Erastes' Children's Books Meme

[anteros_lmc]

erastes posted her list of 15 books children should read and asked for our recommendations. These are books I read as a kid rather than children's books per se. Sadly I didn't come across Ursula Le Guin's Earth Sea series until a I met my current partner. If I had found them as a child I would have devoured them.

1. The Owl Service by Alan Garner. Still one of my favourite books and still scares the living day lights out of me every time I read it.

2. The Weird Stone of Brisingamen and The Moon of Gomrath by Alan Garner. Ditto.

3. The Dark Is Rising series by Susan Cooper. I re-read this recently and was astonished how powerful it still is. "Tonight will be bad and tomorrow will be beyond all imagining." *shiver*

4. The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien. I liked The Hobbit but it was LOTR that kicked off a life long Tolkien addiction.

5. An ABC bookclub book of Greek mythology owned by my mother which has the most amazing seventies collage style illustrations.

6. The Famous Five series by Enid Blyton. What can I say? I wanted to be George and I confused my seanair's sheep dog by calling him Timmy!

7. The Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Really rather grim books!

8. My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell. I went through a phase of reading all of Gerald Durrell's animal books.

9. Anything by Rosemary Sutcliffe, don't think I could pick a favourite though The Eagle of the Ninth would have to come close.

10. The Land of Forgotten Beasts by Barbara Wersba. A poignant story about the land where the mythical beasts live, except they are fading from existence because no one believes in them any more. I picked this book up in a library sale when I was about ten and fell in love with it. I've still never met anyone else who has read it.

11. The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper Feast by Alan Aldrige. I pined after this book when it first published but I never thought I would get a copy becuase it seemed so expensive. I was over the moon when my mother bought me a copy. I still adore everything about it, the amazing illustrations, the poems and the notes at the back. My daughter now has my battered old copy and I still buy new copies for friends. This caterpillar icon is form the book.

12. Masquerade by Kitt Williams. I spent hours pouring over this book but never did crack the code.

13. The Asterix books by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo. I used to save up my pocket money to buy these and laughed myself silly reading them. Asterix and the Big Fight and Asterix and the Great Crossing were particular favourites.

14. The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark by Jill Tomlinson. I got a print edition from the school book club in primary three. There is now a lovely illustrated edition available which I bought for my daughter not long after she was born :)

15. The Wooden Horse by Eric Williams. Definitely not a kids book but I read this when I was about twelve and was absolutely enthralled. I loved war stories. I guess I still do :}

Honourable mentions also goes to 101 Dalmations and The Starlight Barking by Dodie Smith and Little Plum by Rumer Godden, I would have forgotten about these books if someone on erastes journal hadn't mentioned them.

Comments

[erastes.livejournal.com]

looks like i'll have to get hold of the Dark is Rising books!

[anteros-lmc.livejournal.com]

Yes do! I can highly recommend them. The first one starts out like The Secret Seven but stick with it, the series quickly turns into something much more interesting and by the end it's positively surreal in places.

I confess Garner is still one of my favourite authors though :)

[esmerelda-t.livejournal.com]

The Dark is Rising sounds like my kind of book. :P

I have read LOTR (thought it was boring) and Little House (don't remember much except the fact I did read it). As a child though I was a big fan of Roald Dahl and the Chronicles of Narnia. I also adored a series of books called The Babysitters Club.

[eglantine-br.livejournal.com]

Oh, The Dark is Rising is wonderful. And they do hold up to adult reading too. I read them again myself a few years ago. The hair on my neck stood up...

[anteros-lmc.livejournal.com]

They're amazing books aren't they? I carried on reading Garner and Tolkien continually but I hadn't read Cooper since I was about 13. I picked the series up again about three years ago and was amazed how good they are, The Grey King in particular.

I think our bookshelves must have looked very similar when we were growing up :)

[eglantine-br.livejournal.com]

That one was my favorite. I wanted to go to Bran's house to visit.

[anteros-lmc.livejournal.com]

I wanted Bran's dog :)

Have you read any of Alan Garner's books? If not, I think you would really enjoy them, The Stone Book Quartet in particular. There is something about the way you write children that reminds me of the characters in this one.

[anteros-lmc.livejournal.com]

Ooh I've never heard of The Babysitters Club! I wasn't keen on Dahl as a kid but I looove reading Revolting Rhymes to toots ;)

I read The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe and loved it, I liked Prince Caspian but really didn't like The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and gave up.

The Dark Is Rising series is definitely worth reading despite the rather patchy first book. The Dark Is Rising itself is awesome but I suspect you might enjoy The Grey King even more given that it's set in Wales and features a Welsh boy and a dog!

[sarlania.livejournal.com]

I think I've read about four items on this list?

I would include almost all of Enid Blyton's books in that list - Magic Faraway Tree & sequels, especially. She was such an inspiration and wonder to me as a child.

And Tintin. I still love it and I'm really looking forward to the movie that's coming out at the end of this year.

[anteros-lmc.livejournal.com]

I know I read other Enid Blyton books as a kid but The Famous Five books were the ones that really captivated me.

Tintin completely passed me by, in fact I don't think I even saw a Tintin book until I was an adult!

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Heh, I've read of those 1, 2, 3, 6, 8, and 13, and approve.

[anteros-lmc.livejournal.com]

It's amazing how many of these books are common to folk on my flist regardless of where they grew up!

[stevie-carroll.livejournal.com]

More books that bring back memories! And a few I really ought to read!

[anteros-lmc.livejournal.com]

I must admit I still really enjoy reading children's books. Many of them knock spots off so called adult literature.

[stevie-carroll.livejournal.com]

Oh, same here. I keep ordering new ones from the library, and don't care what people think of me.