Books remembered from childhood

all the fantasy books of Diana Wynne Jones, which i still re-read.

a fantasy series by Geraldine Harris called The Seven Citadels, first book of series entitled Prince of the Godborn. also White Crane's Castle by Geraldine Harris. perceptive, inventive, spiritual, can't be bettered.

The Ogre Downstairs by Diana Wynne Jones - I always look for this every time I go into a new bookshop; still one of the finest things I've ever read.

Susan Cooper's "The Dark is Rising" series.

Grant Morrison did a lovely fear-of-children's-stories thing once, featuring a frightening book called Anyhow Stories. "And all of the fishes swam, my dear / And all of them swam at me..."

Brrr.

And of course, Shock-headed Peter by Heinrich Hoffman, which I must do a front-page on someday.

"The great tall tailor always comes / to little boys who suck their thumbs / and ere they know what he's about / he takes his great sharp scissors out/ The door flew open / in he ran / the great long red-legged scissorman "

Again, brrr.

"The Silver Sword" by Ian Serallier, read it as a child, loved it, a world war two story, with references to the holocaust, wouldn't have thought it made for a kids book, but it really works.

I always thought it was a really long book, and for nostalgia's sake I ordered it recently and it comes in at 80 pages...maybe I took a lot longer read in my younger years....still worth a read though..

oh, yeah, you're right, Andrew. the Dark is Rising was super-cool. so was Ursula Le Guin's Wizard of Earthsea series, and the Sci-Fi books of Andrea Norton, Star Man's Son being my particular favourite.

what's odd is that all the children's fantasy books were really serious and thoughtful, and tackled big moral problems. but whenever i tried adult sci-fi stuff (and i remember trying something by Eric Van Lustblader - can't recall name exactly, but do recall renaming him Eric Van Lustlover) it always seemed very frivolous.

saw Philip Pullman on television recently and he said something similar. children's books tackle the big themes - good and evil, life and death, etc, adult books tackle themes like 'does my bum look big in this?'

wha-hey! children are the new adults!

and adults are the new w.ankers.

Lot of truth in that. There's more going on in Dark Materials than a whole shelf of Hornby and even people like DeLillo and Franzen aren't really saying anything other than 'middle-class people have problems and it's mostly their parents fault'. Give me good and evil any day.

Shock-headed Peter gave me nightmares! (the picture on the front cover of Strewelpeter was terrifying)

Nicholas Fiske was a favourite of mine - 'A rag, a bone and a hank of hair' about a kid who thinks that he's a normal kid and then it turns out that he's been created from DNA taken from someone else and trained to believe that he's human.

Chocky by John Wyndham was ace too.

Guess I was a geek even in those days.

Although I also have fond memories of Judy Blume...

i liked Nicholas Fiske too. vaguely remember A rag..

also remember reading Trillions in the school playground of my Junior School when everyone else was playing footie.

liked John Wyndham too - my ma introduced him to me at an early age, and remember watching Day of the Triffids on TV.

"A rag, a bone and a hank of hair" is actually originally Kipling, Em. It is from a poem about a lady vampire.

Hated Chokcy, but love the Midwich Cuckoos.

ooh, yes. Wyndham was probably one of the first authors I really loved. Read everything of his I could find and got all excited whenever I found a 'new' book of his. Could never bring myself to watch any of the films though. The TV show of 'Triffids' was *terrifying*

shock headed peter, I didn''t read it as a kid, but saw the stage show a few years ago....brilliant, it would have probably deeply affected me as a child...

Yeah, saw the shockheaded peter stage show a couple of years ago. Amazing stuff.

My childhood was deeply scared by one book. It was called something like 'hot rabbit' and was a picture book in which a very cold rabbit slowly put on more and more clothes until he started sizzling, at which point he threw them all off. There was something about the way the background colours turned from blue to red as the book progressed that built up a nightmarish tension.

Sadly, my parents threw it away after I kicked up such a fuss about it, and I've not seen it since.

The Shrinking of Treehorn.

This book was a cult book at my primary school. If you had it out of the library you could be sure that another child would be looking for you at lunch break to see if you'd finished it yet. I believe some children even kept it at home, forcing the librarian to order further copies.

Also Flat Stanley. He was a boy who was flat enough to fold himself in half and send himself through the mail to a friend. A marvellous book. If I remember rightly he was a boy yet wore a shirt and tie and was immaculately turned out at all times. Good for him!

At first I had a hard time remembering any books from childhood. I guess I was going back too far in memory. Now it occurs to me that I read quite a few books as a kid, but they were not "children's" books as such. I've never read Doctor Seuss, for example. Anyway, the list includes 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Around the World in 80 Days, Count of Monte Cristo, Three Musketeers, Tarzan of the Apes, Jack Carter of Mars.....if 12-13 is still childhood, then some of the James Bond books.....I read a lot of comic books back then, all the way through high school.....this is actually a sad topic for me.....I was a very slow reader.....not because of learning disabilities.....I just couldn't concentrate.....it could take me 30 minutes to read 3-4 pages......so reading was painful in that way, though I liked the books themselves.....I wasn't able to read "fluently" until about 1996.......I've had a lot of catching up to do. I wanted to be a literature major in college, but I hated my freshman English lit course so I switched to history.....I don't regret history....it was fine....but I would have been better in literature if they'd had a better teaching methodology. Oh well.

Opened 'The Dark is Rising' 2nd book in the series, again, recently. It was a great struggle to put it down when I was called for lunch, I was completely gripped- even though I should be about five years too old for it by now!
Narnia series was always loved by me.
The Hobbit
All the Roald Dahl books- especially Matilda.
The Secret Garden
The Wind in the Willows
A book called 'The Phantom Tollbooth' about a boy called Milo who gets transported into a wacky land of learning, name of the author escapes me.
Harry Potter of course.
To Kill A Mockingbird- my mum read it to me when I was 9, and I was completely spellbound. I'm studying it now for GCSE.
Jane Eyre (by Charlotte Bronte) was also read to me at a young age and I still read it now.
Anyone read 'Northern Lights' by Philip Pullman? I read it first when I was 12, and it's still my favourite book. I know most of you were probably adults when it came out in the late 90s, but I'm convinced this book isn't just for kids- read it, it's simply the best.
-Pen

yup - read Northern L.. last year, Pen, and thoroughly enjoyed it. must read the rest in the series.

also liked Roald Dahl's books. as a very little boy, i remember reading Fantastic Mr Fox late into the night.

oh yes - but I felt sorry for the pheasants

Danny the champion of the world, and any other book by Roal Dahl.
Also Stephen Kings stand by me.
which most of his books have been made into films so its hardly worth reading but done it anyway.

Danny the champion of the world, and any other book by Roal Dahl.
Also Stephen Kings stand by me.
which most of his books have been made into films so its hardly worth reading but done it anyway.

It aint fantastic Mr Fox, youre on about danny champion of the world as it happens. To Emily Dubberly

It is fantastic mr fox, youre on about talkin outta your ass as it happens. To Kid Ryan

Who do you think you are kid-ryan?

Ms Daheetla

I think Kid Ryan's right though. Still feel sorry for the pheasants.

Would you say that Stephen King got the thought for IT when he was kissing his wife good night. A thought I once had to cheer me up.
In reply I am me obviously and 100%.
Not meaning to be sarcastic or ingnorant.

And he got the idea for Geralds Game about twenty minutes later ?

(sorry, you have to have read Stephen King for that to make any sense)

Books were rare in house when I was a kid but i remember being given R.M.Ballantyne's 'The Coral Island' and the funny thing is I don't remember much of the story but if I close my eyes I can still smell the book!

Ah, I remember my first book, a ratty old book of nursery rhymes. I took exception to "Goosey Goosey Gander":

"There I met an old man who wouldn't say his prayers
So I took him by the left leg and threw him down the stairs"

I thought this was a despicable way to treat elderly atheists and responded by ripping out the rhyme; I had a hard time as a pre-schooler explaining to my parents that I was attempting to counter religious-inspired cruelty as opposed to being destructive!

But I loved "Chicken Licken"; I couldn't believe that the fox was allowed to eat all the stupid birds and get away with it!

I still love foxes, think chickens exist to be eaten and hate hunters and cruel religious bigots!