Favourite books from your childhood/teen years

Fenny

Oh god, I loved all of the books already mentioned, Beatrix Potter, Roald Dahl, Point Horror, Jacqueline Wilson, The Babysitters Club, Nancy Drew and so on. Enid Blyton was the absolute best when I was very young - as well as Secret Seven, Famous Five, Mallory Towers etc., I used to absolutely love her Mystery series (the Five Find-Outers and Dog, anyone remember it?). And my absolute favourite childhood book was Little Women. I still have my old copy and it's almost falling apart at the spine, it's been thumbed so much. I still re-read it every time I want to comfort read. Then of course came Harry Potter, Princess Diaries, Lord of the Rings, and every trashy teen/YA fantasy novel that came my way. So glad I was too old for Twilight though. :P

Mackman

+1 for the point horror books, Danny the Champion of the World, Brer Rabbit, and Tintin.

i loved the Flip & Flop books too, anyone remember them? about two little dogs living in dublin or something.
Also used to love Astrix (technically a comic, still class though)
Fantasic Mr. Fox
When i reached the teenage years it was Stephen King and Michael Crichton mostly, still is

ToniTuddle

Oh my GOD! This thread is bringing back soo many memories. Damn...I use to read soo much back then.

Start of with alot of ones in the Ladybird Series like Rumpelstiltskin and The Elves and the Shoemarker

Ian Serraillier-The Silver Sword ....there's even a date inside it awwww July 1997....:eek: Read alot of Puffin books back then. This one is about 4 kids struggle to stay alive during Nazi occupation.

Someone gave me a small box full of the classics. Just dug it out again.
Ben Hur, Oliver Twist,Great Expectations, David Copperfield, Robin Hood,
Black Beauty, A Tale of Two Cities, The Swiss Family Robinson, The Mutiny on Board H.M.S Bounty, A Journey To The Center of the Earth, Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
The one I read the most out of those was the one that freaked the living crap out of me. Tales of Mystery and Terror by Edgar Allan Poe.

I'm sooo gonna read all these again now

Do any of you remember Children's Ward on the telly...UTV I think? Well I have a book entitled The Crash. Really good book...it's completely in tatters with pages falling out I've read it soo many times.:o

My aunt gave me a load of annuals(they were more magazine like I guess) from the 70s and 80s. Girlie ones called Bounty and Jackie . Have a strong feeling they are in the attic either that or Mum gave them away....seriously must try and find them again.


The rest is the same as most posters here.

Enid Blyton- The Faraway Tree.Stole it from my Aunties house as I loved it soo much. Plus all the other Enid books mentioned I use to read too. Still have Smuggler's Cave!
Point Horror- Oh my God! I had completely forgotten about these I was sooo addicted.
Goosebumps
The Babysitter's Club
Sweet Valley High

Tom McCaughren-Run Swift, Run Free. Stole this from my brother....! Must find the rest and read them.

Marita Conlon-McKenna's- Under the Hawthorn Tree, Wildflower Girl and Fields of Home. Only just got to read the third one while staying over at a friends house, her 12yr old had it. So glad I finally got to read it!

Anne of Green Gables
Maeve Binchy
Jackie Collins- Actually think my brother may have stole one or two of them on me!

Then got into Anne Rice and Robert Ludlum and will basically try anything.


Funny how alot of us have read the same things when we were younger.
Were our parents given a leaflet with a list of books telling them what we should check out!:pac:

Glowing

Richard Scarry - What do people do all day

pauline fayne

The first book i remember reading (and loving ) was Heidi . After that a lot of Patricia Lynch
- Brogeen and the green shoes etc.,
Started reading Enid Blyton then - all of the Mallory Towers , Famous Five .Five Find Outers, Secret Seven .
After that for some reason I read a lot of Agatha Christie . Was given Wuthering Heights as a Christmas present when i was 11 , tried to read it but was terrified and didn't come back to it for many years !
I guess the variety of books that formed my early reading is still reflected in my bookshelves today - everything from thrillers to Dostoyevsky .
Great idea for a thread . I enjoyed reading everyones memories

Censorsh!t

I remember the hungry caterpillar, peter rabbit, the animal ark books, where the wild things are as being favourites when I was small.

I also loved any books on animals and horses. I had so many horse encyclopedias, and half were practically the same!

As I got a bit older I absolutely loved the Heartland series by Lauren Brooke, the Half Moon Ranch series and also the Misty of Chincoteague books. I also remember loads of short stories on horses by the Pullein-Thomson sisters. Basically any books on horses I could find I would read.

Also must throw in the Harry Potter books! I also started reading Stephen King books at a young age. Angela's Ashes by frank McCourt was also a favourites of mine when I was 11 or 12.

At around 13 I started reading more "grown up" books so never really got into the whole teenage fiction stuff.

sidneykidney

I used to read the robbers series of books by caroline swift.
Robbers in the house.
Robbers in the hills

Anyone ever read these, i think there was about 5 or 6 of them.

herosa

Heidi and anne of green gables. The railway children was excellent too.

tough__cookie

all the famous 5 books as a kid, I got into all the Point Horror books when i hit my teens

_Whimsical_

Glowing wrote: »

Richard Scarry - What do people do all day

This was my first book too. One of my earliest memories is of getting it when I was 2 years old. I never got sick of the stories and combing through the incredibly detailed and interesting pictures.It enthralled me for years.

Other books I loved as a young child were anything by Enid Blyton but particularly the famous 5 and The Naughtiest School Girl series. The Naughtiest School girl series was responsible for me discovering that there was a 1 o clock in the morning because I stayed up for hours reading it under the covers with a torch.
I loved Black Beauty, Treasure Island, Gullivers Travels and LIttle Women too.

At around 10 my taste definitely changed and I liked more intimate, personal books that gave me a chance to really get to grips with what was going on in someone else's head.I still like those kind of books.

One I read over and over was One More River by Lynne Reid Banks about a girl who went to live on an Israeli Kibbutz , I have read it as an adult again & still liked it.

Another excellent childrens book that stands up to an adult reading is A Solitary Blue by Cynthia Voight. I think thats the first book I read as a child (well I was 11 or 12) that really moved me in an adult way and gave me a deeper understanding of other people.

Also The Midnight Fox by Betsy Byars. An AMAZING book when you're 8! I also had a compulsively reread The Celestial Boy by Don Conroy .

It's funny when you think about it. The books we read and loved as children probably had a stronger role than we appreciate in developing our own characters and making us who we are .

AudreyHepburn

Has any one ever read this?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/0862784956/ref=dp_image_0?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books

It's basically Cinderella but with a modern twist in that it's set in Dublin among other things and done in a diary format.

I used to love it as a young teen and must have re-ead it several times.

shoppergal

Oh I forgot about Heidi, I loved that book. It's funny how most of us read the same books as kids. Also loved Enid Blyton, had every book, can't believe my parents didn't stop me dumping them all when I was about 16. recently got all the mallory towers books from the library and re-read them all, really enjoyed them. This thread has made me think of the marita conlon-mckenna famine books, I must re-read them.

Really loved the Sadlers wells books, all about ballet which I had no interest in but the books captured my attention for some reason.

r3nu4l

As a young boy my favourite books were:

Aged ~ 3
Bedtime stories (Enid Blyton)

Aged ~7
The secret Seven (Enid Blyton again)

Aged ~8
The Famous Five (Enid Blyton, I think it was me who made her rich )

Aged~9
Black Harvest (Ann Pilling)
Published in 1983, it was my first introduction to horror (Choldren's). A brilliant book! I borrowed it from my local library in 1984

Age ~11
Alfred Hitchcock's The Three Investigators (various authors)
Loved this series so much!!

Age ~11
The Hardy Boys (various authors under pseudoname Franklin W Dixon)
Again brilliant books but boy those Hardy boys got knocked unconscious in every book. They must have been severely brain damaged by the end of the series

Age ~11
Adrian Mole. Loved the first two books, didn't like the third one and any I read afterwards just weren't funny. Perhaps it's because I wasn't quite a teen when I first read them that I thought they were brilliant.

Teenage years
After that I got into Stephen King in a big way, as well as JRR Tolkien, David (and Leigh) Eddings, Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams. Towards the end of my teens I got into crime fiction such as Ian Rankin, Peter Robinson etc.

here.from.day.1

When I saw the title, Roald Dahl was the first thought in my head. Its amazing to see the amount of people who shared my wonderful experiences with his books. I even loved his Autobiography.

Other books that I remember fondly are the Indian in the Cupboard and some classics like Of Mice and Men, All Quiet on the Western front and I am David.

storm2811

Busi_Girl08 wrote: »

I used to love the Jacqueline Wilson books; Bad Girls, The Bed and Breakfast Star, Double Act, The Lottie Project, The Illustrated Mum (that one left me bawling ), The Story of Tracy Beaker, etc.

Then, of course, Roald Dahl; The BFG, Esio Trot, the Twits, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Witches, MATILDA, George's Marvellous Medicine.

Pretty much this!
I used to have nearly all of Jacqueline Wilson's books but I gave them away a few years ago, regretting that so much now.

Roald Dahl too, absolutely loved Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, James and the Giant Peach and my favourite, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar.:D

And Harry Potter of course, horrible history and goosebumps, especially the ones where you get to choose the story, like "go to page 37 to go down to the basement, go to page 21 to run away" etc etc.

Oh and a book called The Blue Horse I think, loved it.

Ahh and how could I ever forget Dr.Suess!

Lame Lantern

I loved any books about groups of middle-class suburban kids knocking the crap out of evil teachers and evil parents and creepy old people. Wish I could remember some names off the top of my head.

My main gripe with YA fiction these days is all the romance. It's clear that YA is increasingly being written with an element of adult titilation in mind. As a boy that spent most of his childhood running around his back garden beheading non-existant aliens, I had no time for any "Cory loves Sarah but doesn't know how to express it" subplots. It's an indulgence for adults to imagine attractive, scarcely pubescent boys and girls engaging in innocent love affairs and one that has no appeal to any kid with a thriving imagination.

George Orwell 1982

I remember one short story we did in school about a boy whose father made him a pencil box and bought him new pencils but they were deliberately broken by some bullies. Anyone know the name of this story and who wrote it? I would love to track it down.

sudzs

George Orwell 1982 wrote: »

I remember one short story we did in school about a boy whose father made him a pencil box and bought him new pencils but they were deliberately broken by some bullies. Anyone know the name of this story and who wrote it? I would love to track it down.

I remember "The Poitin Maker" from primary school. For some reason it has stuck in my memory. Think I could probably throw together a still and produce a drop of alcohol too as a result!

Scuid Mhór

there were plenty of books i read and plenty of books i still have to read (i'm not an adult yet!) but one book that always springs to mind whenever anyone asks me this is the mystery of the disappearing cat by enid blyton. maybe not that challenging as far as reading levels go, but it had a really beautiful, innocent, well thought-out plot. i lost the book a few years ago but i'm sure i'll find it somewhere in the depths of my room someday, and when i do i'll eagerly tuck into it.

byhookorbycrook

Never liked Roald Dahl. All of the Enid Blyton stuff, sexist and racist as it was...Nancy Drew, Biggles, Narnia series, Tom McCaughren's Run swift series, the Borrowers, Just William, Follyfoot Farm, The Pullein-Thompson sister horse books.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pullein-Thompson_sisters

mikhail

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Never liked Roald Dahl...

BURN THE WITCH!

ricero

i had to read the grapes of wrath for my leaving cert and surprisingly loved the novel very emotional story. its either that or the machine gunners for my favorite book

Eoin

ricero wrote: »

its either that or the machine gunners for my favorite book

Brilliant, I've been trying to remember the name of that book for ages!

Edit - just remembered another good one we read in school; The Outsiders

Callan57

I discovered Walter Macken's books in my teenage years & I thought I had died and gone to book heaven ... 'Brown Lord of the Mountain' - God I loved that book

tyler71

Same here - loved his History trilogy and after that tried to get my hands on everything else he'd written (which was surprisingly easy in the West of Ireland back in the day) and the Brown Lord of the Mountain always sticks with me.
As one of the eldest of the family my younger sisters pretty much read whatever we had left lying around and also loved Walter Macken - so they were made up when his son taught them in the local secondary school for a while.

Nadser

Glowing wrote: »

Richard Scarry - What do people do all day

That's brought back warm fuzzy memories, thank you! My favourite books were typical of many here, Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl etc. I also loved Mr Bump, from the Mr Men when I was a toddler - probably because I spent a fair bit of time in hosital.

One particular book I remember with great affection is "Now we are 6" by A A Milne - I remember reading it when I was 6. My favourite poem was "Now I am 6"

"When I was 1, I was just begun
When I was 2, I was nearly new
When I was 3, I was hardly me
When I was 4, I was not much more
When I was 5, I was just alive
But now I am 6, I'm as clever as clever
So I think I'll stay 6 now forever and ever"

Still wish I had!!

mav79

This thread is bringing back so many memories of amazing books.
All of dahl's books and i'd forgotten about the faraway tree loved it.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn
Hound of the baskervilles are two that i must have reread over and over.

Fragglefur

My favourite book was "the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe". Otherwise anything by Enid Blyton, though my favourite was "The Secret Island" .

E.T.

I love this thread, it's brought back some magical memories. I read so much Enid Blyton when I was very small that I used have the most vivid dreams based on her books. I must actually reread the ones like The Magic Faraway Tree. I teach infants and I'd love to introduce them to some of the magic and imagination. There are also so many amazing poems from when we were young. I still love The Jumblies by Edward Lear also and Wynken, Blynken and Nod by Eugene Field.

Posy

So many many books!
When very young I loved 'The Magic Faraway Tree' and the 'Wishing Chair' books by Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl books like 'George's Marvellous Medicine', 'The Twits', 'Fantastic Mr. Fox'..
Older, I read everything else by those two writers. Loved 'Mallory Towers', 'Famous Five', 'St. Clares', The 'Circus' books, The 'Adventure' series.. I devoured all Roald Dahl books then. Loved 'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory' and my favourite, 'Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator.' I read 'Boy' and 'Going Solo' in my teens and loved the 'Anastasia' series of books.

My three all time favourites were 'Heidi', 'Anne of Green Gables' and 'What Katy Did.' I must have read 'Anne of Green Gables' about 20 times during my childhood.. and early adulthood!