Books you read as a child/ teenager that you would love to read again!

[Sixofone]

I've recently started re-reading books I read as a child and teenager, having a fantastic time doing it so thought I'd share, would love to hear your books! As you will see there is a strong Enid Blyton theme....

Famous Five (but not all of them)
Malory Towers
Faraway Tree
Goodnight Mr Tom
Black Beauty (who was this by?)
the Little HOuse on the Prairie series
Nancy Drew

It was Anne Digby. I have got most of the Trebizon ones but I want to track down some others she wrote which were apparently sequels to Enid Blyton's Naughtiest Girl books.

I had all the Jill series of books, Jill's Gymkhana, Pony Jobs for Jill, Jill and the Perfect Pony....there were several more. I still have a couple in fact but haven't read them in years.

We have just started reading Enid Blyton with dd1, I loved Amelia Jane when I was little. Also...

Mrs Peeperpot
All Roald Dahl
Littlenose
Kizzy.........Does anyone else remember this one?
Stig of the Dump
Famous Five

Kizzy is the same as The Diddakoi - I still read this, and the end makes me cry every time.

lol at the Sue Barton books! They were hilarious. But fab nonetheless.

RosaL - my teacher read me The Ghost of Thomas Kempe and I remember being on the edge of my seat. I read it to my year four class and I am afraid most of them felt the same way as your dd. Perhaps it was my delivery...

My dd1 and I recently read the Diddakoi at bedtime - fab book! I loved it as a child.

Over the summer I re- read Rosemary Sutcliffe's novels abotu the Romans in Britain - Eagle of the Ninth, Silver Branch, Lantern Bearers - and loved them even more if possible!

ahh, mrs pepperpot! i just got a compendium of those stories for 20p from the charity shop "for my DD when she's older".....(sneaks it into bedside bookpile)

hey all - great thread.

i've reread al my fave kids books recently, well worth doing. interesting to see which stand up and which don't.

goodnight mr tom (and also back home, also by michelle magorian) def worth revisiting.
similarly, carrie's war is a lovely way to spend a sunday

happystory - terrible temptation is by honor arudel, she's great. not in print, v hard to find her stuff anymore, but if you do - nab 'em

lol to paula danziger and lois duncan remembering. anyone remember the lukemia one by lois duncan - remember weeping in bed reading that aged 11!

evil returns! hehe... a lorna hill collector! i loved 'em all, 'cept the caroline spanish dancing ones!

and dianna wynne jones is just about best authord ever. even now i'm 30!

Jill Has Two Ponies.

The Silver Brumby series of books.... set in Australia.

To Kill a Mockingbird

The Faraway Tree even if it isnt very PC these days.

Katie and the Nurgula

and

The Trouble with Magic

Both given to me by a beloved cousin who had had them for many years, I have read them lots of times and still have them on the shelf ready to read to my DC's when they dont need a picture with each turn of the page to keep thier interest.

Very dogeared and tatty now, but all the best books are!

i was a memebr of three libraries in different boroughs, so most of my favourite books were returned to said libraries, but my favs were:

Nancy Drew
Famous Five (i didn't like Secret Seven either)
Black Beauty (used to read this every holiday as it was a small book to pack)
Malory Towers
Ghost Stories
James Herbert (hated Stephen King - yawn)

books i'd wished i had read:
LOTR
Swallows and Amazons
Just William

Making up for it now...
Peter Duck is my next book!

Famous Five books
Chalet School books
Gobbolino The Witches Cat
Swallows and Amazons
Enid Blyton's Adventure series - Island of Adventure, etc.
Children of Green Knowe
Anne of Green Gables
Pippi Longstocking

oh and The Wosrt Witch, have coneverted one child to the book and working on the other two with the new series from the telly!

Tyaca - not sure the leukaemia book was by Lois Duncan, she wrote slightly spooky books - wasn't it Lois something else... Lowry? If I'm thinking of the same book - a family moves, and the older sister gets sick and dies??? Is that the one you mean?
I remember reading that on a train when I was about 16 (I never did grow out of teenage books) and felt embarassed by by snivelling!

Anyone read the Silver Crown, think by someone O'Brien maybe?

I'd forgotten all the Trebizon books, I loved them, also liked the Antonia Forest boarding school books.

Malory Towers & St Clares I liked when I was really young, but me and a friend re-read them when about 13, and I thought they were really mean to each other, making apple pie beds, sewing up coat sleeves & outting pebbles in wellies, til the bad girls pulled their socks up and conformed!

splish splash you right! summer to die..
just googled.

good spot

splish spalash i still read antonia forest! reckon i've been reading them for 20 years now.... at moment "end of term" is in the bog

best kids writer ever, really underrated and noone ever heard of ;-(

Brilliant thread - has made me all nostalgic and excited about re-reading some classics.

Anyone else remember 'The Battle of Bubble and Squeak' by Philippa Pearce? I loved it and used it as part of my desperate battle to get a pet gerbil. Didn't work though.

I can remember a really spooky kids' book about a lonely girl who befriended a child who turned out to be a ghost. I can see myself in the library staring at the cover, but can't recall the title for the life of me.

Another one is 'a traveller in time' by Alison Uttley - loved it! And prompted an obsession with the Tudors.

Are you thinking of Come Back Lucy? - it's about a girl who's orphaned, goes to live at her aunt's house, and makes friends with a ghost called Alice

Or there's When Marnie Was There, but I don't remember that as spooky.

Tyaca, I don't think I've ever met anyone who knows about Antonia Forrest either, but I loved them too, and have re-read them loads. Even made me consider the name Miranda for my dd

I have got a couple of Antonia Forests - End of Term and Autumn Term, but they are hard to get hold of. DD1 has inherited my fascination for boarding school literature, odd really as I actually hated boarding school and she is a real home bird too.

Splishsplosh

Thanks - that sounds familiar (Come Back Lucy). I'll look around for it; I remember being very spooked by it, but I was (ad still am) a big ole scaredy cat.

Another DWJ fan here. I have all her books (although some of the more recent ones area bit disappointing) have just started to read the Ogre Downstairs to ds and dd - have been holding off because I would be so disappointed if they didn't like them. I re-read the Dark is Rising because of another thread a couple of weeks ago which mentioned the film (which sounds utterly awful - apparently Will doesn't get on with his family in it - it's a pervertion!) and having said that last time I reread it I was a bit disappointed, this time I really enjoyed it. I was a coomplete bookworm as a kid (still am) so millions of books that I enjoyed. I still have several hundred children's books, most of which I have re-read many times. the only ones that I read as a child, would like to reread but haven't are the Andre Norton sci-fi/fantasies because they have gone out of print, and a few books that my big sister has hung onto, so I can only read when I visit her.

frankie3 you are thinking of Cynthia Voight, and there are I think five books in that series.

splish splosh - when i was younger i always used to think miranda for a girl! but now, 18wks with my first, i'm praying for a girl so i call her esther

nooka and frankie3 - cynthia voight rocks! my sister is a big fan too and, aged 28, religeously re-reads them every xmas when we go back to my parents. she reckons they're best the ninth/ tenth times ...

www.abe.com usually has most out of print kids books you'd ever want, usually at reasonable prices

xc

One of my favourite sets of books, and all of my DDs liked them too are - My Naughty Little Sister. I also loved the Malory Towers/ St Clares series and used to spend many a dull moment wishing I was at boarding school!

Furzella mentioned Beverley Nichols 'The Tree That Sat Down' - I loved those books. Also

the Moomins.
Famous Five and the schools ones, but not Secret 7.
And a series of old ballet books about a girl from a back-to-back in Newcastle who gets to the Royal Ballet School (natch). Can't remember what they were called though.
Also loved all the L Frank Baum ones - Wizard of Oz and all
And does anyone remember Emil and the Detectives?