Children's Books We Still Love

The Secret Garden was probably my favourite read of last year. I hadn't read it as a child (I'm 18... so I no longer count as a child...bleugh), I'd only seen the 90s film. Just such a lovely little story! Inga Moore's illustrations were wonderful too, worth googling if you're into that sort of thing.

I can't remember what books I used to love as a child. All I can remember is my primary school feeding us on a diet of Roald Dahl.

Me. But what I remember was something Haunted Houses and More Haunted Houses? Or something like that. One had a Tudor ghost will Mary Queen of Scots with no eyes in her sockets and there was also a ghostly drummer boy?I think these might have been retelling alleged hauntings?

My favourite Ladybird was the Captain Scott one. It helped to make his story and polar travel an obsession which has never left me! The illustrations were superb, a couple of them were takes on the work of Dr Wilson, the final expedition's artistic doctor;  I always found the last terrifying, the small tent with the three dying men inside being assaulted by a blizzard. Having lost it years back I replaced it a few years ago on a visit to Hay-on-Wye.

Also liked their History of the Kings and Queens of England (in two volumes!). Those evocative illustrations again..... Edwy banishing St Dunstan, Edgar being rowed by the other British kings, William Rufus dead in the forest..... I remember these and more even though I haven't seen the books in 40 years!

When I was working in the bookshop over Christmas I was reminded of Judith Kerr's animal picture books- specifically the Mog series. And then someone informed me there's a book where Mog dies.

So basically childhood ruined. You're all welcome.


(on a serious note I'm sure it's a very useful book to prepare children for animal mortality, but guys...Mog dies)

I still have a soft spot for Elmer The Patchwork Elephant. So ridiculous but a great story.

In a clear out yesterday we found a childhood favourite. “The nuns go to Africa” in which a group of nuns go on holiday to Africa in a double decker bus, meet Father Christmas and Father Xmas who have had their car stolen by a pair of rollercoaster building gorillas. Not sure what the author was on, but a lovely story nonetheless.

For many years I read Michael Ende's 'The Night of Wishes' every New Year's Eve. I stopped a couple of years ago, but I'm planning to read it again in 11 months!

Has anyone else read the Honor Arundel books about Emma? The High House, Emma's Island and Emma in Love. 60s/70s novels about a girl whose parents die, and she goes to live with her strange arty aunt in Edinburgh, and then they move to a remote island. Haven't read them in ages, I might have to reread them soon.

I had a paperback set as a child with cover designs I loved. For a very long time though, I'd only read The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe. One summer when I was about 15 I think, I decided to read the set. I really liked The Magician's Nephew, and I like Prince Caspian (I'm especially fascinated by the whole scenario of being in a ruined place generations after anyone has been there) but the others, oh my goodness, how I hated them.  As the series goes on the religious symbolism gets so clunky and heavy handed, it's really grating. The early books are fine because you can see the symbolism if you want to, but it's easy to miss it if you're not interested. The later ones though, jeez. And the way he treats poor Susan - how dare she be interested in boys and lipstick? Eternal damnation for you Susan!

Having said that, I never quite finished The Horse and His Boy, as my puppy Gleason ate the last couple of chapters before I could finish it.

Over Christmas there was a Twitter-organised mass re-read of The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper, and gosh but that book holds up! Wonderfully atmospheric to read with the snow falling outside.
Also still love The Dark Lord of Derkholm (which is just begging for a film adaptation by Taika Waititi, filmed entirely on location in New Zealand) and The Year of the Griffin.

Absolutely love the Bromeliad trilogy by Terry Pratchett - Truckers, Diggers and Wings. Would highly recommend to anyone who hasn't 'got' Pratchett yet, they're a brilliant introduction to his sensibility but not actually Discworld books.

I didn't participate in that mass re-read but I re-read The Dark Is Rising series fairly regularly. The one thing a fairly eccentric English teacher who I otherwise disliked did that I was grateful for was to introduce my class to those books. The Bromeliad trilogy were the first ever Pratchetts I read, back when I was about 12. I then graduated onto Discworld & haven't ever actually re-read them, as I borrowed them from the school library at the time. I probably should re-read them some day.

I love Malcolm Saville's books. Not only the best known Lone Pine ones but also the Jillies & Buckingham series. I've also (thanks again to GGBP) recently finally tried the Marston Baines series, which were written for older readers & are pretty dark in places, at least by my usual reading standards.

@theatremonkey Filth! Though I wil say that the Famous Five books have been so extensively parodied that it is hard to read them seriously nowadays. I'm glad that my favourite Blyton series, the Adventure books, have a much lower profile & therefore haven't been spoiled in the same way. I'm also fond of the Five Find Outers & Dog series.

I went camping in Dorset a few years ago, and it was like a Blyton fest. I read several Famous Fives and a couple of Malory Towers while I was there, and visited the Dancing Ledge, which was the Malory Towers swimming pool (a bit slimy and small and seaweedy, not a glamorous tidal swimming pool) and drank lots of ginger beer in fields. I didn't find any smugglers though.