Win Puffin classics!

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!

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.

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

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!

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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)!

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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 and Heidi's Children were my favourites - and I still have them. I just love the story of this little girl.

My favourite was The Secret Garden with its heroine Mary Lennox. She was a spoiled brat at the outset but gradually developed into a likeable Yorkshire lass! I loved her friendship with Dickon and his wild creatures and her gradual awakening to the beauty of nature and the garden.

I love Wind in the Willows & have about 10 different copies - I absolutely love all the characters, especially Ratty & Mole! It's the kind of book I always want to read aloud. I hope it's a favourite for many generations to come & is definitely a book which will be passed down the family.

I also loved Little Women and I must have read it ten times . I also read Jo's Boys.
When I first read it, I really wanted to be like Amy with her long, wavy blonde hair and dainty ways ,as at the time my Mum had just had my hair cut really short, as I had nits.

Little women Louisa May Alcott.
I loved this book and had a lovely hard cover copy, which i still have.

I loved the Anne of Green Gables book , but equally enjoyed The Secret Garden and Little Women