Favourite Books or stories from childhood.....

[George 1978]

Re: Favourite Books or stories from childhood.....

I was thinking about the Jan Mark paperback of various short stories called Nothing to be Afraid of - the title of the first short story in the book. There were ten of them in the book, and it had very sinister stories made for the 9 to 13 age group - stories such as a young boy who was four years old and was young for his age, taking his Doggy toy wherever he goes; the young boy with his granny telling him tales, and the boy says at the end: "I can see up your nose - it's all whiskery". Something called Nule which was the final story in the book.

The one I remember the most was the third one called The Choice is Yours where the protagonist, a schoolgirl called Brenda was both a member of the school choir and the hockey team - unfortunately, a special hockey match coincided with a music lesson and she obviously couldn't be in two places at once. So she ended up going backwards and forwards telling each teacher that she couldn't make it to the lesson - she had to run between rooms and running was forbidden, and the prefect caught her running. In the end, she decided to leave both the music lesson and the hockey team, and just went to the junior cloakroom and cried. I saw a clip of the dramatization of the short story on the Book Tower.

[beccabear67]

Re: Favourite Books or stories from childhood.....

I used to watch '70s The Tomorrow People tv show and was quite happy to find there were some paperbacks featuring them from the Piccolo/TV Times imprint... and most have original stories, not just tv episodes written out. One story I really liked had aliens that looked like teddy bears, but they were actually some kind of invasion that could take people over. Strikes a bit close to home that one (( suspiciously eyes the bear sitting on the chair behind her)). Nah...

[zabadak]

Re: Favourite Books or stories from childhood.....

I used to watch '70s The Tomorrow People tv show and was quite happy to find there were some paperbacks featuring them from the Piccolo/TV Times imprint

I have one of those! :happy:

[Danniella]

Re: Favourite Books or stories from childhood.....

My favourite book as a child was The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe, i remember getting it from the school library and being mesmerised by it.

[George 1978]

Re: Favourite Books or stories from childhood.....

We had to study the Chronicles of Narnia in English at school, and of course one of the books was indeed The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, famously parodied by Hale and Pace as "The Lion, the Witch, and the MFI Wardrobe", when some Edwardian kids go inside a wardrobe and it collapses because it was a flatpack job.

[amethyst]

Re: Favourite Books or stories from childhood.....

My favourite book as a child was The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe, i remember getting it from the school library and being mesmerised by it.

That's one book I remember reading when I was in primary school,along with The famous Five adventures

[George 1978]

Re: Favourite Books or stories from childhood.....

I am surprised that The Famous Five was allowed in Primary Schools considering Enid Blyton's not so politically correct image.

[George 1978]

Re: Favourite Books or stories from childhood.....

The Guinness Book of Records is another good one - I used to see a lot of early 1980s editions in the school library which had that Japanese man in the "Oldest People" section of the book, who was believed to have reached the age of 120, but Guinness Publishing dismissed it many years later.

[RetroTechRules]

Re: Favourite Books or stories from childhood.....

As a child at school I enjoyed reading the Griffin Pirate stories by Sheila McCullagh.

I've just been thinking about those Griffin Pirate Stories, so I thought I'd search the forum. The one which stands out most in my memories is, Roderick The Red.

[beccabear67]

I wish I could find the Noddy book I remember, it had photos from the stop-motion tv version. The one I had was about a little teddy bear erasing things with a 'magic rubber'. I've seen other versions of the book with artwork, but this definitely had photo scenes of the '70s animated figures in the images in the book I had.

[Moonraker]

I've just been thinking about those Griffin Pirate Stories, so I thought I'd search the forum. The one which stands out most in my memories is, Roderick The Red.

Not forgetting the other two characters. Gregory the Green and Benjamin the Blue Pirate.

[BrianO]

Some of my favorite children's story authors early on included the de Brunhofs(authors of 'Babar' series); Richard Scarry; Norman Birdwell ('Clifford'); H.A. Rey('Curious George');, Gene Zion('Harry' the dog); and 'Dr. Seuss'.
I also liked Paddington Bear, although more from the TV cartoons.
As I moved on, I liked the 'Choose Your Own Adventure' books, and some authors I was introduced to in school, including the recently deceased Beverly Cleary('The Mouse and the Motorcycle'), the 'Danny Dunn' books by Jay Williams and Ray Abrashkin(50s-70s series about kids having adventures with an emphasis on science and technology, some with a science-fiction aspect), and, in high school, Goulding's 'Lord of the Flies'.
Otherwise, I was more interested in comic books and strips for my preferred reading!

[George 1978]

Some of my favorite children's story authors early on included the de Brunhofs(authors of 'Babar' series); Richard Scarry; Norman Birdwell ('Clifford'); H.A. Rey('Curious George');, Gene Zion('Harry' the dog); and 'Dr. Seuss'.

Richard Scarry's name popped into my head just now and thus, I used the search engine to see how many times he has been mentioned on here (one more time as a result of this post). I know that I had his ABC book when I was younger.

[spuggybridge]

Loved the Narnia books as a child along with Doctor Who, The Oz books and Tim and the Hidden People books.

[spuggybridge]

Always preferred The Secret Seven over the Famous Five for some reason.