Win Puffin classics!

Oh it was always "Through the Looking Glass" much preferred it to adventures in Wonderland. First there was a kitten, secondly I knew there was something odd about mirrors, my grandmother had one with a flaw in it that made your face go funny, so it was easy to imagine another world. And the characters, I was always in love with the White Knight (and some of the men I got involved with later were as useless as he was!) and then there was the White Queen and the jam- "Jam today and jam yesterday but never jam today!" Trying to think impossible things before breakfast. There was a real logic to the Looking Glass world as well, it seemed perfectly feasible that you would only get somewhere by walking away from it! I was a contrary child! I need a new copy of TTLG the cover has fallen off mine and pages are escaping. I still love to read it.

Heidi was the first grown up book I read right through and I loved it. Now in my 70s I can still remember it.

Mary Lennox in The Secret Garden. Such an interesting character, and she had such a sad time before the novel starts. I wonder how I'd have coped in her situation, parents dead and not a friend in the world at the start.

I enjoyed Heidi's spirit, character and sense of friendship and adventure, I loved 'The Wizard of Oz' and at each reading different aspects of different characters would appeal to me; I also loved the other messages in the book, like loyalty to friends, facing your fears, not taking everything at face value but really thinking about things to reach your own conclusions, make sensible decisions etc. Come to think of it I enjoyed most of these 20 Puffin Classics and loads of others too! I was a total bookworm as a kid and still read as much as I can.

I must have read about half of them, but my all time favourite is definitely 'Little Women' which I read many times as a child. Jo was my favourite of the sisters, because she was such a tomboy & growing up with three brothers myself, I could identify with her.

Peter Pan - I also do not want to grow up!!

How can I possibly decide? I loved all of them. Anne of Green Gables is always a delight - the way Anne grows from a sad, unloved child to a girl on the brink of womanhood and new adventures - and the last book in the series, Rilla of Ingleside, is what I read when I really want a good cry!

Heidi is also wonderful; the way a child's unconditional love transforms an old man's heart....

The Secret Garden also makes me cry, especially the last chapter. I don't think A Little Princess is quite as good, but I still re-read it frequently.

As for the Jungle Book, Kipling is where I go when I have nothing to read! The others - not so much! I've read them all, of course, some of them multiple times, but I'd not class them among my favourites.

Never really got over Jo not marrying Laurie in Little Women but did love the book and was distraught when Beth died, imagining that I too had all the same symptoms and would be next (well I was only 10)!

I read a lot of these as a child, but my favourites were Little Women and Heidi and also the Secret Garden. I read these as Regent Classics, which I used to get for Christmas and birthday presents. Recently I reread Heidi in another edition and was amazed to discover how much tract type material was in the full edition. Still loved the story though.

Out of the titles listed, it was probably Axel, the nephew of German professor Otto Lidenbrock in Journey to the Centre of the Earth.

What adventures they had - plunging into a volcano, encountering prehistoric animals, trying to survive one hazard after another. Absolutely classic science fiction!!

I read a lot of these but the ones that left a lasting impression were Heidi, Black Beauty and Little Women. I think the sadness of the stories was quite unsettling to my young self but the main characters win through in the end despite the adversity.
I think Little Women was the first book that made me cry. The strong and spirited Jo my favourite character.

How hard is this! I loved Heidi, and Jo March was definitely a hero of mine. King Arthur has been a thread through my life, and the Wind in the Willows was re-read many times, though not providing heroes. There are so many books here that I read over and again, all leaving their own trails in my thinking. But the ones that stick most are Lewis Carrol's books, and the feisty Alice who questions and challenges everything, however weird and alarming, is my hero. The older I get, the more I feel the world is becoming like what she found down the rabbit hole. I hope I can meet it with her open curiosity and not accept being bullied or intimidated by anyone, whoever they may be. I am frequently to be heard taking on varied opposition, fortified by the knowledge that as Alice found, they are nothing but a pack of cards! Now that is the power of a good book read in childhood.

One of my all thime favourites was Heidi. l lived in India at the time and Heidi introduced me to a word that was so different to mine. Reading Heidi heped me to learn to accept that nothing in life was easy, but I had people around me who loved me and that was the most important thing.

My favourite penguin book of all time is THE SECRET GARDEN I just vanish into this book even now....I first read this book when I was about nine years old, and it made such a beautiful impact on my mind.as a child I was able to become one of the children in the garden. I must have read it over and over again....I have through out my life read it to my children, my excuse to read it again I guess......and now at 75years old I have recently bought a copy from Amazon...I am still transported into that magical story.

My two favourites are The Jungle Books, and Wind in the Willows. I really don't need new updated versions though, I still have the ones I was given as a child. My Wind in the Willows has the Arthur Rackham illustrations, those trees in the Wild Wood are really scary.
I think I was about 9 when I was sent the Jungle Books by an aunt as a birthday present. I remember opening the parcel and saying to my mother "Oh no not another animal book for children". She said, "read it then decide"

My favourite was Heidi, because, never having travelled outside the UK, it was about a life very different from my own.
I also loved Black Beauty and The Secret Garden, enjoying a good cry even back then!

Wendy was a bit of a hero - trying to look after Peter Pan and all those boys!!

The Secret Garden was my favourite. I loved the story and the idea that a beautiful, magical garden could be discovered behind a old wooden door in a wall; that no-one (or almost no-one) knew was there. I would love to create such a garden, and I find the story of the children quite uplifting.

I loved Anne of Green Gables and Wind in the Willows, but I think my favorite was Huckleberry Finn. I think I was a slight tom boy at heart and imagined myself building rafts and floating down rivers and of course missing school!

Peter Pan, the first book I read, Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass together with Little Women have stayed firm favourites. My hero, however, has to be Black Beauty, survivor of so much ill treatment. It was comparatively recently that I realised why Anna Sewell wrote her only novel. Appalled at the treatment of working horses in Victorian London, she determined to do something to improve their lot. All the cruelty in the book she had seen with her own eyes and the book brought it to the notice of her readership.
The results were that laws regulated the treatment of working horses and water troughs, a few of which still exist, wereprovided for them to drink from in the streets of London and other cities. A wonderful woman and a wonderful, fictional, horse!

Also loved Heidi, Little Women and the sequels (Good Wives, Jo's Boys, was there another one?) Lovely to read 'Wind in the Willows' with my grandchildren. Also their sequels (by William Horwood, I think). It still has that charm, Toad is just the same, I love him!

As anyone read 'Counselling for Toads'?

Mary in Secret Garden : gave me a love of wild , personal places . Who wants a perfect garden , regimented and soulless ?

wind in the willows is so good -the chapter with the little otter and Pan introduced me to a different style of story as a child. the mole is my favourite character; self-deprecating, never putting himself forward but steady and dependable. his flash of rebellion leaving the whitewashing and going off on an adventure is glorious

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is my favourite, probably because it was my first experience of escapism into another world.

I too grew up without a mum, from 18 mths ; and after step mum with 4 kids all older than me, I became a tom-boy , due to step brother having to watch out for me,!
Therefore reading was not one of my hobbies , though on reading gransnet comments realised I have read many of these books, Heide being the first one , and recognising the hardship she had and overcame, being similar to my own life,, as it was war time and we lived in the path of German bombers !
The secret garden was my book, it captured my dreams to change my life , within strong family needs,
Black beauty , wonderful story that pulled at my heart strings, for I loved animals and they showed me unquestionable respect.
Wind in the willows - never got to beyond page where rain and fear are over powering. Also the same fear in little princess , did not read all of story.
Anne of green gables was my imaginary self ! Such fun and daring, ! Also to kill a mocking bird was great, again a very independent sort of girl with strong character.
Tom sawer , was another , but Uncle Rhemus and his stories plus the so colourful picture painted in words of the life in southern states back then!
My all time favourite Song of the South, with its music and happy songs !! Yes I have shared these joys with my grandchildren, who are now having families of their own, and sharing all these wonderful books , songs rhymes from Noddy to those big colourful films, all singing, all dancing , wonderful impressions they left with us all !! Goodness knows how many times I have re-enjoyed them .
From proud great grandma to newly arrived on St Georges day, GeorgeJames, who made a point of arriving on this very English day - to state he is of english father born in USA