I'm rereading the Swish of the Curtain for first time in 25 years, childhood books you have reread as an adult?

[deaconblue]

Feels like I only read it a few months ago, I must have read it so many times that I can remember the next line.

no sorry mavis was unthinkingly hijacking, was just excited to meet a fellow marlowe fan. as you were

I re-read all the Malory Towers books a few months ago and had much fun regaling MN with its repressed filth- sadly it was in chat and now gone. Alicia's wild tongue featured heavily, as I recall...

God how I love Mallory Towers & The Twins at St Clares and The Chalet School books! And I loved the Adventure books with those terrible brothers. I also loved Anne of Green Gables and all the Avonlea books.

I have to admit that I've re-read all of the above over the last few years and really enjoyed them!

Oh my GOD I want a complete set of Antonia Forest.

Patrick kissed Nicola???? Was that in a missing chapter?

What are the sequels to Swish of the Curtain? I have just re read the Wells books by Lorna Hill.

I don't know the Antonia Forest book at all! What am I missing out on??

I recently re-read Monica Edwards' Wish for a Pony when I was feeling poorly - I loved Tamsin and Rissa and all their adventures on the Rye Marshes. I also have the Pennington books (including the earlier ones featuring just Ruth - Fly by Night and The Team), Swallows and Amazons, Swish of the Curtain - but never read any of the sequels - and some of the Streatfeild, but not all.

DS has all the Famous Five, Just William, Roald Dahl, etc. He has the Blyton 'Adventure' series waiting for him for Xmas.

I loved those Willard Price books when i was a teenager! Are they really not worth re-reading? Must admit I had those at the back of my mind for DS when he gets older...

Ooh, Lostgirl, I would love to re-read the Lorna Hill books. i had a bit of a crush on the boy - Sebastian, was it?

Me too, I think he was my first fictional crush . Am still trying to find the last book of the series which I never read as a child, now have four swish of the curtain books to try and find as well!

I am a real saddo and often buy childhood favourites from eBay (Gillian Avery, Rosemary Sutcliffe, Noel Streatfield, Leon Garfield etc etc). I even have a special bookshelf to keep them on! .

Most of them have withstood the test of time. But a few years ago I bought all the Enid Blyton "Adventure" series for DS (then aged 9) and settled down for a cosy re-read after a gap of almost 40 years.

OMG!

They were awful. The racism ("dirty thieving foreigners") and snobbery ("dirty thieving poor people") were quite startling.

I'm really not a member of the PC brigade (honestly!) and am more than capable of reading old literature in context. Just a word of warning. You might not agree with me, but do check them out for yourself before passing them on.

oh Flambards, may revisit that next, what was the name of the boy I was in love with in it, was it Will? I loved Ballet Shoes so much I couldn't bear to watch the recent BBC version just in case the actors weren't how I imagined the characters.
I never knew Swish was written by a 14yr old. It is full of "jolly" and "super". I seem to remember being at bit in love with Nigel!

I love Anne of Green Gables too and have just started to read The Little Wooden HOrse with my DD which we read at school, and have bought Carbonel (about a magic cat) - another school favourite.

HumphreyCobbler - Girls Gone By produced a book called "Celebrating Antonia Forest" and there were the 'missing' chapters that had been deleted from Run Away Home.

When they are cleaning the church hall Patrick kisses Nicola (very low key kiss, under the stage) and when Nicola has taken Edward to Surfrider she comes back to find Buster dead.

There are also some other bits includeing a conversation between Karen and Giles where she talks about her relationship with her step-children.

Thanks, I will order it now.

The Ship That Flew. Re read it to dc in the summer.

It was written in about 1939 though and has some glaringly un-pc stuff in it which bypassed me totally when I read it originally. Dc were straight onto it though.

We had quite a debate about the boy in it carrying a knife in his pocket. It was only a penknife, but dc live in a world where such things are a big big no.

Also references to the 'maid' and 'cook' in a normal family house had them scratching their heads too.

was lol at the references to their "dailies" (daily help) in Swish of the Curtain. If only...
The Little Wooden Horse - now that was a weepy if I remember correctly

Swish of the Curtain, Maddy Alone, Blue Door Theatre, Golden Pavements, Maddy Again.

I am missing the last one (Maddy becomes a TV presenter - not as bad as it sounds) and its a bugger to get hold of, I borrowed it once from the library when I was about 10 - I should have kept it...

I might have to investage Antonia Forest, I need a bit of easy going comfort reading. I really hope that my DD enjoys these things when she's older.

Sory, Blue Door Venture.

Full list here

Are any of the amazon available Antonia Forests' worth reading? Any order they need to go in?

Autumn term
Attic term
Thursday kidnapping

Freaky Friday - Mary Rogers. Its so much better and representative of it's time than i remembered.

Mooki - Autumn Term and Attic Term are part of the Marlow series, although they do come at either end of the series.
Autumn Term is the first and Attic Term is second to last.

They are both brilliant booksand reading them without havng the other books wouldn't be a problem.

The Thursday Kidnapping is a separate novel (probably my least favorite, but still enjoyable)

grimble grimble grimble grimble i've said it before and i'll say it again grimble. i read it aabout once a year.

The Jinny at Finmory books by Patricia Leitch. A much less tweedy pony book author. And also has Ken!

I'm currently rereading the Chalet School stories - I think I have the full set. I'm not so keen on the early ones, but like the ones after Jo marries and has the triplets. I've not long finished rereading the Sue Barton books too.

I also love the Arthur Ransome books, though I haven't read them in a long time, and I love rereading childrens books - Streatfield, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Joan Aiken, Elizabeth Goudge and Eva Ibbotson. I've got a nearly full set of the Malcolm Saville Lone Pine series, which I loved, because some of them were set near where I grew up in Shropshire, but it's ages since I last read those.

I do read some grown up books - honest!!

nicola and patrick kissed??

OMG.

i dream about meeting a antonia forest fan in RL. how has that never happened?

re-read 'em on a near permanent basis. at the moment i am really feeling for marie (autumn term). twas bullying, pomona too really.