The children’s book you remember best

Always been a keen reader and many loved books but the one that my granny gave me was called Girl from the Limberlost and told the story of a girl who wanted to go to school or college and her mother was very taciturn and unhelpful (today you would say she had mental problems ) But she collects butterflys and moths and sells them to get the money for her course. She gets one to fulfill a set and her mother wrecks it and then she has to start again etc. Very non p.c.. in these days but I loved it , all the self sufficiency and the wildness etc and definitely saw myself in the role. Loved many different books but again childrens classics like children of the new forest and little women etc etc and yes arthur ransome et c etc.

This was my favourite book also Teddy Robinson, bought a new copy to read to my GS

A neighbour gave me her adult daughter’s childhood books when I was little. A lot of them were school stories which I loved, I had already started collecting Mallory Towers and St Clare’s books. I still have most of them, some have been mentioned on here, and I have been known to dip into them as an adult! A previous poster mentioned Kandy the Koala Bear, I have one of those books as well. I remember borrowing a book from the library but can’t remember the title. It was about some children who were playing in sand dunes and found a wooden door. I’m almost sure the door was part of a house buried by the sand and they managed to get into it. I can’t remember any more but I know I really enjoyed reading it at the time

My favourite was Brer Rabbit, but as I got older , any of the Enid Blyton books.
This set me up as an avid reader.

Mine was Birds of our Garden by Enid Blyton started me on a life long love of local birds and wildlife.

I loved the Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe I loved all the books in the series and read them all so many times

Heidi and Pollyanna, I used the phrase be thankful Pollyanna to both my boys and they still use it today and say that's a Pollyanna moment! It's surprising what sticks in the mind!
Also The Famous Five for me and I read to them The Magic Faraway tree over and over, and then progressed to Harry Potter.

I never read little grey rabbit as a child but a relative bought a book and tape when first child was around a year old. We put toddler to bed with the tape on very night and I was transfixed, so lovely and soothing. We played it so much the tape stretched and eventually had to bin it - I was more upset than anyone else in family!
I read all the Greek myths (Dad big fan), Swallows and Amazons and the subsequent books, any pony book even though no chance of me ever getting a pony in our city environment. Got 6 books out of library every week and even read the encyclopaedia if nothing else around…..if only I’d had Google ?

For me there were a few, In particular What Katy did by Susan Coolidge and Heidi by Johanna Spyri...these were read cover to cover many times over.
When I was really little I liked the Topsy and Tim books, and I also remember Mrs Pepper Pot, Milly Molly Mandy and Bobby Brewster. I can still remember the thrill of being in the library and the librarian putting the card out of the book into the little brown envelope that had my name on. Wonderful memories. I still have a massive love of reading.

Always Little Women for me and close second Mallory Tower

The Narnia series by CS Lewis
The lone pine series by Malcolm Saville
Anne of green gables
Heidi

Zoejory, I too absolutely loved Struwwelpeter. Also found at my grandmother's house, it was one of my favourite books because it was so scary. Especially the boy who had his fingers cut off with the shears! I found a copy in a book shop and gave it to my granddaughter. Her mother didn't approve because it wasn't PC enough!

I too loved the Arthur Ransome books, " They didn't mean to go to sea" being my favourite- the excitement of the children ending up at sea is so vivid still. However, my absolute favourite book was Stig of the Dump and I was so pleased to introduce ot to my grandson recently. My children were never readers but my love of books has thankfully skipped a generation as DGS loves reading as much as I did at his age - 8.

Pony books, Monica Edwards and all Pullein-Thompson books. Memories, I still have lots of them. Loved them all.

Green eggs and ham!
I'd forgotten that!

Green Eggs and Ham by Dr Seuss. I'd taken The Cat in the Hat out from the library the previous week, loved it and was beside myself with excitement to find another by the same author, which turned out to be even better.
Also loved the Sue Barton series about a nurse working her way up the ranks from student to top cat.

All the Arthur Ransome stories - Pigeon Post and Winter Holiday are my favourites. They should be my Mastermind subject as I inherited my Mum's set and still read them at 60 plus.

FannyCornforth

Oh that’s lovely.
Have you seen the film?
It makes DH cry.
So many children’s books…
I’ll be back with pictures Maw

Milly molly Mandy was a special favourite for me and when I was about 9 or 10 it was little woman.

Grandmajean
How lovely that you enjoyed 'Susan Pulls the Strings'. There were a series of 'Susan' books and I loved them all. I used to save up my pocket money to buy them from a local shop. Would be very dated now though I fear. Another favourite book was 'The Children Who Lived in a Barn' by Eleanor Graham, about children whose parents disappear and are evicted so go to live in a Barn and have to fend for themselves. Does anyone else remember it? I was a proper bookworm as a child and loved Ballet Shoes, Little Women, What Katy Did and just about everything else. My daughter loved the Dick King Smith books and I enjoyed reading them to her.

I remembered there was a thread about this years ago, so I googled for my own response - and here it is, copied and pasted, from 2016!

"Oh, memories!! When I was tiny: the Tommy the Tugboat series by Marjory Beresford and the Little Grey Rabbit series by Alison Uttley; then The Ship that Flew; all the "Jill" pony books, and the pony books by the 3 Pullein-Thomson sisters; The Three Jays series by showjumper Pat Smythe; all my brother's Biggles books - and I never found them racist, which they're accused of being today! - Black Beauty .... Monica Dickens' books about Tamsin, Rissa and their ponies, then when I was about 12 my Mum introduced me to Georgette Heyer's wonderful Regency romances."

Back to today - if I had to choose just one, it'd be Tommy the Tugboat, whose author I got completely wrong in 2016; it was Dora Thatcher who wrote him.

I loved all of the Enid Blyton Books. Famous Five, Secret Seven and also the Faraway Tree stories of which I still have and can now read to my grandaughter. I hope that she enjoys them as much as I did when I was her age (7). Unfortunately books are so different for children these days - Full of colour and more pictures than words, children get bored with too many words to a page. They don't appreciate a really good story.

Zoejory

Missed the picture

That book is horrendous!

I once found another horrendous children’s book in one of my GM’s bookcases. It was called Uncle Arthur’s Bedtime Stories, and the one that really made a dreadful impression was about a little boy who was worried about something he’d heard the vicar say in church.

‘If thou shalt not save thy life tonight, tomorrow thou shalt be slain.’

So his mother explained that it meant that you must always repent of your sins before going to sleep at night.

So the little boy had a good pray at bedtime, repented of all his sins (!) and went off to sleep quite happily.

‘But lo, when his mother went to wake him in the morning he was quite still and cold upon the bed! He had died in the night. Of what cause even the doctor was not quite sure.’
(The exact words, IIRC.)

But it was Ok, because he’d repented of his sins before going to sleep. ?

Can anyone beat that, for old children’s-book horror?

Louisa may wrote 'Little women' and 'Jo's Boys' but lots of others as well, not so famous..I loved 'Black Beauty' about the horse, too.I just loved reading, i still do.

‘The Little Grey Men’ by BB. I found a copy recently online and had to buy it. ? It’s about a group of gnomes who have adventures on a river. Perhaps that’s why I enjoy canal boats now!

hicaz46 I remember and loved Children of the New Forest and have a copy I bought for my eldest daughter. Also The Silver Sword and Eagle of the Ninth both books we read in our first couple of years at secondary school.