Children Books

[keys]

What is your favorite childrens adventure books? Any books that you can read over and over.

[cliffsdoll]

harry potter, that's it really

[kaktus]

Harry Potter! I can read them over and over. Then I think Philip Pullman's His Dark Material trilogy is excellent and can be re-read too. Then there is my weakness "the little house on prairie books", maybe not adventure but I have read those books so many times that I have lost count.

[shaneystar]

Showing my age here and not adventure but over the years I have read and reread..Little Women ,Black Beauty and What Katy Did and I still get a laugh out of Just William.

[Glossopswift]

When I was a kid I wanted to be a character in an Enid Blyton story and solve mysteries involving baddies that didn't have guns, I wanted to spend summer hols with cousins in beautiful country places (my cousins lived in Great Wyrley which is crap for adventures), I wanted to speak most frightfully posh. My favourite story was the Children of Kidillin which, together with Mischief at St Rollo's, formed the book Adventure Stories - a book which fell apart so much that I am now keeping an eye out at book fairs for a copy of the same edition.

[kaktus]

I forgot about Little Women Shaneystar. I actually just re-read it last month. I'm finding loads of books I used to read as a kid and now read again as I can read them in English instead. A whole new experience with childrens books!

[mycatis]

The Railway Children, The Three Muskateers er loads, I'll get back to you on this lol

[mycatis]

Oh, Pony in the Luggage. Has anyone read this? I love it and pounced on it in a charity shop

[LeMarchand]

Can't believe no-one's said Narnia yet!

[Buenchico]

As a boy, I think my favourites would have been Biggles, Jennings & (Just) William. I don't re-read any of them these days but if I spot a reading, or a dramatisation, of either Jennings or William on Radio 4 or BBC7, then it's definitely required listening.

Looking through the lists above, of whatever other people enjoyed, I can spot a definite male/female divide here. (If I could expunge any book from the history of literature my first choice would be the dire, drab and totally unreadable 'Little Women!!).

As a further note on the male/female thing, I can still remember my horror, astonishment and utter disbelief when my father told me that Richmal Crompton was a woman!

Chris

[shaneystar]

Oh Buenchico I loved Little women...Jo's Boys and Good Wives.Required reading for little girls in the fifities!!
I used to haunt the library for Just William books.. but my son loved them too and has the complete set in paperback.Another one of my favourites was Heidi and Ivanhoe by Sir walter Scott.Needless to say the minute I hit senior school I graduated to bodice rippers!!

[kaktus]

You're right Lemarchand! I forgot about Narnia too! They became a bit too christian for me in the end though. But the first ones...

Buenchio, don't know if you know it, but JK Rowling uses her initials instead of just Joanne Rowling as boys/men very often do not want to read a story by a female author and/or a female main character! Thus they just skip those by a female author, even if the books have got a raving review.

[Piper-AK]

My favourite kids' author is Diana Wynne Jones - she is so so so much better than JK (who I like too).

[Golem]

• Alfred Hitchcock and The Three Investigators; series
• Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy
• Jennings; series by Anthony Buckeridge
• down with skool; Geoffrey Williams and Ronald Searle
• Mennyms; series by Sylvia Waugh
• Fireweed; Jill Paton Walsh
• The Silver Sword; Ian Serraillier
• Slake's Limbo; Felice Holman
• I am David; Anne Holm
• Flour Babies; Anne Fine
• Firestorm; Roger Vaughan Carr
• Among The Hidden; series by Margaret Peterson Haddix
• Holes; Louis Sachar
• A Long Way From Chicago; Richard Peck

So many books, so little time ...

[janoel]

How about worst children's books.   

We had Arthur Ransome books read to us at junior school and both my friend and I positively hated them.Couldn't even bring myself to read one now.

[Rumford]

I'll vote for 'Wierdstone of Brisingamen' and 'Moon of Gomrath' by Alan Garner.

[Rumford]

Re above posting (Alan Garner) - they are my votes for best books.

[coldfeet]

What_ no mention of Fantastic Mr Fox_ or The Hodgeheg_they were amongst my favourites... going way back however, I got Each Peach Pear Plum out of the library every week for two years apparently, just got my own copy of it for old times sake a month ago... *20 years later!(

[mfewell]

Moonfleet, Treasure Island, Kidnapped (all good for adults too)

[mfewell]

Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn (keys are you in the US ?)

[cliffsdoll]

anyone remember the secret seven books, i adored them as a young child?