Reply to: Books you read as a kid

[vetran]

no Sprout?

Arabian nights.

Anything by Jack London (teenage)
Frank Harris

[wurzel]

My mother didn't like Enid Blyton because the reading age didn't progress, despite the fact that there were what I remember as cracking good stories.

Is she a teacher? We weren't permitted to bring Enid Blyton books into our reading group sessions at the primary school I went to. People often said that this was for pc reasons, i.e. Blyton's characters were too middle class etc but I believe it was for the same reason as you give.

Talking of PC, I used to read a book as a kid that would never be allowed in libraries these days. It was called Struwelpetter (or cautionary tales for children). It was a collection of nursery rhymes like the one about the boy who used to suck his thumb all the time until some freak with a giant pair of scissors leaps out from behind the curtains and lops his thumbs off. Beautifully illustrated too - claret spurting everywhere. The other one that sticks in my mind is the kid who makes fun of black people until he falls into a giant pot of ink and becomes black himself.

[Durbs]

when I was starting to read my faves were the Tim & Tobias books but no-one i've met has ever heard of them

Think they are the reason i'm a big horror and sci-fi fan now.

Tim and the Hidden People - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Sysman]

I never managed to get into Sci Fi/Tolkein stuff. But I did read almost constantly. The usual stuff, Swallows & Amazons, Just William, Biggles. Oh and Asterix & Tintin were always popular. Early teens was James Thurber, Graham Green, George Orwell.

My eldest (12) has just read my old Gerald Durrell "Corfu" books and he finds them as good as I did decades ago.

Same here wrt Sci Fi, and it lasted - I think I was the only Science student at Uni who didn't have a bookshelf full of that.

All the list above, bar Thurber and Green. I have fond memories of Gerald Durrell too.

[PRC1964]

I'm sure I read those but with the exception of a single static mental image I cannot remember them at all

I think at least part of the charm was that they are written from the perspective of a child. Oh, and that they portray a hot, bright place with beaches and no schools.

My Family and Other Animals?

Yes, but also Birds, Beasts and Relatives and The Garden of the Gods.

[Spacecadet]

Fortunately I found another author, whose name is long forgotten, who did some good adventure books for boys.

The Hardy Boys?

[Sysman]

When very young I read some "Famous Five" ones, then a few "Hardy Boys" Books, then progressed to the Flashman diaries.
Long time ago mind................

My mother didn't like Enid Blyton because the reading age didn't progress, despite the fact that there were what I remember as cracking good stories.

Fortunately I found another author, whose name is long forgotten, who did some good adventure books for boys.

Any Ladybird book to do with science or nature.

Quite a few books on shooting tigers in India, mountain and Pole explorers, PoW escapees. John Buchan, Willard Price, Agatha Christie and Arther Conan Doyle.

I was quite a bookworm really, though not in the swotty sense.

I was also mad on anything to do with cars. AA Drive magazine was a good source of info.

[Churchill]

"ICL 1900 Series George Implementation Manual"

[Lockhouse]

I read loads when I was a kid. There was a girl down my road who I really fancied who went to the library every Saturday morning. I used to wait until she left her house then "accidentally" bumped into her. Stalking I think they call it nowadays but I was only 10.

I started reading with CS Lewis then Billy Bunter, Jennings and Just William and had migrated to Sherlock Holmes, Tolkein and Isaac Asimov by the time I was 11 and off to secondary school. I remember reading 1984 and Animal Farm about then and both books having a massive impact on me.

p.s. I also used to read those "Pan collections of horror stories", anyone else remember them?

[doodab]

My eldest (12) has just read my old Gerald Durrell "Corfu" books and he finds them as good as I did decades ago.

My Family and Other Animals?

I read a lot of sci fi as well, and various stuff like Robin Hood, Arthurian & Norse Legends and I had a couple of Anthologies called "Adventure Stories for Boys" or something that had some great stuff in, Edgar Allen Poe and Jack London and all sorts, plus some odd readers digest tomes and non fiction stuff like the book of "the ascent of man" TV series and "life on earth".

I used to love going to the library as well.

[Arturo Bassick]

I read "the story of o" when I was 13. Which might explain a lot.

[Spacecadet]

My eldest (12) has just read my old Gerald Durrell "Corfu" books and he finds them as good as I did decades ago.

I'm sure I read those but with the exception of a single static mental image I cannot remember them at all

[PRC1964]

I never managed to get into Sci Fi/Tolkein stuff. But I did read almost constantly. The usual stuff, Swallows & Amazons, Just William, Biggles. Oh and Asterix & Tintin were always popular. Early teens was James Thurber, Graham Green, George Orwell.

My eldest (12) has just read my old Gerald Durrell "Corfu" books and he finds them as good as I did decades ago.

[doodab]

The manual that came with the original ZX spectrum was a cracker. I had another book about how to build a computer based on a 6502 as well.

[FiveTimes]

The Wishing chair,
Tale of the far away tree
Secret diary of Adrian Mole