What was your favourite book/books as a child?

I suddenly remembered Mary Plain. She was a little bear who lived in the bear pits in Bern in Switzerland. When I went to Bern in my teens, to me it was still the home of Mary Plain.

What Katy Did, mentioned by quite a few of us, was written in 1873, I think. Yet those children just leap off the page, real people, who could easily live today.

We didn't have many books when I was a child as we were rather hard up so books were a luxury. One of the very few we possessed which I used to pore over was Odhams Illustrated Encyclopaedia for Children - the pictures of dinosaurs fascinated me.

It was beautifully illustrated - different continents of the world, diagrams of the inner ear, depictions of a town or a city, etc. I'd love to see it again.

I devoured lots of pony books written by the Pullein-Thompson sisters and yearned for the lifestyle they described. Then I transferred my longing to the heroes in my brother's comic books - Kit Carson, Davy Crockett ... sigh

Narnia series - especially The Horse and his boy which was a bit of surprise. I only understood how deeply Christian and odd the series was in my teens.
Green Knowe books - magical
Gerald Durrell - including his later books eg Bafut Beagles
Arthur Ransome - don't agree with PP that the characters are not fully formed - they all were, including the Norfolk Broads lads (Coot Club etc)
Most of the stuff by Rosemary Sutcliffe including the stories round the Roman invasion.

Anne of Green Gables (series) - I still have my mother's copy given to her as a school prize.
The Lone Pine series by Malcolm Saville
The Chronicles of Narnia
The Chalet School series
I was an avid reader & soon outgrew the children's library. I used my father's library ticket for the adult library- he didn't need it. I never saw him read a book. My mother used the library as child care.

Oh Fanny I don’t know of anyone else who has heard of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie. The series was very popular in Australia in the fifties and obviously later-and it was the only book I was allowed to bring back when we returned to England.

I loved the Water Babies; Winnie the Poo and Wind in the willows.
Then anything written by the Pullein Thompson sisters (Horsey- I still remember that you can get rid of singe marks on your tie with a Lemon prior to jumping in a gymkhana), although the necessity never arose!
The Katy books and the Little Women Books
The famous 5
Heidi series
Black Beauty
The Abbey Girls series
Swallows and Amazons
Then strangely the Arthur Mee children’s encyclopaedia which I would read for hours. It wasn’t in the conventional encyclopaedia form . You could even brush up on French which I had started at school when I was seven.
Honestly there were so many I could add to the list. When I was 11 I asked if I could have a larger bookcase for my birthday.

I remember Little Black Sambo being read to me at story time at the public library. Years later, it was pretty much banned. The first book I can remember getting from the library was Peter Pan. The Disney movie must have just come out and the storybook version was very popular. We were on the waiting list. I remember sitting next to my mom while she read it to me. Another favorite book was The Story of Ping about a duck on the Yangtze River. Later on, I named my pet duck Ping. Also loved all the famous horse stories.

Mom3

I remember Little Black Sambo being read to me at story time at the public library. Years later, it was pretty much banned. The first book I can remember getting from the library was Peter Pan. The Disney movie must have just come out and the storybook version was very popular. We were on the waiting list. I remember sitting next to my mom while she read it to me. Another favorite book was The Story of Ping about a duck on the Yangtze River. Later on, I named my pet duck Ping. Also loved all the famous horse stories.

This one!

….I rescued him…

Yes, that's it! Do you love it, too? I just recently discovered it in a box in our basement.
We still have a book my DH loved as a child called "The Tree in the Trail".

I think, if I’d read it as a child it would have made me want to travel to exotic places. I rescued another book at the same time called The Happy Lion which I believe is a classic now. No matter how old and tatty a book is I can’t bear to see it being thrown out. When I managed to find a copy of Lad a Dog after decades of searching for it, the copy I bought was so old and scruffy someone could easily have thrown it in the bin, but I treasure it. I cried when it arrived. It was like meeting up with an old friend.

A Day in Fairyland published in 1946 (Sweden) and 1951 (England.)

It was 18" by 14" a size we used to call 'Elephant' Now A3.

I recently looked for a second hand copy for my wee grand-daughter and couldn't find one less than £200

I forgot ‘Chalky’, by Howard L. Apps - nobody else ever seems to have heard of it! A cracking 1950s adventure of two boys in search of a lost diamond, set in Essex, inc. the marshes.
It’d make a brilliant film.

I’ve re read it several times as an adult - funnily enough it doesn’t really read ‘dated’, and is very funny in places.

Not long ago I found a 2nd hand copy on abebooks for my brother, who is also a fan.

Witzend

Famous Five for quite a while, followed by the Whiteoaks saga, and Georgette Heyer’s Regency romances.

The Water Babies made me cry buckets - I was no more than 9.

At about 14 I loved Cranford and Northanger Abbey, even though they were ‘force fed’ at school.
They’re still favourites.

"The Water Babies' for me too, Witzend. Even as an adult, I collected illustrated copies which are mostly now distributed amongst the 3 GC who seem unimpressed. My Mum was a woman of many sayings and brought me up to "Doasyouwouldbedoneby"

Lots already mentioned, particularly The Borrowers, The Family from One End Street, Mallory Towers and the Little Women and Heidi series, but I’ve been trying to think of some of my favourites that haven’t cropped up. There was a whole series of books titled The Young……. (Marie Curie, Elizabeth, Florence Nightingale, etc, etc), which I loved. Famous men were included as well, though I didn’t enjoy their stories nearly as much - I was always scouring the library shelves for a new heroine to read about. I also loved The Bobbsey Twins, though I can’t have paid much attention as I never even cottoned on to the fact that they were American. I think I was hooked by the idea of a family with two sets of twins, always off on adventures. Another favourite for some reason was Tom Brown’s Schooldays.

I read oor Willie and the Broon books you can guess where I’m from

All the Famous Five books. I also loved The Water Babies and The Wind in the Willows. My dear, late Mother took me to the village library every week, starting an avid reading habit which has continued throughout my life. As a rather sickly, only child until I had tonsils/adenoids removed at age 9, books were both my refuge and my salvation. With advancing years and declining health, history is now repeating itself. No complaints, as I'm still around and able to read.. a privilege sadly denied to many.

multicolorswapshop. Re. Oor Wullie and the Broons. Although I'm pushing 80, Christmas wouldn't be the same without those annuals. I also have a selection of hardback "specials". Happy memories of those pages in The Sunday Post when I was a child. Yes, guess where my Mother's family are from?

Shadow the Sheepdog by Enid Blyton. It used to make me cry because Shadow was treated so badly. It did obviously have a happy ending though. Like other posters have mentioned I loved all the other books she wrote too.

As a toddler I can remember “Mary Mouse” books, Lucy Attwell and Chick Own Annual, as I got older I was a ferocious reader and read nearly everything mentioned in this thread so far, I also read all of my mothers childhood books - dated but I still loved them.

As a teenager, I was lucky that my father worked for a book printing company and brought home bags of books which I took huge advantage of - some most unsuitable but others opening my eyes to the world.

I was very lucky.

comics and there was also a children’s newspaper - I can’t remember what it was called.

Anything Enid Blyton starting with the far away tree series
I read lots of others school stories etc but no one came near Enid blyton for me she was by far my favourite author
Noel streatfield, little women etc etc and loads I ve still got in a big old suitcase in my attic but none compare to the thrill I got from Enid Blyton ….she got me reading

Does anyone know of a girls' adventure story about schoolgirls at the Ardlui end of Lock Lomond who search for an ancient quaich, and have to circumvent a villain called Mr Green?

Some of my earliest memories are of being taken to the library and the joy I got out of choosing my books.

Like other posters my absolute Number 1 would be The Water Babies, followed by Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass, Wind in The Willows. I read all those to my children when they were quite small. What Katy Did (read it over) Heidi, Milly Molly Mandy I seem to remember my mum reading some of those to me, I think she'd read them as a child. At the end of English lessons in junior school we had Mary Poppins read to us, remember the whole class loved that book. Pretty much all the Blytons from The Magic Faraway Tree, Noddy, Famous Five, Secret Sevens, Mallory Towers, if she wrote it, I read it!