Reading Children's Books as an Adult

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I was a fairly avid reader as a child but feel I missed a lot of the children’s classics like Wind in the Willows, The Secret Garden, Black Beauty, Anne of Green Gables etc.

I’m thinking I might read them now as a (fairly mature!) adult. Has anyone else done this? It isn’t too weird is it?!

And if you have done / would do it, are there any books you’d recommend?

Thanks.

I recently re-read The Children of Green Knowe series and was enchanted, catapulted right back to childhood.

I’d also recommend Diana Wynne Jone’s Chrestomanci books, strange and captivating.

And I’ll never stop loving Pippi Longstocking!

I've just read Hywel's Moving Castle for the first time and it was wonderful. I'm planning a Chrestomanci reread next!

I do love the Green Knowe books but some of the ethnic minority characters are tricky to modern eyes. Very lovingly portrayed- but tricky.

That’s a really good point. I agree some of the character’s are portrayed in a way that does feel very tricky from a modern perspective. But, because I agree, they do feel like they were written from an affectionate rather than a sneering place, I actually found that in itself quite an interesting thought experiment in terms of wondering what the things I (as a hopefully tolerant, progressive person) might currently think, but which will become problematic over time.

I don’t think I’d recommend them to read with children of 2026, but as an adult with that critical perspective, I found them a lovely re-read.

It could work the other way, couldn't it? Imagine going into the world of Enid Blyton's Famous Five and advising George that she is in fact a boy and would feel much happier if she got a double mastectomy?

Except I think it's perfectly obvious that George is rebelling against prevalent male ideas of 'what girls are like' and the limits placed on them, rather than actually wanting to literally be a boy.

If it had been possible to be a girl and not have it be assumed that you needed to be protected and stay behind in the cave making the beds while the boys got on with the exciting stuff of stalking smugglers or whatever, she'd almost certainly have said 'Fine' and got on with being a girl who stalked smugglers while telling insufferable Julian to heat up some cans of soup and make seaweed beds for when she and Anne got back.

She makes herself look as much like a boy as possible, gives herself a boy's name, and doesn't she even say she's a boy?
If she was a same age girl today, do you really not think that she'd be encouraged into transitioning? How very progressive that would be. Or would she be embracing the joy of being a teenage girl in a porn-soaked culture?

Because she wants the freedom of being a boy. Look at what Julian and Dick get up to versus what Anne gets up to. Look at what Uncle Quentin gets up to (blowing shit up, getting kidnapped, throwing tantrums) versus what Aunt Fanny gets up to (being harassed, apologising for Uncle Q's tantrums, telling the children to be quiet). I'd have wanted to be a boy too.

It's partly Anne's personality, isn't it. Dinah Mannering would tell Julian where he got off and leave Dick lying in the dust. Even Lucy Ann wasn't as meek as Anne.

Yes, the FF universe doesn't have many varieties of girls and woman. Anne, Aunt Fanny, some buxom, beaming farmers' wives eternally at the ready to make sandwiches and serve up enormous hams, and possibly a couple of female villains-adjacent.

You're right, Dinah Mannering would have wiped the floor with Julian. Maybe she could have teamed up with other EB not-so-conforming girls like June from Malory Towers and Amanda the Olympic swimmer/tennis player, and the Naughtiest Girl and Claudine the amoral French girl, or Carlotta the circus bareback rider. Or even Darrell, who can be a bit violent. And if anyone has a well-deserved smack coming, it's Julian.

That's how lots of girls feel today, because there are still many (though somewhat different) disadvantages to being a girl. At least in the 50s those girls weren't being put on lifelong medication and having their breasts removed. I think some of us are far too quick to assume that we do things better now than we did in the past.
I wouldn't discourage children from reading the Green Knowe books. Just discuss them with your child, rather than using censorship.

Are you two actually disagreeing with each other? I think you're making the same point in different ways. Being a girl could be restrictive and boring and history and fiction are full of women who wanted to have have the freedom men/boys had.

Other fictional examples - I've recently read the first two of Cynthia Voigt's novels about the Tillerman family published in the early 70s. I read the last book in my teens, from the library, and acquired copies of the series as an adult. In Homecoming 4 children live with their mum in the US on the east coast. She has struggled to get by and one day she leaves them alone. Rather than be split up by the authorities they walk across states to find family members. They eventually end up with their grandmother in a small town, I think in Connecticut, one which is generally a lot poorer than that state is generally considered to be. The oldest child, Dicey, is only 12, obviously bright and practical, determined to protect her siblings and wanting to earn money not just for her own use but to contribute to the household income. In the second book Dicey's Song, Dicey is struggling at school where she feels different, is trying to do up a boat so she can sail in it. worrying that her siblings will get what they need. I guess in some ways this is very female behaviour but she likes to wear comfortable practical clothes, absolutely not skirts and dresses.

And in Ballet Shoes there is the wonderful Petrova Fossil, who tries hard to learn dancing and acting so that, with her sisters, they can earn money on stage. While Posy is a brilliant dancer and Pauline has a combination of ability and a particular type of beauty to get a series of acting jobs, Petrova is interested in machines: cars and planes. And then there's the academic women who take a room together as lodgers in the home where the Fossil sisters' accidental guardian worries about how to make ends meet, and offer to teach them. This is in the 30s when women had only quite recently been able to study for degrees at Oxford - and it was a few years before they gained the same rights at Cambridge. Other universities - London and Manchester - gave women degrees much earlier, and Alison Uttley graduated in Physics at Manchester in 1906.

@Raiderofthelostbattenburg calls herself "tolerant and progressive". In 2026 that tends to mean that you applaud young people who don't conform to male / female stereotypes, and in the case of girls are scared of becoming young women, "transitioning", with all the horrific aspects of that. She also says that the wonderful Green Knowe books are problematic and that today's children therefore shouldn't be encouraged to read them. That's very close to censorship, which is a dangerous path to go down. So I don't think we're on the same page, no.

On a similar topic, so many children's books published these days are preachy. There's so often a message - kindness, growth mindset, etc. Apparently it's putting children off reading.

I don’t think I’d recommend them to read with children of 2026, but as an adult with that critical perspective, I found them a lovely re-read

This is what I actually said on the Green Knowe books. Of course, you’re completely welcome to disagree. But I absolutely didn’t say children shouldn’t be encouraged to read them - I said I wouldn’t recommend them. Which I wouldn’t, because I personally am sensitive to the fact that for many families the depiction of race would be challenging.

I fully agree that they’re wonderful books.

(I also didn’t say anything about the other issues you mention, so it may be that you’re confusing me with another poster or assuming I hold opinions I haven’t actually expressed. In either case, I’d rather not to be dragged into that conversation)