The children’s book you remember best

When I was junior school age, I used to go into town with my Grandma once a week and she always used to take me to the local bookshop to choose a book, though she wasn't a reader herself. I remember they were mostly 2s/6d

I seemed to restrict myself to Enid Blyton. I especially liked The Magic Faraway Tree, the Famous Five, Secret Seven, The Mystery of series, Mallory Towers, Twins at St Clare's. I also read all the Tales at Bedtime type books.

I also like Milly Molly Mandy, particularly the illustrations. I wanted to live in her house and have a white and pink striped dress.

My parents were also not big readers but I wish I had someone recommending different authors to me when I was young as I feel, in hindsight, that I missed out on so many good books. I don't recall any of the books that were read to us a school. I am very tempted to read the ones I missed now, as an adult.

mantaray
Thanks for the reminder. I loved The Weirdstone of Brisingamen , especially since the setting was nearby Alderley Edge, a place that we frequently visited, always on the lookout for the holes in the ground that Colin and Susan were warned about.

I read The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner with all of my children and I loved it as much as they did. My middle son aged 45 asked me if we still had it only a couple of weeks ago and D/H found the battered and much thumbed copy up in the loft. Needless to say my son was delighted and reported back the following week that he had reread it and the magic was still there.

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One children’s book that has really stuck with me is The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. It’s such a simple story, but the emotional depth is unreal. As a kid, I saw it as a sweet tale of love and generosity. As an adult, it hits completely differently—like a quiet commentary on sacrifice, relationships, and even boundaries. It's wild how a children’s book can evolve in meaning over time. Also, totally random but oddly fitting—just like how the tree kept giving even during storms, a Raton Hurricane Property Damage Lawyer is kind of like that dependable figure who’s there when everything feels blown away.

Oooh, loved Rikki Rikki Tavi! AND Ballet Shoes!
When I was little I loved Petunia books( about a goose), Millions of Cats, Madeleine, Katy and the Big Snow....

Ballet shoes, Noél Streatfield

I remember this from school, too, and, like you, loved it.

Rikki Tikki Tavi by Rudyard Kipling. This was read to us at the end of the school day. The story of the mongoose who saved the family from the snake who lived in the garden. Loved this and found a copy in the library to read to my children.

The Wizard of Boland
The Little Witch
The Witch baby
For the Leg of a Chicken
Anne of Green Gables
What Katy Did

My.mother would buy me books when she went out. I'd get home from school to find another book or two in my bed. Sometimes I'm poetry: A Puffin Quartet of Poets, and various other children's anthologies. I loved them.

Loved Sam Pig stories - Alison Utterly too?
Carbonel
Marianne Dreams
The Children who Lived in a Barn
A Little Princess
The Phantom Tollbooth
Swallows and Amazons
The New Master

many many others including some whose titles I can't recall, one about a gypsy girl who lived on a houseboat, another about girls travelling in Switzerland by train (!)

I remember poor Ginger dying in Black Beauty - so unfair.

My favourite was "my friend Flicka" a horse & boy story based in Wyoming. My favourite book we read at school was Moonfleet - not sure who wrote that, it's a classic.I loathed "The rose & the ring".

Nicky and his Forest Friends by Marilyn Nickson. 😊

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I was born in 1950.

Initially I read the Enid Blyton books - and I liked Rupert Bear too. I also remember a Ladybird book "Tiptoes the Mischievous Kitten", probably because we had a cat who was also always getting into scrapes.

A little later:

Black Beauty - I cried when Ginger died
Uncle Tom's Cabin (my grandma's book, which I found very moving but which is thoroughly discredited now.)

Charlotte’s Web is such a classic! Children’s books have a lasting impact, and many dream of writing their own. If you're wondering <a href="https://acebookwriters.com/blog/how-to-write-a-childrens-book-in-8-easy-steps/">How to Write a Children’s Book in 8 Easy Steps</a>, start with a great idea, memorable characters, and a heartfelt message. #ChildhoodMemories #Writing

Enid Blyton books particularly the Secret Seven, Famous Five and the Mystery series featuring the Five Findouters! Mallory Towers and The Twins at St Claire’s were ado favourites. So many books though too many to list. Coming into my 70 year I still love reading.

Little Grey Rabbit, Beatrix Potter (all of them), Wind in the Willows, The Jungle Book, Little Women, Little House on the Prairie (all of them), Alan Garner, William Mayne, The Borrowers (all of them)
Some of these were filmed and ruined, like Laura Ingalls Wilder, turned into a soap opera.

I was "book mad" as a child (still am, truth be told) so it's impossible to pick out just one. Alice In Wonderland (with Gwynedd Hudson's illustrations) was my introduction to fantasy fiction. Louisa May Alcott's Little Women and Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn captured my tomboy imagination, and I practically read the ink off the pages of Johanna Spyri's Heidi. For poetry, A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson. And for the sheer joy of looking at pictures, I ate up some ancient (19th century) picture books illustrated by Randolph Caldicott (so much to look at!). I was pretty much the only serious reader in my family (found the Caldicotts mouldering in the cupboard under the stairs of our rat-infested Victorian house in London in the 1950s - I'd love to know the story of how they got there).

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I was born in the sixties and was a child of the seventies. I think that those of us who were born in the middle of the twentieth century - ie just about everyone here - were very fortunate as there was so much good children’s literature that was being written at that time. I think, for me, that Tom’s Midnight Garden is the most memorable children’s book of the twentieth century. It is beautifully written and the ending brings a lump to the throat every time.

Famous Five
Secret Seven
When we were young
Winnie the Pooh

The Wind In The Willows, I still have my original copy bought for me by my uncle when I was 8 - 79 now.

I re-read it every now and again, such a wonderful tale.

The Secret garden ( I loved Dickon!)
Black Beauty
All Enid Blyton books.

The Princess Tina annuals