Favourite Children's Books as New Children's Laureate Announced

[srw]

The Odyssey

(Yes, really. I was given an illustrated edition of the EV Rieu translation as a present and I was hooked. I'll need to see if the year is written in the book, but I was certainly a child.)

I did also read Biggles, Jennings, Arthur Ransome and CS Lewis, and a few years later waded my way through a lot of Dickens.

 

[AndyRM]

Can't You Sleep Little Bear?

Anything by Dahl or Pullman.

Quite like CS Elliot.

And more randomly, The Hardy Boys.

 

[Andy_R]

Biggles, Asterix, Tintin, the Famous Five, Swallows and Amazons..the Secret Seven were more of my sister's ilk....

 

[rich p]

Jennings, Biggles, Just William till I discovered more racy stuff like Evan Hunter.

 

[vickster]

Famous Five and Willard Price's animal adventure series, Narnia novels plus Wind in the Willows, Winnie the Pooh etc

 

[Julia9054]

Swallows and Amazons. I was obsessed.
When I was 12 I convinced the boat hire bloke on the local boating lake that I knew how to sail and, taking my 9 year old sister as crew, hired a mirror sailing dinghy. All my sailing knowledge was based on reading Swallows and Amazons.
All went surprisingly well until we had to bring it back to the jetty. We got marooned about 10 metres out and it became apparent we had no idea what we were doing.
The bloke shouted at us. A lot!

 

[John the Monkey]

Some of you might enjoy the Tygertale blog - (the link is to his piece on Alan Garner's caves) - https://tygertale.com/2015/05/30/alan-garners-caves/

 

[EatSleepRideRepeat]

Health and Efficiency was always a very popular 'read' at school..............

 

[srw]

The Odyssey

(Yes, really. I was given an illustrated edition of the EV Rieu translation as a present and I was hooked. I'll need to see if the year is written in the book, but I was certainly a child.)

It was the Christmas after my 12th birthday. It's a rollocking good read I'd recommend to any child - an adventure story with gods and monsters, love and revenge and good jokes. I did also devour Rosemary Sutcliffe - Eagle of the Ninth and others, and retellings of the myths of Greece, Rome and Norway.

One more favourite from much earlier in my life - the Uncle books by JP Martin (I had to look him up), illustrated by Quentin Blake (I didn't have to look him up). I thought there were only four in the series, but apparently I've missed two. It's the saga of a rich, patrician, paternalistic elephant lording it over the lower classes, beating the ugly riff-raff from the nearby town.

With all of that lot, it's a wonder I haven't turned out like Jacob Rees-Mogg.

 

[Levo-Lon]

Gavin Maxwell. Ring of Bright Water

Loved the film too.

 

[swansonj]

Jennings, Just William, Biggles, Willard Price, Arthur Ransome, Rosemary Sutcliffe, Narnia, the Heinlein Juveniles - all of which have been mentioned by multiple other people

Plus:
Philip Turner, Stephen Chance (same person though I didn't know that at the time), Ronald Welch (which was how I learnt much of my history), Elinor Lyon (convinced me that the Highlands are the most romantically beautiful place on earth long before I'd ever visited them), John Pudney, Hugh Walters, William Mayne (now largely expunged from the canon following unfortunate revelations...)

Nomination for all time best ever children's book:
Stream on the Line - Philip Turner
Run Away Home - Elinor Lyon
We didn't mean to go to sea - Arthur Ransome

 

[EltonFrog]

View attachment 355991

The Arson One . I have the original in front of me now.

 

[John the Monkey]

[QUOTE 4833991, member: 259"]I managed to read all the books in the Narnia series without realising that they were about Christianity, which is akin to reading all the Biggles books and not realising they were about a bunch of pilots.[/QUOTE]
The last one is pretty on the nose, as I recall. (Narnia, not Biggles. I think Biggles' pilotianity is pretty clear from page one.)

For a children's / YA book that I read in later life, I think Phillip Pullman's Dark Materials trilogy would take some beating.

Some good reasons to read/reread it.

 

[cisamcgu]

Enid Blyton - Mr Galliano's Circus (along with Secret 7 and Famous 5) - I so much wanted to run away to a circus
C. S. Lewis - Narnia - No idea it was all about Christinity at all
John Grant - Little Nose the Hunter - I remember reading it after seeing it on Jackanory


plus loads more that other people have already mentioned - we all must be the same age

 

[Profpointy]

Narnia . I'm proud that I saw through them as a kid.

I didn't twig till later. That said, I didn't understand the killing-Jesus-to-save-the-world-thing in any case so the killing Aslan plot thing made no sense either. Thought they were magical stories as a kid but were tripe on re-reading.


As an adult I thought I had poorer concentration as I could no longer read a book in a couple of evenings as I had as a kid. Re reading 3 or 4 Narnia books one afternoon made me realise kids books not quite the same as the stuff I read now.