Your fav author from childhood

I loved the brer rabbit stories, Enid Blyton, what Katy did (my absolute favourites) The water babies.

I remember the Abbey Girls too, the Narnia books and Heidi.

I wonder if I should some of my favourite children’s book now I am....erm.....older, and read them again?

Delila Th author was M E Atkinson and the children you mention featured in her books about the Lockett family www.fantasticfiction.com/a/m-e-atkinson/

This is a lovely thread, brings back many memories.
When I was growing up , during WW2, you couldn't get new books. All paper was put to use for the war effort.
When books for public use started to be printed again they were in small numbers and mostly in public libraries.
My friends and I always asked for a book for a birthday present, a different one each, then we swapped.
Enid Blyton first. And I remember BB. Little Grey Men, as someone mentioned earlier.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Grey_Men

Sorry Delila, I don't know. What era was it?

Does no-one else remember the Susan books by Jane Shaw?

I now have a yen to re-read some of the books mentioned on this thread.

SueDonim

I read all the Jalna books when I was pregnant too!! I was determined to finish them all before DC1 arrived, and I did; luckily the library was just down the road.
What a coincidence.

I won a lovely book as a Sunday school prize - A Dog so Small. I had an imaginary dog for ages after reading it.

I enjoyed adventure stories featuring three children, Bill, Jane and Oliver, but I don't remember the author or any titles. They were similar to Enid Blyton's books, but I don't think they were written by her.
Can anyone help with any recollection of theses books?

I was brought up in a pit house , pit village . Really wanted to be George ....

Alison Uttley’s A Traveller In Time is a wonderful story. I reread it a few years ago and I was astonished at how sophisticated the language was for a children’s book. It’s a time-slip tale, of a young girl staying in her grandparents old house and she is transported back to the time of Mary Queen of Scots.

Also mentioned earlier was the Jalna series. I loved those too, and read them while pregnant. I had plans to give my children names such as Pheasant and Finch, but luckily dh intervened!

Bonji
You are so very right. We were brought up on a council estate, very far removed from my middle class heroines, I longed to go to Mallory Towers, or sail to Kirren island, and the wholesome quality of their lives so appealed to me, still does to be honest.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Enid Blyton and Samuel Clemence.

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.

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

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

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.

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 ?.

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.

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

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.