General Chat

Did you have a favourite childhood book?

Many school children will be dressing up as characters from books today. I wonder if they will remember the stories, which are read to them today?

I loved the Enid Blyton famous five books

Collected them and re read them many times

Tarka the Otter

That was one of the set books we had to read in the first year at High School

Like you, Shirley, and I'd add the Secret Seven and anything on the table with a label on while I was eating!

Cannery Row for me, every time. :-D

Alice in Wonderland was always a favourite and also the tale of Benjamin Bunny. I still have my original copies of both

Enid Blyton for me too.

We didn't have the money for books when I was young but went to the library regularly.

The book I always remember (and I have it in front of me right now) is Hello, Mr. Twiddle by Enid Blyton because it was the very first book I owned. I was given it by my teacher when I was 7 or 8 and it is inscribed "To Kathleen, For the best record of work 1955 - 56. M. Smurthwaite (class teacher).

I have kept it all these years because I was over the moon to receive it.

Kath. x

From when I was very young ( and still have) "Charlie the Cat" " Adventures of Pip" and "Chimney Corner stories" ( Enid Blyton).

Later I read the Famous Five books, Malory Towers, The Chalet School books, all the Little Women series.

'The Wind on the Moon' by Eric Linklater.

Just back from a volunteer morning at primary school.

There were some great outfits, some homemade, others obviously bought for the occasion.
The children were invited to dress up as a character..... or dress down in pyjamas as ready for a bedtime story. This meant that families did not need to go to extra expense, if funds were short.
Staff also dressed up, so it was a fun morning.

My favourite book as a young child was Heidi. I thought it must be wonderful to live on a mountain amongst wild flowers.

"The Wind in the Willows" "Tarka" "Green Sailors" Hackforth-Jones, "Short Stories" O Henry "The Hobbit" "White Fang" "Sword at Sunset" (R Sutcliffe) "Collected Ghost Stories" M R James come to mind. I was given the first three and still have them. The last was from the library. The funniest book I read as a child was "Three Men In A Boat" Jerome K Jerome.

I disliked anything from Blyton, Kipling or Stevenson and was bored to tears by Dickens. I haven't changed my mind about the first three but now I like Dickens.

For me the upsides of reading are that a book is a friend, good company , you can read at your own pace in whatever order pleases and above all another secret world is created in your head not imposed from a movie adaptation. The last really matters for a child.

ENID BLYTON books for me too.
Favourites in order of my age

TOYTOWN

SECRET SEVEN and FAMOUS FIVE

Then all the "...OF ADVENTURE" series
Which made me REALLY want an adventure to the point of inventing them- convincing all my friends and myself in the process!:-D


MALLORY TOWERS Series and TWINS AT ST CLARE'S Series
both of which made me want to go to boarding school :-S


Cicely Mary Barker's FLOWER FAIRIES
I believed in fairies for many a year ;-)


Joyce Lankester Brisley's MILLY MOLLY MANDY Books
"Millicent Margaret Amanda dearie" :-D

I did enjoy reading as a child, trying to think of some more :-D

When I was very young I loved Orlando, The Marmalade Cat; Babar The Elephant; The Colt From Moon Mountain and then later most of the ones already mentioned.

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.

When I was really young I used to love the little books about Mary Mouse and also Rupert. I always loved books when I could be in my own little world. I progressed to Enid Blyton, any and all her books, two favourites, The magic Faraway Tree and the Family at Redroofs.
Progressed from EB to What Katy did etc and Ann of Green Gables etc always read the full series if I could.
Abbey school books
Little Women, Jo's boys, little Men and Good wives.
Arthur Ransome books
In my early teens I started to read from the adult section at the library and discovered Mazo De La Roche series, Whiteoaks, Jalna etc.
Dennis wheatley
Neville Shute

Strangely there were very few books in the house except mine and my sisters but my parents did read, they belonged to the library. Both our children read )My OH doesn't read books). All our Grandchildren read although one struggles being Dyslexic. It was how we learnt to use our imaginations. I wonder if those today not encouraged to read books have such well developed imaginations? Or do TV series like Star Trek, Star wars etc fill the gap.
Really read anything and everything but some of those mentioned were favourites

We didn't have many books in the house either Ann, but our parents did read to us.

Mum wasn't keen on us belonging to the public library because when my sister was 3 years old, she unexpectedly caught Scarlet Fever and trying to trace the source one of the questions asked was whether the family used the library. I shared a bedroom with my sister, but never caught scarlet fever or the chicken pox which she had some time later.
By the time I was around 10, Mum relented and I joined the library, which was about a mile and a half to walk each Saturday, so I'd make sure I was ready to change my book each weekend.

You and I seem to have gone down a similar route with books Ann but you didn’t mention my all time favourite from childhood which was Alice in Wonderland.

The thread reminded me of a little panic I had about 4 years ago. I was in Yorkshire looking after grandchildren while son and dil had a short break. The youngest, then 9, was going to go to school as one of the characters from the Harry Potter series and dil had sorted a costume for her. For some unfathomable reason my normally very reasonable granddaughter decided the afternoon before that she wasn’t going dressed as planned and totally dug her heels in. I had to find a costume I could put together quickly and easily. We settled on Lyra from the Philip Pullman books. A patterned shirt, a denim skirt, a bag from the charity shop up the road and a toy meerkat as her daemon and she went off to school happy as Larry.

I remember our primary school class teacher reading to us at the end of the day before home time.
Ist year juniors it was The Faraway Tree and the following year our 2nd year teacher read Worzel Gummidge.
As far as I remember, there were no pictures,just the magic of the words capturing our imaginations.

My favourite book was 'The Red Pony' by John Steinbeck, which I found around the age of 8..
Then I went on to John Wyndham, and Ray Bradbury, with a bit of Defoe and Swift.

As a child, we moved a lot and had to get rid of toys and books.
I disliked Enid Blyton books - but always ended up with a Blyton book as the one book mum had packed for me. :-(
I put this dislike to being self-taught to read - using The Beano!
No-one could better 'The Bash Street Kids' in literature about school life! :-D

My parents never read to me, but I read many childhood books I'd missed (Pippy Longstocking, Roald Dahl, Narnia etc) whilst reading to my own children.
I still have many of these books - that I read to my grandchildren (or, they read to each other).

My eldest is dyslexic, but taught herself to read by using a book of nursery rhymes I regularly read to her and her sister. She knew the rhymes off by heart, and knew the pictures in the book, associated with each rhyme.
I remember seeing her, aged 3, lying on the floor, with the book open at 'Humpty Dumpty', pointing to each word and saying it out loud (recognising the 'shape' of the word).
Her dad is dyslexic, so she was quite used to him shouting out 'how do you spell ----- and me responding -----, so being unable to spell was no problem for her - but she is actually very good at spelling, and even gets 'there, their, and they're' right!
Mummy's explanations of how to remember which is which obviously worked - same goes for to, too and two. (actually, she's a bit of a spelling 'Nazi' :-0), though her handwriting is awful (as is her dads!)

Youngest sat on my lap, aged 3 and said 'teach me to read, mummy'.
I told her to look at the words whilst I was reading - which she did - and was soon reading! :-D

I always got an Annual and a storybook for Christmas as well as a book from an aunt and uncle. I particularly recall The Water Babies, probably because it raised my social conscience. We had a decent library too - the librarian lived two doors down from us so we knew him and he knew us so no misbehaving in the library!

All of my books were left behind when I left home and what did I eventually end up with from my collection? Little Women!

I have no idea where my other books went but Mum obviously got rid of them.

I still have my own children's books. In fact my grandchildren have read two or three of them. I take the view that they're not mine to dispose of so I'll hold on to them..

A few years ago I had a sort-out of my own.. I kept about a quarter of them but OH refused to ditch any of his.

Generally preferred non-fiction but initially liked Rupert annuals and later Biggles before moving on to Science Fiction, especially Wells or Wyndham or Asimov.