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

[PunchyAnts]

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?

I loved The Ghost of Thomas Kempe too! Hadn’t known that Penelope Lively wrote children’s fiction.

Also Joan Aiken’s Mortimer books - I remembered them from Jackanory but had never read them and enjoyed them so much with my daughters.

K M Peyton’s Penninton’s Heir - I read the Flambards book as a teen but loved this even more.

So many! I've been reading children's books to my kids for the past 17 years and will be so sad to stop.

Books I could have read as I child but didn't until I was an adult:

Minnow on the Say by Philippa Pearce
Everything written by Joan Aiken
War Horse by Michael Morpurgo
The Family from One End Street by Eve Garnett
My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George
The Cat who Came in off the Roof by Annie G Schmidt
The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynn Reid Banks

and books I have absolutely loved but were written more recently:

The House with Chicken Legs and the Girl Who Speaks Bear by Sophie Anderson
The Wildwitch books by Lene Kaaberbol
The Way Past Winter and The Island at the End of Everything by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
The Dreamsnatcher by Abi Elphinstone

the dark materials one…I was on holiday and finished the good one and was stuck reading it…from memory the first half was absolutely tedious torture and it’s long! I keep at it as I had no sleep alternative and I suddenly really got it and then immediately got through the rest when home

I mean the good book i had saved for holiday

Yes! I’d somehow missed this and only read it aged 25 after I moved to the UK. Loved it.

I've recently started rereading the Jennings books, I loved them as a child & found some on the shelf in my childhood bedroom.

Goodnight Mr Tom by Michelle Magorian - I was about the right age to read this when it was published in 1981 but never did. I finally read it I think in 2021, and am working my way through her books. Currently reading Just Henry.

@PunchyAnts

I read all the Anne of Green Gables books, the first two my own copies, and then mostly from the library, as a kid, and acquired my own copies later. I think I might have bought most more than once eventually, as my sister who is 11 years younger nabbed some of my Anne books, also Noel Streatfeild and some other ballet stories after I'd left home.

But I read her Emily trilogy, starting with Emily of New Moon, as an adult. I had the first one when I was younger but somehow didn't get very far with it. Mysterious as I loved it when I did finally read it in my 40s. The second book is also very good but sadly the final book in the trilogy is a letdown. Recommended.

I Capture the Castle - more of a teenage book but lovely.

Harry Potter too. Will always be a Potterhead

Gosh so many! I read Harry Potter in late teens when they came out.
My DS loves reading so much and we read together a lot. Recent highlights have been the How To Train Your Dragon series and the Michael Morpurgo book about Caspar the cat. We've just got the first Wizards of Once to try, same author as HTTYD, and I'm so excited. There's so many graphic novels too. The Kittyquest ones have such dry funny humour in them and oh the Mr Penguin mysteries by Alex T Smith too.

Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror by Chris Priestley is a brilliant treat. Scary for the children and very enjoyable for the adults too.

Wind in the Willows
The Narnia series

The Hobbit

A Deadly Education

Things I've read with DCs but I'm not sure that counts

Holes
Goodnight Mr Tom
quite a few Michael Morpurgo

The books "Varjak paw" and "Warrior cat" by S F Said. They are wonderful. His two later books (unrelated) are absolutely fantastic as well.

Return to Zenda (I think)
The land of green ginger
The little grey men (hugely underrated book)