A love of books

One of my daughters shares my love of the great English 18th and 19th century novelists, but my grandchildren prefer modern literature, especially fantasy or science fiction. I am disappointed, because I have had so much pleasure over the years and I have learnt such a lot from the works of Austen, Hardy, Trollope, Elliot et al.

My love, apart from Enid Blyton, was the Swallows and Amazons series and Children of the New Forest. My grandson likes the more modern books at the moment, but I have purchased a small library of classics, mostly adventure stories, which I hope he will learn to love later on.

My daughters loved books when small (and when big!!) and I shared my favourites with them but there are so many brilliant writers I had as much fun discovering new authors too!
Now am in that position again with grandchildren. As they are still quite young & we are still mainly on picture books we have enjoyed The Queen's Knickers this week in celebration of the jubilee weekend! The 6 year old is busy learning A A Milne poems from Now We Are Six and is enjoying reciting them to us!

I was always immersed in a book as a child, and later one of the few boons of commuting was the opportunity to get into a book. I loved Enid Blyton unreservedly, and read them time and again. I also had a set of two books about The Bobsey Twins - lord knows where they came from, as I recall they were set in the States, or maybe Canada (and it's where I take my pseudonym from, for reasons that escape me).
I now have a full set of Narnia in the wings, and I'm busy collecting books for my grandaughter ... I was never able to be at home in the school hols with my daughter, but I think I may get lucky this time around! And, like Greatnan I hope to instil a love of Austen (my absolute favourite novelist) and others - although probably not Trollope, who I could never get on with (however Joanna is a different matter!).
I always felt that my love of language - and vocabulary, which I'm told was unusually wide when young - stemmed from my love of reading. It also helped with my spelling - I knew when a word didn't look "right" - and, later, with my Latin vocab.

Growing up in a relatively poor household in London in the 50's I used to "comfort read" (rather than comfort eat-I was a picky eater!) One of my favourite books was "Party Shoes" by Noel Streatfeild, and I called my first daughter Sally, after one of the characters.By chance, her daughter is Phoebe- another name from that book.I found a copy in a charity shop and two of my grandaughters have also enjoyed the book
"White Boots" is another of hers I enjoyed.

I loved those books too, joanna - I think my favourite was 'Ice Skates' because I loved ice skating!

Once I had read Heidi I was determined to live in the mountains, but I was 61 when I bought a house in the Pyrenees and got my dream, moving to the Alps in 2010.
I found The Little House on the Prairie series just a few years ago, having seen the TV programme, but when I was young I loved the Anne of Green Gables books, plus What Katy Did and school stories by Angela Brazil. I couldn't get any of my grand-daughters to read any of them.

Oops - just realised the book was called 'White Boots' although also known as 'Skating Shoes' - should have googled it before I posted!

I loved all those books! And also Secret Garden, DaddyLong Legs & The Little Princess..

Ooh so many things I agree with. I loved (love!) the Swallows and Amazons books, the Little House on the Prairie books, anything at all by Noel Streatfeild (even though it was only recently that I learned to spell her name correctly. It looks...wrong!) Loved Secret Garden and the What Katy Did books too. Delighted DD loved them all too and hoping DGD will follow suit. DD loved the Chalet School books too - very outdated but she didn't care at all (and still reads them now and again!)

Not only did I spell her name wrongly, FeeTee but for years I thought she was a man. I was a pony mad child so my two favourite books were Wish For A Pony by Monica Edwards and We Couldn't Leave Dinah (a very exciting wartime story) by Mary Treadgold. My two older GDs have read both these and loved them. GD3 is nearly old enough. The prose is obviously very dated but that just adds to the charm.

I loved the William books by Richmal Crompton - and I thought she was a man!

The chalet school books where my absolute favourites,and I so wanted to go there.
The Bobsey Twins where also ggreat favourites like fatfairy.
Like joannapiano I used to comfort read ,and still do,used to love Nancy Drew,and I also read a lot of the classics when I was a child...my books where my friends.
Has anyone got a love of new books ,the smell th,e feel,the anticipation of what lies within Christmas isn't right without a new book to savour..

nellie, every Christmas morning when I was little I'd find a wrapped book on my bed, because they knew that would keep me quiet until a reasonable hour! I'll never forget the year I opened it up to find it was an exact replica of the Black Beauty book I already had - I was sooo disappointed!
I still read it again, though - for the umpteenth time.

I remember getting White Boots out from the local library Anagram. Loved it. Went mad on the thought of ice skating.

merlotgran, I loved those two pony books too, and still have my copies. My dgd is 8, so maybe she'll like them soon. I hope so.

I loved those books*merlotgran*, I was also pony mad. I read all of the books by the Pullein Thompsons(don't know if the spelling is right.),anything with a horse in it. I also loved all the Noel Streatfields, and all of E. Nesbit,Iloved The Bastable family.

As a small child I loved books but was restricted to my reading book at school. My dad was an avid reader but no one realised I was really keen too. My next door neighbour used to take her three daughters to the library every week and I was sooooo jealous! I didn't know it was a free service and if I'd asked my mum she would have taken me too! Anyway I've made up for it since, not only by borrowing from the library, but buying hundreds of books from charity shops.

Another favourite was Enid Blyton's Five Go Off To Camp. Thanks to Amazon I've been able to obtain some old (and suitably tatty) copies of these books so the DGds can add them to their bookshelves. The Pullein Thompson books were wonderful. They taught children an awful lot about riding and caring for ponies as well as being cracking good stories.

During the Jubilee weekend I read my 5 year old GD the 'Frances' books by Russell Hoban. She absolutely adored them. 35 years ago I read them to my DS & DD and like them fell in love with these books. On a recent visit I found her mother was reading 'The Far-away Tree' by Enid Blyton to her, a series of books I too enjoyed. DD and I intend to introduce her to 'The Secret Garden', 'Little Princess' and other late Victorian children's books that we both enjoyed together when DD was a child.

My, now grown-up children and I all enjoy reading poetry, as does my DiL and we share new discoveries

I read avidly as a child and loved lots of the books mentioned, Enid Blyton etc. It was a family joke that if I didn't have a book I would read the labels on the sauce bottles!
I loved The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge, and bought it for my gds who are just not interested.
My absolute childhood favourite was Little Women, which I reread so often that it fell to bits!

I loved Winnie the Pooh and still have my copy from when I was 10. Children are so fortunate to have such a wide range of books to choose from nowadays.

When I was a child in Canada my English grandparents often sent books as presents. Easier and cheaper to post. One of the books was Deep Sea Mokey by Grace Couch - it had lovely illustrations and story and was a huge favourite for years. We travelled extensively overseas and sadly my copy was lost. Two years ago, on a whim, I put in the book's title on Amazon. To my pleased amazment up it came a copy in a second hand book shop in Edinburgh. Of course I immediately sent off for it and received it a few days later. In excellent condition with the illustrations being as wonderful as they were all those years ago. It only cost £15 with pp and has given me a lot of pleasure.
Looking at the other threads to this we all seemed to have read the same books - sadly many of them no longer in print. If you long for an old favourite try Amazon [ooh free ad for them] you never know.

I'm still searching for a picture book of Lad, a Dog that my mum threw away. You can still get the 'Lad' books, but not the picture book. I can still see the pictures in my mind and would give anything to see the book again. I've tried all sorts of book searches etc but to no avail.