Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
What we're reading

Find your new favourite book or recommend one on our Book forum.

Original poster

What children's book did you first enjoy as an an adult?

116 replies

PunchyAnts · 04/08/2022 12:10

I only read L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables for the first time earlier this year. I watched the series with my Granny and loved it but never got around to the book. It was a rare (for me) case of hoping the book lived up to my happy memories of the film and thankfully it really did.

As a side note, I watched 9 minutes of Anne with an E on Netflix last night and sorry to anyone who adores it, but there's only room in my heart for one Anne.

Any children's books you read first as an adult and enjoyed?

OP posts:
Twilightimmortal · 08/08/2022 06:04

I really got into Horrible Histories as an adult and bought the whole set off ebay.

eurochick · 08/08/2022 06:27

Harry Potter and the Northern Lights books. They came out when I was already an adult so I didn't have the chance to read them as a child.

DaisyWaldron · 08/08/2022 07:11

I spent years as a children's bookseller, so read most well-known children's books published in the 21st century as an adult. I only discovered Tamora Pierce at university, and I still love her books. Some more recent favourites are the Percy Jackson (and Magnus Chase) books, the Reeve and McIntyre Adventures, the Skulduggery Pleasant series, You Should See me in a Crown by Leah Johnson, Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley, Dread Nation by Justina Ireland, Alice Osman's books and comics and The Murderer's Ape by Jakob Wegelius. I'm also a big fan of The Phoenix comic and the books that were first published as comic strips there, especially Pirates of Pangaea and Mega Robo Bros.

ilovesushi · 08/08/2022 11:50

@elkiedee I only discovered Diane Wynne Jones as an adult when I borrowed an audio DVD from the library to play on a long car journey. I was an avid reader as a kid and would have loved all her books so not a clue how they passed me by. I've since read most of them to DS. I don't reread many books, but her books are some of the few I come back to multiple times. I held off Howl's Moving Castle for ages as I loved the film so much and wasn't sure what extra the book could bring, but loved that one too.

stormelf · 08/08/2022 11:53

The Percy Jackson books

PritiPatelsMaker · 10/08/2022 11:09

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I was a little older when it came out and my DSis, who is rather younger than me, loved it so much I thought I should read it.

rollonbacon · 10/08/2022 11:28

My guilty pleasure is Katy by Jaqueline Wilson. Loved the original but love this one too!

Weepingwillows12 · 10/08/2022 11:32

Second (or was it third) the How to Train your Dragon books by Cressida Cowell. Also her Wizards of Once books. I think she's great.

Also enjoyed reading the Hero's Guide books to my son recently. They are really good too. Think someone on here recommended them but they arent easy to find anymore.

Saucery · 10/08/2022 11:33

Skullduggery Pleasant series. DS loved them so I gave them a try.

YetAnotherSpartacus · 10/08/2022 11:35

Moomintrolls.

TonTonMacoute · 10/08/2022 15:29

The Arthur Ransome books. Never got them at all as a child (to the great disappointment of my DF who taught me to read and who adored them).

However, when I came to read them with DS my eyes were opened. They are great stories but he manages to put in so many things about growing up, friendships and their difficulties,disappointments, learning responsibility and shows how to learn to deal with it all, but he does it in a very subtle way. Very clever!

Also Treasure Island and Kidnapped. Fantastic books!

FixItUpChappie · 10/08/2022 15:47

The Harry Potter books sent me off in a search for other kids/YA books and that's been going on for 20+ years now Grin

I discovered the Narnia books for a start - I had never read them as a child. Then the floodgates opened when I had my own children and we read all the Little House books (wonderful), the Secret Garden, the Nym's Island books (also wonderful)....I've got Treasure Island cued up to start next.

I honestly think it's been one of the most enjoyable bits of parenting - all the books we have read and discovered together.

FixItUpChappie · 10/08/2022 15:50

Also agree with the Percy Jackson books....very entertaining if you haven't tried them OP

ReindeerGames · 10/08/2022 16:11

@elkiedee I also missed out on Joan Aiken and Diana Wynne Jones - the only DWJ book I read as a child was Witch Week and for me the Wolves series stopped at The Stolen Lake. I am reading the others to DS at the moment - we are on Is Underground - and loving them just as much if not more than if I had read them as a child. But much as I enjoyed reading the Chrestomanci books in my 40s I think i would have adored them even more as a child.

I came to Harry Potter when I was 25, when there were only four books, and again I would have loved them much more as a child. I find it hard to get into modern children and ya books now - probably because I am not their audience - so while my kids loved How to Train your Dragon and Percy Jackson I just left them to it. I did enjoy the Grishaverse books though, don't know if they count as ya.

LittleGreenBeetle · 10/08/2022 16:18

The Velveteen Rabbit. I was aware of it but viewed it as an American thing and only read it when I had my own children. It's so bittersweet and poingnant!

Beekindbeehumble · 10/08/2022 16:22

I first read A Wrinkle in Time as an adult. Loved it, so read the whole series,

Goneistheday · 10/08/2022 16:27

Eva Ibbotson books - I'd read Which Witch as a kid but didn't realise it was her. My eldest has really enjoyed reading her books and it's been a nice discovery for me as well.

Robin Jarvis was a childhood favourite and I've read a few more as an adult. Still brill.

ShirleyJackson · 10/08/2022 16:37

The Earthsea books by Diana Wynne Jones. I read them last winter at the grand old age of 47 and loved them.

Tom’s Midnight Garden - I cried at the end, of course.

AKnitterofThings · 10/08/2022 16:46

Another Anne and Megan Follows fan here. I love LMM’s books. I had the AOGG theme tune at my wedding to walk down the aisle. I discovered the books when the tv series came out (I was 20)

Paranoidandroidmarvin · 10/08/2022 16:53

My first would have been the Magic Faraway tree the wishing chair. Anything Enid blyton. Moved onto Malory towers etc.

Then as a teenager I moved onto sweet valley high and sweet dreams books. Then I started down the whole horror line and stayed with that genre.

ShirleyJackson · 11/08/2022 21:09

I’m an idiot. The Earthsea books are by Ursula K Le Guin, not Diana Wynne Jones.

As you were…

Footle · 12/08/2022 09:44

@ShirleyJackson and they're definitely not by Shirley Jackson.

ShirleyJackson · 12/08/2022 12:56

Definitely not!

Devo1818 · 24/08/2022 08:07

The Morris Gleitzman Once series. Absolutely gripped. Also Hunger Games.

More YA but also love Between Shades of Grey and Only Ever Yours

Coldhandscoldheart · 24/08/2022 08:19

I read The weirdstone of Brisingamen and Elidor as an adult, there’s a bit in one of them that scared the absolute pants off me, I don’t know if it would have had the same effect when I was a child.

i think I read The Owl Service as a child & didn't really get it, so had missed these two. I re read TOS as an adult, and still didn’t really get it.

I love childrens literature, I took the Horse and his Boy into hospital with me when I was getting induced. We are listening to the audio books of Ramona read by Stockard Channing which I think I am appreciating much more as an adult.