A book loved in childhood: do you remember?

I’m glad that a couple of people remember the Susan books too. Apart from those I must have read just about every children’s’ book there was. I loved What Katy Did and Little Women too. The highlight of my week was when the mobile library came round. I remember reading Dennis Wheatley’s The Devil Rides Out when I was far too young and it gave me nightmares. I’m still an avid reader but read on my Kindle these days.

For me it was any book by Enid Blyton. I read them all. I would go swimming on a Saturday morning on my way home go into the book shop and buy myself a book then spend the rest of the day reading it then getting disappointed that I had finished it before bedtime - happy days!!

TerriBull

The Water Babies, Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, What Katy Did, Wind in the Willows, Heidi. Practically every Enid Blyton, starting with Noddy and the Faraway Tree ending with Mallory Towers and all the various series she wrote with groups of children having scrapes and adventures.

The water babies, and I still have an original hardback.
Well read
Diane

SofiaA

I've been chatting with an old friend about books we read in childhood that were not heard of much nowadays, and we came to discuss which made a particular impression, and why.

I loved Cynthia Harnett's book called The Wool Pack. Its about a group of children in medieval England working against smugglers. It was different because it was of a different time and about different life style. It had a lovely cover, I remeber, and I think that at first was what appealed.

Love to hear what book was special to you as a child that now may be forgotten...

I loved The Wool Pack too, and can remember the cover, like a medieval tapestry iirc.
Not many of the commentators books are as forgotten as the Harnett.
I love Antonia Forest but I’m on various Facebook discussion groups so she doesn’t seem forgotten to me.
And I like William Mayne, especially A Swarm in May and the Choir books. But, Mayne having been convicted of CSA offences, it raises the old question of do we judge art works by the morality (or not) of the author?

Heidi
Magic faraway tree
Mallory Towers
Famous Five
Whitby Witches
Red wall series

I was very slow at learning to read and was in special class taught by an older teacher, she was magic! I gained a love of books lasting all my life. Heidi Black Beauty, Scarlet Pimpernel, then Jane Eyre etc. I was caught by my mum reading under the bedcovers using a torch to see, I'm so grateful to that special teacher.

mulberry7

I remember the 'Twin' books very well. Does anyone remember 5 Dolls and a house? It was about the residents of a dolls' house, the doll characters were great - Vanessa, the bossy doll, Jacqueline, the paying guest, and all the rest. I read almost all of the books mentioned above, Enid Blyton's particularly.
This was indeed a lovely thread, Sofia A. Many thanks for starting it.

Thank you for mentioning 5 Dolls and a House. I loved this book and others in the series and was thinking about them the other day but couldn't remember the title. I really enjoyed the idea of being able to shrink into a dolls' house.

I have been enjoying the malory towers series with my granddaughter.

Passiflora my 8 year old granddaughter loves Mallory Towers as well.
She dressed in character for World Book Day and carried one of the books, plus a tennis racquet.
She really looked the part! 🙂

The Water Babies - I read it again last year and it’s a really strange story.

This thread has reminded me of a book my older sister had that I coveted but was only rarely allowed to look at it as she said I would spoil it. The book was Goblin Market, a poem by Christina Rossetti illustrated by Arthur Rackham I believe. I found the pictures very disturbing but facinating. Any one else remember it?

I remember the 'Twin' books very well. Does anyone remember 5 Dolls and a house? It was about the residents of a dolls' house, the doll characters were great - Vanessa, the bossy doll, Jacqueline, the paying guest, and all the rest. I read almost all of the books mentioned above, Enid Blyton's particularly.
This was indeed a lovely thread, Sofia A. Many thanks for starting it.

NotSpaghetti

paddyann54

A book called Pomeroys Postscript ,can’t remember the author and havetrawled through second hand bookshops whenI see them but never found another copy.

My late dad used to take me every week to exchange the second hand bookshops we had bought the week before.Sometimes I,d have read 5 or 6 books in a week .

www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/SearchResults?tn=pomeroys+postscript&an=mary+fitt

Thought you might be interested.

Thank you ,that’s it ordered.I never thought about finding it online .

As so many said before me, Noel Streatfield and What Katy Did Next. I enjoyed Anne of Green Gables and Black Beauty as well as Hans Christian Anderson. Best of all, I passed on my love of reading to our son and he buys me many books nowadays.

I liked Famous Five and Secret Seven books by Enid Blyton but had to borrow them from the librry as my mum didn't think much of them. I was a big fan of a series of books by Malcolm Saville, though I can't remeber the titles now. However the book that immediately came to mind was called 'Annals of a little shop'. This was a book my mum gave me that she had as a child. I read and re-read it a number of times.

paddyann54

A book called Pomeroys Postscript ,can’t remember the author and havetrawled through second hand bookshops whenI see them but never found another copy.

My late dad used to take me every week to exchange the second hand bookshops we had bought the week before.Sometimes I,d have read 5 or 6 books in a week .

There are a couple for sale on World of Books and other secondhand sites might have some too.

Thank you for sharing, everyone. I'm not adding any more, as you have brought back happy memories of about 90% of the titles mentioned.
How lucky we are to have such a treasury.

I see The Silver Sword mentioned by many. I must hunt down a copy. I still have my The Little Wooden Horse by Ursula Moray Williams.

I loved all The Borrowers. There are 4. Afloat, aloft and afield. The sorrow I felt at their aloneness and being a dying breed, possibly the last of their race, was very powerful and completely missing from subsequent films and series. The girl of the limberlost made a huge impression. All the regulars quoted here but I hadn't known about some of those Noel Streatfields. Adored Jennings and everything by Elizabeth Goudge. How wonderful to find our common childhood culture. These books made us and our dreams. I have been enjoying the malory towers series with my granddaughter. Was always a bit of a snob about Enid Blyton, following my mother. But see the point now. I loved identifiable characters and situations not too much wild fantasy for me.

Ballet Shoes and Noel Streatfield’s other books, Black Beauty and Enid Blyton’s school stories.

paddyann54

A book called Pomeroys Postscript ,can’t remember the author and havetrawled through second hand bookshops whenI see them but never found another copy.

My late dad used to take me every week to exchange the second hand bookshops we had bought the week before.Sometimes I,d have read 5 or 6 books in a week .

www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/SearchResults?tn=pomeroys+postscript&an=mary+fitt

Thought you might be interested.

Agree with all of those mentioned so far, especially anything by Enid Blyton, the Cherry family series and the Susan books. I taught myself to read before I started school by refusing to allow my mum to read Jack and Jill and the Friendly Badger to me more than once apparently ! Since then I’ve always been an avid reader. Also loved a book called Little John Little as a very young child. As an older child, I loved a series of books about a family called something like the Bartons but I can find no trace of them. Also the Bell family vicarage books by Noel Streatfeild. Lovely thread this.

Not A book ,a couple of trilogies
A Scots Quair by Lewis Grassic Gibbon.Read these in my teens
A Jacobite Trilogy by DK Broster especially the first in the series the Flight of the Heron,read this in my first year at high school ..
There aren’t a lot of books written in the Doric ,we had /have family friends who live in the Howe of the Mearns so it was a joy to read it with their accent in my head .
There was a terrific TV series of the Quair in the 70s …I think?

As a wartime child, there were few books to be had. I went to a jumble sale and found a copy of Pride and Prejudice which I devoured only to be devastated when I found it was book one of a two volumes edition! My uncle gave me Anne of Green Gables when I had tonsillitis. It almost made it worthwhile being ill. I loved The Strange Tale of Humpy Horse.—I found a secondhand copy of it recently and enjoyed it all over again.

My favourite was Moonfleet, by J M Faulkner. Our headmaster read it to us in our last year in primary school- on cold winter days, when the classroom heating wasn't very effective, he used to take us into his study and we sat on the floor in front of a roaring fire. We read it again in our first year at secondary school.

To Spare the Conquered by Stephanie Plowman