Your fav author from childhood

Arthur Ransome. I loved all the Swallows and Amazon books. I was also a big fan of the Biggles books by Captain W E Johns. Not a very girly girl but I also enjoyed the Chalet School series by Elinor M Brent Dyer. Oh, I would read almost anything that came my way. Still do!

Louisa May Alcott - Little Women and Susan Coolidge - Katy books...

Does anybody remember the BBC Children's Hour production of The Box of Delights, in the 1940s?

I was pony-mad too - National Velvet (definitely not the film!), A Pony for Jean by Joanna Cannan (mother of the Pullein-Thompson sisters) and the sequels, Ponies and Caravans, The Good Master by Kate Seredy, We Couldn't Leave Dinah by Mary Treadgold; the Katy books. I liked Enid Blyton's school and farm books, not the others so much. Milly-Molly-Mandy, Wonk the koala bear, Mumfie the little elephant - the nostalgia!

I know she's regarded as very unPC nowadays,but I loved Enid Blyton in particular 'The Famous Five' books,the 'Mallory Towers' series and 'The naughtiest girl in the school' series. I was pony-mad as a child so also enjoyed anything by the Pullein-Thompson sisters and the 'Jill' books by Ruby Ferguson.

anniezzz09, I love the Jane Badger website!

I still have most of my pony books, I have also duplicate copies of most of the P-T sisters` books in hardback, if I hadn`t had them in this form originally. Still read my horsey books occasionally, such nostalgia! Love the original illustrations too. I don`t give a hoot if such books are not p.c. any longer.

As a child I also loved Enid Blyton and was ticked off by the headmistress when I won a prize (always book tokens) and having chosen a 'good' book with the remainder I chose an Enid Blyton. This was frowned upon and I was told she 'expected better' of me. No matter, I continued to read Enid Blyton and just about anything else I could get my hands on. At times practically lived in the library. At 65 I still read lots of different genre's and am a regular at the library. So the frowned upon EB didn't do me any harm!

Someone mentioned being read to at school, our teacher did that in primary school. I think she was trying to get us interested in literature and Don Quixote was one of her chosen books.
My mother used to buy me a book every Christmas, what we called the classics and bound in red leather with gold writing.

I used to collect pony books from the past Suzette, did you ever come across the website of Jane Badger, a real walk down memory lane!
janebadgerbooks.co.uk/

Oh and I love the Molesworth books, don`t think of them as books for children!

Oh yes, all of the early Pullein-Thompson books and the Jill series, still have them!
Also loved Enid Blyton, eventually went to a boarding school but it was nothing like Mallory Towers really (we did have midnight feasts though).
Just William, Wind in the Willows, National Velvet (Not the film), the BB books, the Romany series, the Borrowers......

Thanks for that Grandma70's. Cue for Treason was the only one of his I read but it clearly made a big impression! I seem to recall it being connected with school too somehow so maybe he was interested in promoting reading and it was a suggested book?

Patriciageegee, I met Geoffrey Trease when I was a teenager. He came to give a talk at my school. I did enjoy his books, but don’t remember them well now.

Richmal Crompton, Arthur Ransome (Swallows and Amazons) and then Gerald Durrell when I was a bit older

It was by Geoffrey Trease..sorry

Very late to such a lovely thread but had to mention Eleanor Farjeon, as did mrswoo about five pages ago, and her wonderful retelling of the rumplestilskin story "The Silver Curlew". Also "Cue for Treason" and it's magnificent hero Kit - my first crush?..a runaway boy on a mission in Elizabethan times who joins a band of travelling players with secrets of their own...marvellous!

Another vote for Noel Streatfield, I read Ballet Shoes and White Boots so many times. I also loved Heidi by Joanna Spyri, Anne Of Green Gables and all the sequels by LM Montgomery. I also loved to read my brother’s Just William books and I did read some of Enid Blyton’s adventure books but wasn’t a huge fan of hers. I also liked the Mallory Towers books but when I took the eleven plus and was actually offered a scholarship to a very upmarket boarding school I refused to go. I also loved Jane Eyre when I was a little older and read it several times.

I remember the Susan books by Jane Shaw. I think they had a green hard cover but I can't remember the details of the stories. Were they the ones where she went to the Alps and discovered beds without blankets, just continental quilts?

Oh, thankyou MOnica!! I've just seen your post with the information I've been looking for. I haven't been imagining things after all?

Callistemon, thanks for responding. It must have been in the 50s, around the same era as Enid Blyton's books. I've tried to find out more about them for so long I'm beginning to think I must have imagined them. They were very similar to Enid Blyton, you know, adventures on holiday with Aunt Jane in Dorset and lashings of ginger beer.

This is a lovely thread!

I still have many of my childhood books.

Was having a look and spotted Something to Do. I had this book as a young child and found it quite fascinating at the time

I was never able to make the mouse out of a white handkerchief though

I do remember learning to read with Wide Range Readers. Kitty , Rover etc. I was so excited when the pedestrian books became proper stories like The Three Billy Goats Gruff .

Then of course Enid Blyton, Noddy then Famous Five. After that, the library with endless choice.

How exciting Grandma2213!
I had a trip to Alderley Edge with a friend one summer. SUCH fun.
It was years after we read the "Wierdstone" but so many happy memories of that day!

Giulua. I , too, remember Pookie. I used to get them from the library. I now work in that same library. I managed to buy one of the Pookie books many years ago to read to my own children. But somehow I never got round to it. The book looks so very "wordy " compared to modern day picture books. But I am still so glad that I have the book.

Enid Blyton initially, especially the Famous Five, then the Pullein-Thompson sisters and their fantastic pony books, many of which I still have well over 50 years later!

Also Anna Sewell (Black Beauty) and Dodie Smith (The Hundred and One Dalmatians), but only for that one classic from each author. I didn't have either book as a young child but borrowed them both repeatedly from the village library.