers - especially teenagers - in terms of general knowledge.
My colleague at work actually had to explain some of the historical allusions to me that I hadn't got first time
And our 11/12 yr-olds mostly hadn't got it at all.

I generally like historical fiction and love fantasy and I like complicated plots with complex characters, but this was a mixture of historical fiction and fantasy, and confusing plot, and didn't work at all for me.

Plus I didn't like the cover, the title, or the opening lines.

Apart from that it was great

Just unpacked my books I got

The theives of Ostia- Caroline Lawrence
The Ghost School-Lousie Arnold
Percy JAckson and the sea of Monsters-Rick Riodan
2X Montmorency books by Eleanor Updale
A Groosham Grange book -Anthony Horowitz
Robert Westall-Stormsearch
Out of time -Caroline B. Cooney
and a Nancy Drew book and a Hardy boys book

(and adult books)
Most were in charity shops in Ross and second hand book shops in Hay though a couple are signed ones from Hay Festival.

I've just bought a box set of Milly Molly Mandy, which I adored but will save them for reading to dd when she's old enough.

One of my favourite-ever books was 'Maggie Gumption' think it was by Margaret Stuart Barrie? No-one else seems to have ever heard of this though...

I loev Milly Molly Mandy , forgot dd1 was reading Mallory Towers in the book people tent will have to look them out for her!

Still (re) reading all of my nania books,
and also dug out my old Mrs Pepperpot books to read to dd recently.

Have you/your dd read Percy Jackson and Montmorency before? Both fab!

DS1 is a huge Percy Jackson/Rick Riordan fan.

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I haven't read either before , don't really think dd1 will be that into them either, she has now started on Mallory Towers ( "I loooooovvvvee Enid Blyton )

I read the Power of Five one a couple of weeks ago.

Have you read any Artemis Fowl ?

I got
The ghost of Thomas Kempe by Penelope Lively
(Just finished it and it was fab)
Strangers at Green Knowe (am gathering the Green Knowe books one by one)
Little Farm in the Ozarks (sequel to Little House books and about her daughter)
The Queen Elizabeth Story and The Witches Brat both by Rosemary Sutcliff (Great stuff!)
and lots more - I added it up and between the five of us we got 30 books!

Roisin - so you, um, didn't like much about I, Coriander then!

Did you go in the £1 book shop in Hay Rosa?

We got loads of Horrid Henry CD books for in the car £1 each!

We filled 3 of those Guardian bags with books to come home and dd2 couldn't carry hers Don't want to thinkabout how many we got , didn't seem to spend as much as I thought though as I only used cash and only took money out once

Yes most of our books came from the £1 bookshop and also one called Sensible books which had everything in the downstair bit for £1. Got some great ones there including the Ghost of Thomas Kempe.

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I absolutely love children's books! What better excuse is there to have children? I have recently read Ballet Shoes and the Harry Potter series in prep for no 7. Growing up my absolute favourite was Nancy Drew. Recently though I bought the reissue of Flat Stanley for bedtime story- I remember it being far more exciting!

B8 - I have loads of old Noel Streatfeilds and DD1 (aged 9) is loving them at the moment - Ballet Shoes is her favourite and she likes the Gemma books too. My personal fave is one called Apple Bough about a boy violinist.

Hadn't heard of Apple Bough, but will look out for this one now, thanks!

DD1 likes Flat Stanley but I was disappointed , I always like dthe idea of posting someone

I've bought 4 Gillian Avery books, probably at about the cost of 4 new paperbacks at cover price (online I rarely pay full rrp for a book). They include a copy of a sequel to The Warden's Niece which I've been after for years. Irritatingly, it was published in paperback in 1986 - I would have been 17 and would have bought it then had I known about it (even though it was written for a slightly younger audience) - grrrr.

My mum and her sisters were brought up on Rosemary Sutcliffe, as their father worked for her publisher, Oxford University Press, and they probably read her new books as they were published in the 1950s. I was also given most of the books that were available in print or in the local Oxfam shop in my childhood in the 1970s.

The many other historical authors I read included Geoffrey Trease, Marjorie Darke, Barbara Willard, and I loved Barbara Leonie Picard's Ransom for a Knight. I grew up with an interest in reading factual historical books as well. Actually, there's a real family interest in history.

Elkiedee, one of the books I bought at Hay was Barbara Leonie Picard's The Young Pretenders. I stayed up till 2am last night reading it - DH was not amused! I had never heard of her before, now I will hunt down the other one you mentioned.

Ransom for a Knight is about a 13th century English girl from somewhere south of London, very young (early teens) whose father has been taken captive by the Scots following a battle - she and another character (I can't remember his link to her) have to make the very long journey all the way north to rescue him. I guess this offers the framework for a look at how various towns in medieval England were, but I really loved the book as a child (several reads).

By the way, I love your mn username, is it chosen out of political admiration?

Rosaluxembourg - what did you like about I Coriander? No, seriously, as it will be discussed at the final day of voting for the Spellbinding Award, so I want to know what someone liked about it!

Yorkiegirl - yes, I loved Lirael/Sabriel/Abhorsen ... I did find them rather disturbing though (more so than the Power of Five), and it's one of the few books I've not encouraged ds1 to read yet. (Though not actively discouraged him, as that would just make him read it )

Who asked about Artemis Fowl? We all love Eoin Colfer in this house, which is great. Ds1 uses his pocket money to buy new books by his favourite authors, so he bought the latest Artemis Fowl book ... even though we would have bought it anyway

It was me , I get a lot of books that are mentioned by the lads in my class and one of them raved about Artemis Folw

Roisin - I loved the juxtaposition between the magical world and the world of Puritan London. It is a proper fairy tale, the fairy world is at least as menacing as the human world and Coriander has battles to fight in each. I love the way she evokes 17th century London, I love the quality of her prose, I love the way she interweaves the two worlds without any crass tying up of ends. For me, it is a totally magical books, trying to analyse why is like bursting a soap bubble - it is fragile, it is beautiful, it gives me great pleasure, that's all really.