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

I love Antonia Forest too - I have all the Marlow ones, but only because I used to be a librarian & 'liberated' The Marlows and the traitor and Falconer's Lure from the discards pile. Unfortunately I missed The Thursday Kidnapping - the only non-Marlow one and I only have sketchy memories of it.

Kate and KAty doll - does anyone remember?

Midnight Express - the ballet books you are thinking sound like the Sadlers Wells series by Lorna Hill.

ooooh! Sue Barton books too - i read the lot - fab

excellent liberation work rusty bear! i haven't got a copy of falconers lure - my mum let me read hers if i didn't leave her house with it ;-)

the only non-marlow one i know of is player's boy? or something? historical?? never read it...

must be careful not to hijack this thread and make it an antonia forest thread, but it's so good to find people who've heard of her

that rings a bell RosaL - thanks. Was one of them called White siomething? White Swan? White feathers? Only have 2 dss, so unless one of them turns out to be a budding Billy Elliot I don't suppose we'll be revisiting.

There are two historical ones, The Players Boy & The Players and the Rebels, but they are actually about a Marlow ancestor from Elizabethan days(the one mentioned in the old farm logs on Peter'r Room/The Cricket Term.)
The Thursday kidnapping is about a large family (very Marlow-ish but not actually Marlows) who live in Hampstaed & by a series of accidents manage to 'kidnap' a baby for a day. I read it while it was in the stacks at the library HQ - I used to work there once a week & read it in my lunchtimes. But one week I arrived to find them in the middle of a massive discarding & it had gone, though I found the other two in one of the piles.

rusty bear, i looked being out geeked on the subject of antonia forest!!

Sorry my inner librarian is showing! I work with computers in a school now, but I've been re-organising their library for the last couple of weeks & it seems to have reawakened it all....

Blackhearts in Battersea and all Joan Aitken
Dark is Rising Sequence
Swallows and Amazons
The Box of Delights
Loved Antonia Forest too

Anyone else love Nina Bawden? - The Runaway Summer, The Witches daughter, Carries war, The White Horse Gang. Loved 'em. She had that knack of making you feel that at 10 years old you were reading a really adult book.

I can remember taking piles of books out from the library each week - they seemed to stock so much more then. I would work my way through a whole series of books - you'd never find all the Arthur Ransome books on the shelves nowadays.

I enjoyed E Nesbit, Alan Garner, Chalet School, Noel Streatfeild, Antonia Forest (yes, I still have Cricket Term & End of Term). I reread The Dark is Rising (book 2) most Christmas's. I hadn't heard of the film until I found this thread but I can safely say I will NOT be watching it.

There was another book about a boy called Christopher and his sister called something like Susan and they had wizardly adventures in woods - was that an Alan Garner one? (I just remember the line, "Christopher, you're getting into the bath with your socks on!". There was no way I would be watching my brother get in the bath...)

Favourite Enid Blyton was 'The Boy Next Door'...

I'd probably be bored with the books I read as a child and having checked out my local library, many of those books have been supplanted by Harry Potter . I do remember reading a book called 'The Family at one-End Street' which I loved - I was about 9 I guess, it may have been more than one book. Another Arthur Ransome fan - I treated myself to the entire range of S & A, CC books for a self-birthday gift a few years ago. Anyone rememeber Marianne's Dreams? That book gave me nightmares .

I also loved reading a series of very old books which was about a girl who wanted to be a ballerina, forget the author now! Monica Dickens and Malcolm Saville were good once I'd grown out of Enid Blyton.

There was one called Charlotte Sometimes about a time traveller, it really struck a chord with me. I don't know who wrote it and I guess it's out of print now, I loved it.

I also read books about a girl called Jill, she rode horses which were called Black Boy (very pc!) and Rapide, her best friend was called Ann who didn't seem to have her own horse. Any ideas on author....?

Ruby Ferguson wrote the Jill books.

clutteredup - Charlotte Sometimes is by Penelope Farmer. I'm re-reading it now, and have just re-read Giant Under the Snow as well, because of this thread.

Bluecornflower - you may mean Moon of Gomrath & Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner, that had Colin and Susan in it.

ok Splish Splosh - i thought you were just an Antonia Forest fan - but you seem to be an all round mastermind on the subject.

i bow down in awe at such an expert in what I'd considered my specialist subject

I used to love Judy Blume books.

Also 15 by Beverly Cleary (???) was a fave.

Does anyone remember a book called Mr. Nobody?

That book blew my mind! I also used to love poetry when i was younger and it has been easier to trace these and them to my library.

Black Beauty.

In fact I will buy it tomorrow if I remember.

Tyaca - thank you!

I have 2 sisters, 5years, and nearly 9 years older than me - we all loved reading so I think between us we built up a big collection of books. So turns out I have nearly all the books people here talk about. Except the pony books - none of us ever got into those for some reason

adrian mole

tyaca - another Antonia Forest fan here. They are superb books. Peter's Room is my favourite.

PL - could never get into Peter's Room, but then i never read Bronte, is it?

For the non-school stuff, Ready Made Family rates highest with me. but i confess to loving the term time stuff best - bring on cricket finals and end of term plays

great great books, shame she never finished the last. apparently she burnt it before she died as she wasn't happy with it. nicky and laurie were in 6th form ...