What were your favourite books or comics when you were a child?

Magazines - as a child in the 1950s I took Collins Magazine, where you could send in poems and book reviews for publication. I got 10/6 for a poem or a book review. Riches!

A bit later I had Dance and Dancers, Dancing Times and Ballet Today. My brother had Aeromodeller.

Granmarderby10

Magenta8

I want this to be a lighthearted thread away from the more serious doom and gloom threads.

I had very conventional tastes. I liked "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass". Later I read"The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe" and I loved it. I also read "The Hobbit" and didn't like it.

I read "Grimm's Fairy Tales", Hans Christian Andersen and Aesop's fables. All pretty much what children in the 1950s and early 60s usually read.

I liked "Beano" and "Dandy" but I was not supposed to read either. "Girl", "Eagle" and "Swift" were more acceptable or "Look and Learn".

Oh no! Magenta8 Look And Learn 🥱 could a newspaper/magazine for children have been more boring or less appealing than that one.
It was delivered for years, my dad ordered it!
What a waste of paper …and money.

I agree Granmarderby10 I don't remember ever reading it but I had to collect it from the newsagent on the corner when my mum sent me out to buy ten Craven A.

I liked the little Observer books. My favourites were horses, cats and dogs; I still have a good basic knowledge of the various breeds. I also liked the BBC nature magazines and books and I regularly used to go up to the Natural History Museum in London. I once went to a lecture about birds given by Peter Scott.

Oops! Should read mid teens. Comic's were the usual to start then as I got older Diana followed by Lois Lane, Superman and X men .

I didn't like reading until the class teacher started reading The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe to us at the end each day for 10 mins. My mum was so pleased that I was interested in a book she bought me the box set. I read The Lone Pine books, Little Women, Good Wives, Little Men, Joe's Boys, Jane Eyre, Skylark in Space, Lord of the Rings and all the Jane Austin books. I also started my Dennis Wheatley journey with The Ka of Gifford Hilary though I was in my mind terms when I read it.

I loved The Secret Seven, Noël Streatfield books, What Katy Did and Next. Mallory Towers, Susan Rushed’s in. All the Fairy Tales.
Comics were Girl ( with lots of positive female role models ), School Friend, Girls Crystal and later, Bunty and Judy. I wasn’t above Dandy, Beano, Beezer, The Broons, Oor Wullie!
Then Fab teenage magazine with all the pinups !

The Lorna Hill ballet books were such a favourite of mine, A Dream Of Sadlers Wells, Rosanna At The Wells, No Castanets At The Wells......loved them all!

Magenta8

I want this to be a lighthearted thread away from the more serious doom and gloom threads.

I had very conventional tastes. I liked "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass". Later I read"The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe" and I loved it. I also read "The Hobbit" and didn't like it.

I read "Grimm's Fairy Tales", Hans Christian Andersen and Aesop's fables. All pretty much what children in the 1950s and early 60s usually read.

I liked "Beano" and "Dandy" but I was not supposed to read either. "Girl", "Eagle" and "Swift" were more acceptable or "Look and Learn".

Oh no! Magenta8 Look And Learn 🥱 could a newspaper/magazine for children have been more boring or less appealing than that one.
It was delivered for years, my dad ordered it!
What a waste of paper …and money.

I loved Milly Molly Mandy. I read it to my DD’s, and one of my Gds. I even read it to my Primary one class, and had a competition to see if anyone could guess the name of Milly Molly Mandy’s friend’s new baby sister. It was Doris, if I recall. O one guessed it. A great favourite was Anne of Green Gables. I still have the copy - it was a school prize of my mother’s in 1939. I read most of Enid Blyton’s books. When I was about eleven, a favourite author was Mabel Esther Allen. I liked the Bunty comic, and wish that I’d kept the very first issue. I also liked the School Friend.

At about 12 I was heavily into the ‘Whiteoaks’ series, by Mazo de la Roche. And Georgette Heyer.

Before that, it was the Famous Five, all the William books, Dr Doolittle, What Katy Did, etc., and there’s a book nobody else ever seems to have heard of - Chalky, by Howard L. Apps.

A brilliant adventure story, quite funny in places, set in the 50s, much of it in the Essex marshes. I still re-read it now and then.

The Beano, my dad loved it and started buying it when I, the eldest, was one. I was his excuse. All four children read it, all our childhoods, my brother is 10 years younger than me, so I was still reading it by the time I left home - it was delivered every week for at least 25 years. My favourite book as a child was When We Were Very Young (I can still remember Disobedience - James James Morrison Morrison etc. word for word) , and when I was older it was Around the World in Eighty Days

I loved the Borrowers books Yorklady
I also loved the Secret Garden, The Railway Children and the Secret Seven - although I wasn't that keen on Enid Blyton's other books.
When I was about 7 someone gave me a book of short stories by Eleanor Farjeon - an author that you never hear of nowadays. I still have the book and I can almost quote word for word from my favourite stories in it.

I had Princess comic and was always terribly excited by the free gift that usually came with it!

Beano Dandy Topper then Aunty's and Jackie. Then I went on to Superman and Fantastic Four.

My mother read to me from a very early age right up to mid teens, my step father loved to be read to as well!!! All the usual ones mentioned, (we cried over Black Beauty!) Just William, Enid Blyton, 'The Far away Tree, Mallory Towers, Famous Five and so on.' Comics were Chicks Own, Tiny Tots, Swift, Girl, and finally The Young Elizabethan. Later on we read Dickens, Jane Austen until reading finally stopped, and I read on my own.

Did anyone read The Borrowers books by Mary Norton?
They were my favourite. We didn’t really have books at home but were allowed to go to the library every Saturday.

Bunty,Judy,Jackie as a teenager. Books as a child... Famous Five,Secret Seven,Hobbies Twins as a teenager was big into Denis Wheatley...scared myself silly or historical fiction. Still enjoy historical fiction CJ Sansom in particular,Peter May Blackhouse Trilogy , Shetland novels Anne Cleves,Rebus series by Ian Rankin plus Biographies one of the best is Vera Atkins... A life in Secrets

The Hundred and One Dalmatians
Lassie Come Home
The Call of The Wild
Black Beauty
Jill’s Gymkhana (but no other Jill books)
Three Ponies and Shannan
Riding With The Lyntons
Phantom Horse (but no other PH books)
A Pony and His Partner
The Famous Five (first one only…)

Riding magazine
Judy
Jackie
Valentine
(then moved on to Cosmopolitan!)

White boots,the swish of the curtain,ballet shoes,the lion the witch and the wardrobe.

My first one was The Beano, then Jackie and finally Honey, which I loved.

My early childhood magazine was Robin, then later on Fab(ulous) 208 - a Radio Luxenberg related magazine.
Books were Lassie Come Home (Not Disney!) and Heidi.

As a young child ie 7 years until about 13-14 I spent a couple of weeks each summer with a great aunt, as my mother worked and it gave Gran a break from having me, my brothers and my cousin under her feet. As my great aunt was a retired school teacher and didn’t have anyone children of her own she treated us like pupils, geography lessons were done when gardening, history was out walking viewing museums etc. we did have time to ourselves it wasn’t all work and no play, except when it rained then came the english and math lessons. This left me with a love of reading especially the classics books for young girls Anne of Green Gables, Little Women etc. my gran used to say I’d read the cereal box if nothing else was available.

My mother thought comics were a waste of money so they were bought for us for long train journeys only.
Books however, I loved anything by Enid Blyton
The One End Street books
Noddy
The Katy books
The Incredible Journey
Black Beauty made me cry
And lots lots more.

BeneathTheHowlingStars

I was reading Dennis Wheatley at 8 years old. My reading age was that of a fully grown adult and I found children's books boring so my mum gave me The Ka Of Giffard Hilary and that was that. I was soon onto James Herbert and Stephen King much to the dismay of my teachers who truly believed that I had stolen the books from my parents. When they asked my mum if I was meant to have them they were shocked when she replied 'yes I gave them to her'. I still love horror now.

Oh my goodness The Ka of Giffard Hilary, that takes me back, although I would certainly have been in my teens at least!

We weren't a bookish family. Apart from the newspaper I can't remember my father reading anything. So I was never taken to the library. But as soon as I could, when I was older I joined the Boots' library. Does anyone remember that? As a child I was desperate to read and would await my birthday and Christmas as I knew an uncle of mine would send a book. My parents did have Anne of Green Gables and Little Women and Jo's boys which I read over and over. But my favourites were Enid Blyton and Noel Streatfield. I longed for the Dandy and Beano but they weren't suitable, so I had the Children's Newspaper which I found boring. Then I was allowed the Eagle, then Girl when that came out. My mother didn't believe in anthropormorphic books so we never had Beatrix Potter, but for some reason my sister was given Little Grey rabbit books! I loved Jump For Joy by Pat Smythe, but was really shocked at the age of 12 when I took one of her books to a book signing, as she had bright red nail varnish!! My first book was Smoke and Fluff, a Ladybird book. I can see the cover in my mind's eye now. Has anyone read Ameliaranne?

My favourite books when I was a child include a little set of Jenny Wren books featuring Disney characters: Cinderella, Mickey Mouse's Picnic, Donald Duck etc. Bear Country and Beaver Valley and the annuals of my favourite comics: Bunty, Judy, Princess and School Friend, anything relating to Ballet, Teddy Tail, What Katy Did, Grimms Fairy Tales, The Little Princesses by Marion Crawford, about the Queen and Princess Margaret written by their Nanny at the time.

Just William.