Books from your childhood

zenith

The Little Prince changed my eight-year-old life.

John

I just remembered another one, The Indian in the Cupboard.

Board@Work

I really loved to read as a child..
Now not as much, don't know why. Maybe my imagination has been killed by television, movies and formal education...


My fav beyond everything else was Dahl. Especially The B.F.G.

LadyJ

I read Adrian Mole when I was fairly young but it's still funny even now!

Nimrod's Son

Dahl was my main man when I was a kid. Have to agree that Going Solo is probably his best book. Found my copy of The Twits the other week and read it a couple of times. Still outstanding stuff.

Megatron

Tom McCaughren is that guy who did the foxes books, read most of these too (Run with the Wind, Run to Earth, Run Swift Run Free, Run to the Ark, Run to the Wild Wood and Run for Cover). -- Loved these books, and re-read them a few years ago , still great .. if only my cousin hadn't poxy lsot them :mad:

LOtr + hobbit -- tough going for a 12 year old, but i guess that's why these days when i start a book i do finnish it.

Dahl - read all of them always a great read.


Asimov -- I know he's considered the father of 3 laws of robotics but i've always considered him more of a dectective Writer .. and a damm good one too.(Liek someone else said, Caught my Mum getting rid of load of them including a orig "Caves of Steel" my favorite book, first printed 1952 )

peter david --- this was more mid to late teens but read just about anything i could find by him.

Autobiographys- don't ask me why but i just used to lap them up ... iv'e started doing it again.

Loads more , i could go on naming but i haven't the time ;P

boidey

Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer, To kill a mockingbird, The grey goose of kilnevin, just william series.

lilmissprincess

well..
Enid blyton ruled.. I had all the Malory Towers, St. Clares and Famous 5 books...all in a loving charity shop now...
I loved a story called Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfield, it was lovely.
Judy Blume- all the fudge books
Bernadette Leach,
Roald Dahl
the usual suspects.

John

LadyJ wrote:

I read Adrian Mole when I was fairly young but it's still funny even now!

I could never get into those books. I felt really left out in school, everyone else seemed to be into them.

jrey1981

Tom McCaughren
Enid Blyton
Roald Dahl
Numerous others I havent a hope of remembering

And...Richard Scarry...they were cool

Dave3x

Okay, I've read a lot of what's been mentioned so far (including every famous five and secret seven that previously belonged to my mother), but hasn't anyone else read Michael Scott's work? Wonderfully pilfered from Irish legend, his Windlord, Earthlord and Firelord were brilliant! And his October Moon.....legend......

John

Dave3x wrote:

Okay, I've read a lot of what's been mentioned so far (including every famous five and secret seven that previously belonged to my mother), but hasn't anyone else read Michael Scott's work? Wonderfully pilfered from Irish legend, his Windlord, Earthlord and Firelord were brilliant! And his October Moon.....legend......

I had completely forgotten about him. I don't think I ever read any of his ...lord books but October Moon was brilliant. Scared the **** out of me.

lilmissprincess

Did any of ye read the "Drumshee" books/ they were all historical things..I thought they rocked..

Caoimhe89

Ah! I'm the same as everybody else... when I was younger, I read and I read, and I read, and I read... I'm only 15 now, but it's completely changed. When I was 9-12 I read 4 or 5 books at a time, and finished at least 1 a week. I was always juggling books. It sorta had to slow down because of the JC, and all of secondary school, actually. Ahem. But what do I read...

Narnia - I loved CS Lewis. I still remember reading the Last Battle for the first time and crying at the end. I reread it (last week) and started crying again.

Enid Blyton - Everything. Well, except Noddy. Everything else. I just kept reading and reading and reading... the Faraway tree, the Secret Seven, the Famous Five (number 2 is still my favourite), the Five Find-Outers.

All the Classics - the Little Princess, the Secret Garden, the Railway Children, Five Children and It, etc.

Orla Melling's books...

The Heidi books,

The Katy books - Did she marry Ned Worthington? I still want to know!

Roald Dahl - The witches and Matilda and George's Marvellous Medicine were my favourites

Diane Wynne Jones - Brilliant!

Jostein Gardiner - thoroughly provoking and beautiful!

They were my basics... there were others that I can't remember... Oh, and the Babysitter's Club and Jaqualine Wilson (sp?) that I now am ashamed I read...

Caoimhe89

Oh, and lilmissprincess - yeah, I did... there was one about the french coming to Ireland... that was my favourite!

Capt'n Midnight

Can't remember the name , book with animals in it doing human things by an American who was famous for those sort of things. Well done with things like the dogs having their heads out the window on the bus.

the_only_Ali

Again, C.S. Lewis, Enid Blyton, Tom McCaughren... I used to love animals! I adored Gerald Durrell books too, though they're not exactly aimed at kids.
I read Don Conroy too, and all the classics. Did anyone else here ever read any Lucy Boston books? They were amazing, about this old house called Green Knowe and all these ghosts that lived there... but I've never found anyone who read them too.

angeldelight

I'd forgotten about those Marita Conlon Mc Kenna books. There was another trilogy by an Irish writer...... The Hiring Fair, Blaeberry Sunday and Penny Farthing Sally. I remember I took Blaeberry Sunday with me to France and it was the only book I took for 2 weeks. Knew it inside out. Still have those 3 and read them occasionally

Just googled, Eilis Ni Dhuibhne wrote them under the pseudonym Elizabeth O'Hara

JimG

The Wind in the Willows, Treasure Island, Tom Sawyer, Black Beauty, Uncle Tom's Cabin, ................

Did any of you ever come across a poem beginning
"When long ago the world was young,
and birds could talk and lecture,
the magpie called her feathered friends
to teach them architecture"?

That's all I remember of it.Would love to get the words again. Googling is no help.

Thanks.

theCzar

Enid Blyton and Roadl Dahl feature heavily, then some Irish Authers Cruickshank's SKUNK series, and Banville's Hennessy series were great.

Wasn't bothered really with classic childrens books, Secret Garden etc. Never even heard of Narnia until recently!

Kind of wish I was a kid now so i could grow up with books like Pullman's, though I might be a bit warped!

zohara

I loved fairy tales as a little one, Cinderella being my no. 1 fav. followed by Sleeping Beauty.
I also read the entire Mrs Pepperpot series about a lady who used to shrink & have amazing adventures when she was small, then be big again in time for her husbands return home!!
I loved any animal stories, (I related much better to them than to people!) like Tarka the Otter, Watership Down, Black Beauty, & an author called Joyce Stranger.
My fav. Dahl has always been The Magic Finger & I delight in reading it again now with my daughter.
The Heidi books & Anne of Green Gables have always been near the top of my list & I will pass mine on as my daughter grows.

It's facinating to hear about others favs, the ones in common & the more obscure, keep sharing!!

Johnny Storm

The Biggles books by CApt W.E. Johns - great adventure stories - loved them when I was a kid.

I also really enjoyed kids versions of the Kon Tiki voyage by Thor Hierdahl (sp??)(would like to read that again!), and kids bios of Douglas Bader and a guy called Mars (who was the Douglas Bader of submarines) - ahhhh, those were the days....

Also have very fond memories of a book or books about a kid called Duncan set in a remote Scottish island - very well written AFAICR - does this ring a bell with anyone ?

I used to live just around the corner from the library in Bray and read a lot.

CuLT

Mmm, all the Famous Five, the Hardy Boys books, The Wind in the Willows, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, as much of Roald Dahl as I could find, Gulliver's Travels was another favourite... I'll have to root around my attic (and my memories) to dig up a few more.

Vokes

Anyone around my age (21-25) remember reading the following trilogy :

The Battle Below Giltspur
Dance of the Midnight Fire
Lightning Over Giltspur

I thought they were pretty awesome when i read them way back at the beginning of 90s. They're set in the area where i live

Enii

Karlson on the Roof and The Bullerby Children
By Astrid Lindgren

What great books!

tSubh Dearg

I read most of the books mentioned. Though the reason I got so into reading as I got older was my mum read the Narnia series to me over about 6 mths or so and then followed it up with The Hobbit.

A couple of years later she re-read me The Hobbit and then went on to Lord of the Rings, I think I was about 9/10, it took us 9 mths to do the whole cycle! And she used to do all the voices for the differnent characters which made them so alive. To me Gollum will always sound vaguely Welsh.

I also read Judy Blume books avidly for awhile. If you look back at the mthey are awful! But when you're about the age of the characters in her books they're brilliant!

I also really enjoyed the Katy books, the Little Women series, the My Friend Flicka books, the Silver Brumby series, (in fact anything with horses in).

I also read all the Mallory Towers books and some of the St Clare's ones by Enid Blyton not to mention The Secret Seven and Famous Five.

One of my favourite books was one that was owned by my mum when she was younger and unfortunately it's falling to pieces but it has an absolutely brilliant story in it called "The Rose and The Ring" classic fairytale with a twist.

Oh I also read/heard the uncensored versions of all the fairy tales at a fairly young age as we had the Complete Grimms Fairy Tales. Fantastic stuff with Cinderella's ugly sister's having bits of their feet cut off.

Oh and did anyone else read The Red Fairy Book, The Blue Fairy Book, etc etc there were loads of different colours and each bookd had lots of different stories in them.

shuushh

secret seven
famous five

jesus looking back on those books,a bunch of private school toffs, one of the characters called Fatty going around catching evil gypsies really wouldnt go down to well in the present time

also Roald Dahl and I used to listen to alot of stories on tape which were deadly and i wish i could find them

CuLT

shuushh wrote:

secret seven
famous five

jesus looking back on those books,a bunch of private school toffs, one of the characters called Fatty going around catching evil gypsies really wouldnt go down to well in the present time

also Roald Dahl and I used to listen to alot of stories on tape which were deadly and i wish i could find them

You don't mean to imply that all gypsies aren't evil?

The Hardy Boys wouldn't mislead me!

Outcast

I was a Famous Five fanatic (actually had really short hair until the age of ten and wanted to be known as George). Didn't like the Secret Seven as much, there were too many of them and they were way to pompous and official. They're little shed was so pathetic!

Malory Towers was great as well, can anyone remember the name of the fat french mistress?

I also liked Siobhan Parkinson a lot. Stuff like Sisters No Way, The Moon King, Four Kids, Three Cats, Two Cows and one Witch (Maybe) and the Moon King.

ionapaul

Haven't seen anyone mention The Neverending Story yet! I also was an avid reader and devoured dozens of Hardy Boys books, Roald Dahl (met him in Kennys Bookshop in Galway at a book signing!), all the Narnias, Tolkien, dozens of Dragonlance books (remember Raistlin...the ultimate evil mage!)...so many happy memories