Your fav author from childhood

Well, I mastered reading when I was about 4 but couldn't have read Dickens.

Charles Kingsley, Lewis Carroll, Joanna Spyri at 6 - yes!
But not Dickens until I was at Senior school.

Oh, did anyone else read The Rivals Richard Brinsley Sheridan and anything by Thackeray?

Obviously you are much younger, Hollycat, because Enid Blyton was not persona non grata when I was under 10.

Enid Blyton. Couldn't care less about the politics. I loved those books.

I remember Joanna Spyri's Heidi and Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden very well. And also the Noddy books when they had the golly in them.

I loved comics too. We used to collect them and then go to friends houses and do a comic swap. Bunty was my favourite too.

Sara65 I think you mean the Tottie books ( dolls )
The horrid doll was called Marchpaine and the little boy doll was called Apple.Tottie herself was a peg dolly.

Another Enid Blyton fan here. All of her books! Also,
The Secret Garden,Heidi, Just William ( the black hand gang!)
Comics were a real treat, Beano, Dandy etc and then moving on to Girls Crystal, Mandy, Bunty.

I keep being reminded of books I loved. How could I have forgotten Little Grey Rabbit? I adored those books and so, much later, did my son.

Henrietta’s House, anyone? By Elizabeth Goudge - is that how it’s spelt? A great favourite of mine.

I may be alone in this, but I didn’t like Little Women. The title’s offputting, and I didn’t like any of the characters in the way I liked Katy, or Anne of Green Gables. Jo was too
masculine for my taste. A girl can be strong-minded and assertive without being boyish.

I read something by Thackeray at junior school - not Vanity Fair, which came later.

Two obsessions- horses and theatre so Pamela Brown "The Blue Door Theatre" books and My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara. Also all Richmal Crompton's William books across the decades ( the Brown family started with a cook and a maid but these disappeared as the 20th century progressed)

Noel Stratfield, Lorna Hill, Elinor Brent - Dyer chalet school. Moved on to Geogette Heyer and Cynthia Harrod Eagles. I read everything in series by each author, something I continue to do.

Very late to thus lovely thread but Enid Blyton was a huge favourite. Noddy, secret seven, Galiano's circus, famous five, Mallory towers, St Claire's etc. Was trying to remember White Boots - thank you for jogging my memory! Jill pony books had me yearning for a pony. Bobbsey Twins and another America series of books about The Happy Hollisters. The Abbey Girls Win Through sits on my bookshelf. It was presented to my mum in 1937 as a Sunday school prize.

I liked “The Cuckoo Clock” by Mrs Molesworth. It was a Victorian children’s book. Also McDonald Frazer “The Princess and the Goblin”. There was a magical grandmother who span in the attic of the castle. The first Narnia book I read was “The Magician’s Nephew” and it terrified me. I would pick a book from the library shelves and realise it was “one of those books” and put it back in horror. I had the feeling they might be deliberately putting themselves into my hands. CS Lewis said he would rather not have written the books than frighten any child but he was confident no child could be frightened. But it was not so. How could it be? My daughter was very uneasy about Mr Tumnus.

Enid Blyton does seem to have done a good job of starting readers! Mine was the Famous Five. I can say most of the books mentioned I read as a child and many others I read aloud later as a teacher. NotSpaghetti The best loved at school was the Weirdstone of Brisangamen which my class became obsessed with. All the written and artwork reflected the story and we even went on a trip to Alderley Edge to explore the setting. The children said it was the best trip ever!

Our first teacher at junior school read to us for the last half hour of each day, I used to love this time, I clearly remember him reading 101 Dalmations, the Borrowers, Emil and the detectives, and so many more.
Happy memories.

I remember the “home time” stories too, Sara. Particularly chapters from Alison Uttley’s The Country Child. As you say, happy memories.

As a child I devoured the Famous Five books, and also enjoyed Just William; Ten Sixty Six and All That, the Molesworth books (“school food - the piece of cod that passeth all understanding!”); Tanglewood Tales; and I read the print off my book of Greek myths and legends! As a young teenager I liked Fred Hoyle’s sci fi novels, H Rider Haggard and Dennis Wheatley (my dad didn’t approve of Dennis Wheatley!!), and the Hornblower novels.

I loved the Enid Blyton books, collected every one of them! Totally politically incorrect, of course, but in my view anything to encourage children to read was and still is so important. I also loved the Heidi books, had all three: Heidi, Heidi Grows Up and Heidi's Children. Such happy reading.

We used to have a mobile library visit every week and I always rushed home from school to catch it....the librarian inspired me to read all sorts of books and she kept books aside for me that she thought I might enjoy....she introduced me to many authors..I owe her for my love of literature. She was the one who started me on Mary Norton’s books....I wanted to drive the mobile library when I grew up, life took a different pattern however & that didn’t happen ?.

Loved Enid Blyton, then moved on to Elinor M Brentdyer of the Chalet School series, also Anthony Buckeridge Jennings books, Malcolm Saville. Actual all time favourite books are Anne of Green Gables, What Katy Did and Little Women.

Anne of Green Gables - my mother's school prize at end of secondary school in 1939 - she was 14.

Just last week I passed on DD's Tottie book to her six year old DD. It's now almost forty years old.

Heidi, Geoffrey Trease, What Katy Did, Little Women, the Narnia books.
I read Jane Eyre when I was about 10 (I skipped the bits with St John Rivers) and was thrilled shortly afterwards to be given an invitation to a family wedding. What a let-down that was! They were a respectable couple and nobody rushed in to declare the existence of an impediment - the secret mad wife on the top floor!
Lorna Doone has a rather exciting wedding scene as well.

Enid Blyton and Samuel Clemence.

As a teenager, I also liked Dennis Wheatley. I read a whole series of books about a Canadian family - Jalna, by Mazo de la Roche. There was a tv drama series based on these books, but it wasn't well done. I was so familiar with the characters, that I had mental pictures of them - as you do - and I thought that I would have made a better portrayal of them. Well that's my (humble? ) opinion. I found that I enjoyed the ' classics' much more in my teens. I had tried reading them at a younger age, but couldn't engage.

Grannybuy
I had a Jalna book for a school prize, I think it was called Master of Jalna, it got me hooked on them. I remember the person giving out the prizes commenting that it was an unusual choice.

Mary21 I still have a copy of the pink-covered book. There are two others, too, The Further Adventures of the Family From One End Street and Holiday at the Dew Drop Inn.

Rustybear thank you for the link though they’re not the books I recall. I’ve never seen that particular Ladybird series, it looks lovely.

I still have quite a few old Ladybird books around the house.

Bit late on this thread but your responses have been so good to read. I was always a ‘Tom boy’ as I thought boys were allowed to do so much more than girls! However like so many of you I loved the Enid Blyton books especially Famous Five and Secret Seven but also loved the William books by Richmal Compton, the Billy Bunter books by Frank Richards and my favourite of all the Jennings and Derbyshire books by Anthony Buckeridge. I am now 72 and we didn’t have a tv until I was 12 but I so remember listening to these books when they were serialised by the BBC for Children’s Hour on the radio. I mentioned this thread and your responses to my husband and an observation by us both was how books from our childhood fulfil a need we all seem to have for a perfect ‘middle class’ family. If this thread has made you feel nostalgic for your childhood books a good one to take you back is Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer by Jane Brocket. It’s a book about the food enjoyed (with the recipes) by the children in the books we love.