As an Adult, What Children's Books Have You Enjoyed?

[SprinkledGlitter]

I've seen an old thread about this and I thought I'd create a new one.

What would you recommend? I love discovering new books!

She's Bill's teacher in the subject of How To Be a Butch Lesbian, clearly! Which strangely seems to involve a lot of horse love, which I've never understood.

Yes, supposing the eternally unpopular Gwen were also a lesbian — petrified of horses, cold water and games? In St Clare’s the obvious couple were Gladys (tiny, shy, good at acting) and Mirabel (strapping, ‘protective’ and bolshie), but again, both brilliant at hockey (or maybe lacrosse…) You can’t be an indoor, poetry-writing lesbian in EB.

Maybe Miss Peters and Miss Grayling were a couple…?

Oh yes, Gladys and Mirabel! More to add to the list.

Even Darryl and Sally were a bit suspect- neither obsessed with horses, but both loved games and had a very intense friendship.

Enid Blyton knew what she was doing...

@noblegiraffe Thank you! I am partway through it and enjoying it very much. It’s only available for 28 days so I might well have missed it without your recommendation.

@CatChant ah, glad someone else got to enjoy it! I randomly switched the radio on during a long drive just as it started!

I was hoping to see Frances Hardinge mentioned - A Face Like Glass, Cuckoo Song & A Skinfull of Shadows are my favourites, but I've really enjoyed everything she's written. Modern YA fantasy is the genre I guess. Her writing is beautiful,

I've remembered another one. When I was junior school age I loved the 'Jennings' books, and a few weeks ago I found one in a charity shop for 50p. It was just as good as I remembered it, funny and warm.

The best thing about having a DC for me is being introduced to Bluey. I absolutely adore the stories. They are so well written.

Ones I've first read as an adult for myself and enjoyed include:

Harry Potter
The Once and Future King
Alex Rider series
Series of Unfortunate Events
Half Magic and its sequels (by Edward Eager)

(Some of the) ones I used to read as a child and still enjoy:
Narnia
Swallows and Amazons
Anything by E. Nesbit
Cue for Treason by Geoffrey Trease
Little House on the Prairie
Bonnie Dundee by Rosemary Sutcliffe (and lots of others by her)
Jennings
Just William
Noel Streetfeild books
Biggles (but honestly, only the WW1 books are really good, the rest are just a nostalgia fest for me. But the author actually flew in WW1 and I love the descriptions of flying in those books.)

Another one for Holes. There’s many others but that is definitely one of my favourite. I laughed out loud at some many moments while reading that on the London tube. It’s so brilliantly bizarre.

Also the Book Thief, I think that’s written for young adults. Not sure but I read it as a 30 year old.

Lots of Jacqueline Wilson, I wish I’d read her books as a tween!

Agree with The Murderer's Ape being brilliant, the second is very nearly as good!

Agreed! FH has to be one of my favourite authors! Same with Lissa Evans - I've read her children and adult books and met her in person!

More young adult than children's, but I love Second Star To The Right

@110APiccadilly I also live the WW1 Biggles books, and have never met anyone else who does! Miles away from the later stiff upper lip charactures.

And thank you to those recommending Back Home, I read it over the weekend and really enjoyed it. Could have done with some tighter editing in the second half, but loved the characters and the sympathy for those sent away and those staying behind

Marianne Dreams by Catherine Storr, and The Dolls House by Rumer Godden.
They are children's books, but I'm actually hesitant to give them to my grandchildren as they are pretty dark . I think children used to be more resilient.

@OneHeartySnail I'm very pleased to find someone else appreciates how good they are! And yes, tonally so different to the later ones. I have a feeling that I read somewhere that the first ones were in fact written for an adult audience and that's why they're much more honest portrayals of the psychological effect of war flying. But even in Flies East (which is not quite like the other WW1 ones), the real suspense is whether he'll manage to sort everything out before he has a nervous breakdown.

Have you ever been to the Shuttleworth Collection? Well worth a visit, but an interesting thing is that they won't fly the WW1 planes unless the weather conditions are perfect. And then you realise that Johns and his contemporaries were in fact flying these things day in, day out, with people shooting at them.

Have you read The Edge of the Cloud, part of the Flambards series? Also very good about just how fragile and cutting edge planes were in those days!

The Wayside School series by Louis Sachar is also very clever.

A favourite book I discovered as a tween but came back to as an adult is Futuretrack 5 by Robert Westall. Dystopian fiction written in the eighties.

I reread all of Biggles in lockdown (at rather great expense in some cases.) Some of the interwar ones are interesting, too, especially when they head off to an island where it's unclear whether it actually exists or not, because we forget how recently much of the world has been explored. Some of the attitudes are a bit colonial I places, though. I mostly prefer the ones with von Stalhein.

I also read WE Johns's Worrals and Gimlet books, which I hadn't come across before.

Also, all Robert Westsll. Devil on the Road. The Wheatstone Pond (that was done as a R4 drama 10 or 15 years ago.)

Many thanks, everybody, for taking the time to respond.

I enjoyed Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. I also liked The Girl With All the Gifts.

Thanks

I read that a few years ago, couldn't put it down! I couldn't get into the second book though unfortunately.

The Murder Most Unladylike series by Robin Stevens is a lot of fun. She is heavily inspired by Agatha Christie, so if I would recommend if you are a fan and fancy a light whodunnit.