Books from our childhood/teens....d own Hazy Memory Lane

I really enjoyed some of my mother's books. They were all turn of the century or 1920s schoolstories. All set in boarding schools of course, with lots of lacrosse and feasts in the dorm. It was like a foreign language to me. One of them involved a journey on the London Underground. I was very confused because it seemed to be a steam train, it was years before I found out that that was how they started.

I loved a lot of th books mentioned - Enid Blyton, Malcomn Saville, Arthur Ransome, Heidi, What Katy did etc. When I was very young I like Mary Mouse books, Sam Pig, Milly Molly Mandy - and another by the same author called Marigold in Godmother's House. A couple not mentioned on this thread ar Mice on Horseback and Wilderness Trail - no idea about the authors! In my teens I graduated to Worrals and then later, John Buchan, Mazo de la Roche (Jalna series) , Howard Spring, Agatha Christie, Jane Austin and anything I could get my hands on!

I loved the original Moomintroll books - they seemed much scarier than in the cartoon versions that are popular now! Then it was Famous Five and Chalet School series as others have mentioned. I seem to recall that there was a series based around being a nurse - something like Sue Barton, District Nurse - that was quite popular at my school. Not that any of my friends became nurses; perhaps it put us off! Then, at age about 14, a wonderful English teacher gave us free access to all the classics in the school store cupboard during the holidays and I had a wonderful time discovering the Brontes, Thomas Hardy etc.
This thread has really got me thinking - I wonder if anyone can remember a book that I really liked about ice skating on a canal, possibly in Holland? I'm sure 'canal' was in the title...

I wish I still had a book I was given for Christmas when I was about 10. It was called Yak (and other stories). Yak was the main story about 2/3 of the book and was an absolutely magical tale of two children going on an adventure with a yak! I can't recall any more than that but I remember that story just swallowing me up, I was completely immersed in it. Would love to find it now but have not so far been successful searching online.

I remember reading a book about an American girl going west on the Wagon train with her family. I think the title was Torie or Torrie which was the name of the girl. I also loved The Flight of the Heron, A Gleam in the Dark, and The Dark Mile about the Scottish Rising.

Daisyanswerdo yes, that's right, though I couldn't recall the name of Ophelia! I loved both books though.
Swallows and Amazons too - brilliant books. I recall being sent a Bobbsey Twins Annual by my aunt once Indinana but can't remember much about it!

Anyone remember a book called The Cave Twins, by Lucy Fitch Perkins?
Or The Good Master, by Kate Seredy?

So many of the ones already mentioned filled my childhood days - Secret Seven, Famous Five, Mallory Towers and so on. I don't believe anyone's mentioned the Bobbsey Twins, a series of books about two sets of twins, the older ones were Nan and Bert who were about 11 or 12, and the younger ones were Flossie and Freddie, around 7 years old. They were American and had a lovely black cook called Dinah, whose husband also worked for the Bobbsey family. I absolutely devoured every one of these that I could find in the local library. They were pure magic to me, reading of the mischief the younger ones got up to and how the older two injected a bit of good sense into the stories (though they weren't without their own sense of adventure!).

What a wonderful thread. Brought up lots of memories of favourite books.viwas a Famous Five Fan rather than the Secret Seven. I preferred White Boots about ice skating by Streatfield to Ballet Shoes. I loved Swallows and Amazons and all the Mallory Towers books. And of course, the horsey books. Monica Edwards and the Romney Marsh were first choice for me here.

Was it in The Wonderful O that the king banned the use of the letter O, and Ophelia Oliver said her name once and never spoke again? Something like that? I'm not at home and can't check.

Just remembered another treasure: The Thirteen Clocks and the Wonderful O - James Thurber. Magic! Anyone else remember this one?

Was also obsessed with stories about witches - Carbonel was a favourite (Barbara Sleigh); also Ottfreid Preussler's The Little Witch, and Eleanor Estes' The Witch Family - amongst others....

I remember Just William, yes - my brother read it and I got into it then. My aunt introduced me to 'Murder Most Royal' by Jean Plaidy when I was 13 and that began an obsession with anything to do with Anne Boleyn - I trawled libraries looking for biographies and felt very grown-up for reserving one which had to be sourced from Lewes - it felt like a different country to me (I lived in Pinner, Middlesex!)

Oh....and does anyone remember the series of 'colour' fairy story books? The Red Fairy Book, Orange and so on? I borrowed them from the library and read them all. I'm now looking for them from charity shops - have one or two of them but I want to read them to the grandchildren when they're a bit older :-)

alima Jacqueline Susann wrote Valley of Dolls, I think.

yes to all of the above! I was always reading and by the time I got to the last year at primary I had read every book in the school.

Elrel I just couldn't remember the name of The Blue Door Venture - thank you.

I still read everything/anything (except romance), and just cannot sit and do nothing. I always have a book/kindle in my handbag just in case. I would much rather read a book than watch a film.

I will add only books/authors not mentioned already.
John Buchan, D K Broster, Georgette Heyer, Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Books by all the Pullein-Thomas sisters, Pooky, Geoffrey Farnol; thats all that occurs so far

There are so many of my favourites already mentioned. I had forgotten The Family From One End Street, loved those. Enid Blyton, Famous Five and Secret Seven. The Secret of Grange Farm, re read a few weeks ago, Just William, The Chalet School books, Jennings, Just William, Our Brother Nick and the African Drums. Ginger and Batty Billy.
As a teen I loved adventure books, Hammond Innes, Alistair McLean, Desmond Bagley, the Bond books. My Dad got me on to RF Delderfield. Who wrote Valley of the Dolls? Since the early eighties I have kept a log of everything I have read, do wish I had done from the start!

Nearly forgot, anybody remember Uncle Remus? Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, etc?

I`ve just remembered another little book that I was very fond of when I was just a young `un, and that was my copy of Aesop`s fables.

Peter Pan, Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales, Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Enid Blyton's boarding school stories, Mallory Towers and St Claire's. Her adventures, Five and Seven, together with a mystery series featuring a stereotypical bumbling police constable.

I still adore Richmal Crompton's wonderful books about William Briwn and his long suffering family! Malcolm Saville's Lone Pine series, set in Shropshire I think with endpaper maps. Biggles and Worralls (his Waaf counterpart, less gripping books), Little Women and the three later books about the March family (I think Jo's Boys and Little Men, for me, tailed off a bit). The Chalet Girls, I read a lot but maybe not the first one as I was never quite sure who all these interwoven people were!

I found the full version of Robinson Crusoe at my grandmother's and determinedly ploughed through it. Another relative had two hefty leather bound volumes of Fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm, grim they were! An equally gory and unforgettable collection of the Arabian Nights' Tales. A great great aunt had some extremely moral Victorian tales of the awful fates of disobedient children!

Pamela Brown's theatre books, The Swish of the Curtain and Blue Door Venture. Loads of pony stories by the Pullein-Thompsons.

Last night I went to read a bedtime story to DGS who is 5. To my surprise he wanted to read to me! He'd chosen a Jacqueline Wilson book from his sister's shelf. It is what is now called a 'chapter book' about a girl named Dinah - The Dinosaur's Packed Lunch. I thoroughly my enjoyed it.

Apart from Janet and John etc the first books that I really remember are the classic Enid Blyton, Secret Seven, Famous Five, Mallory Towers etc.

Then there were the Cherry Ames nursing series and a series about an Air Hostess but I cannot remember what she was called. Loved those books.

The Anne of Green Gables series were also favourites and then all of a sudden I moved on to the classics like Dickens, Hardy etc with a smattering of James Bond thrown in.

All Enid Blyton books plus Robinson Crusoe, Treasure Island, Huckleberry Finn, Kidnapped, then progressed to The Diary of Anne Frank.

For some reason I became fixated on Mary Queen of Scots and read everything and anything written about her which got me hooked on historical novels by Philippa Gregory and Jean Plaidy.

Tuesday evening was always a trip to the swimming pool followed by the local library, followed by the sweetie shop!
Simple pleasures.

All the Enid Blyton books, starting with Secret Seven and moving on to Famous Five. After that it was Malcolm Saville's Lone Pine books. Does anyone remember them? I think they are out of print now but I loved them as a young teen. Then I was heavily into Egyptology and read the whole of the non-fiction Egyptology section in my local library. Dennis Wheatley was another favourite later on but before that it was Just William, Biggles, Billy Bunter.

f77 did you mean Pure by Andrew Miller? I've just downloaded a sample on to my kindle.

As a very young child, I was well into Noddy, and Grimm`s Fairy Tales, then moved on to The Famous Five and Secret Seven books. Around the age of 11 I read and loved Little Women, followed by Good Wives and Little Men. Then in my teens I read every book by Georgette Heyer, read a good few by Daphne du Maurier, and late teens I developed a passion for the Lt. Mendoza police stories, by Dell Shannon. I also had some of the classics as a child, Tom Sawyer, Treasure Island, Heidi, Gullivers Travels, Black Beauty, we bought them in the late 60s for our children as well, and they`re still on the bookcase upstairs.

I love The Children of the New Forest. I stil have the book

Little Grey Rabbit,YES - And Sam Pig I loved! Secret Garden, Ballet shoes, anything by Rumer Godden....earlier, The Tall Book of Christmas and For the Leg of a Chicken!