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I was a horse nut so Black Beauty

Used to love the Secret Seven novels by Enid Blyton.

I read just about every book that featured horses. Black Beauty being a favourite. Plus all the Famous Five books.

The Secret Garden. A lovely tale of friendship and acceptance. A joy to read.

Black Beauty and the Silver Brumby series excellent.

HEIDI every time.My best friend and I read these books avidly. We still share close reading preferences and books. Now her DGD has just named her first child Heidi plus my friends name!

Black Beauty by Anna Sewell. I know the first paragraph still by heart.

We didn’t have the money for me to have riding lessons and I would cycle around the lanes with my horse loving friend visiting all the horses in their fields. I booked my first riding lesson as soon as I got my first pay packet.

Swallows and Amazons for me, I so wanted to be having such adventures

i loved Heidi by Joanne Spiri , i would keep asking my sister to read it to me again and again. i just loved being in the mountains with grandfather

A Peep Behind the Scenes by Amy Catherine Walton - MUST read it again!

For me, being pony mad, it was any of the plethora of books written by the Pullein-Thompson sisters - Josephine, Diana and Christine.

Peter Pan then, when I was older, Little Women.

Swallows & Amazons, I have re-read the Youngsters Story many times never get Bored!

Grimms Fairy Tales because the short stories were so magical.

I have always been a huge reader but the ones that come to mind are the What Katy Did books; I can't remember how many times I've read them over the years!!

The family from one end street - it was life in the east end from the 30s and so different from how we grew up I was fascinated by it

The Family From One End Street was mine. Hard times but full of love.

What was your favourite book as a child/young adult and why? . . . . Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales . . . . for some reason they mesmerised me, l can still remember chuckling my way through The Emperor's New Clothes each time l read it

Children's historical fiction - Rosemary Sutcliff, Geoffrey Trease, Henry Treece and so forth. I just devoured them all - and yet I had no interest whatsoever in the history they taught us at school, all dates and kings, nothing about real people!

I used to love anything my Enid Blyton, especially the Magic Faraway tree, as got so engrossed to what they got up to

I would have a job to choose between Little Women and Mallory Towers. I loved the characters in both books and really cared about what happened to them. I always wanted Jo in Little Women to end up with Laurie but when I read Jo's Boys was glad it all turned out as it did. Even now if I don't care about the characters I find it really hard to finish a book.

My favourite book was Black Beauty, I love horses and read the book several times, but it always had the same sad ending

I read and reread Swallows & Amazons, have always been drawn to adventure stories.

I loved the Sadlers Wells Books of Lorna Hill. I didn’t do ballet, I’d never been to Northumberland and I definitely didn’t live in a castle but I used to save up for months to buy a new book . I think they showed me there was a better life out there, somewhere. I named my son Guy after the romantic young man in the stories who became a vet. Now I’m an adult I’ve managed to build a compete set. They cost 10/6d when I was a little girl (just over 50p) at a time when I would be given 2/6d by an uncle for my birthday. I’ve given away a lot of children’s books but those are staying with me.

My favourite book when I was younger was The Story Of Tracy Beaker by Jacquline Wilson. Tracy is a great character, funny and witty, but also caring to others. I loved reading this book as it was sad at times, but very honest and real.