What were your favourite books or comics when you were a child?

What a lovely thread! So many memories come back reading all these classics. I think we were lucky that however boring life was we could always lose ourselves in a good book.

I will echo the shout out for Alan Garner- I read them all and recently read his new one- something like, Treacle Walker?

Another book that made an immense impression on me as a young teenager was Boris- by Jap Ter Haar. It was about a boy living through the siege of Leningrad. Oh I wish I could get my hands on another copy...

I forgot to add The Faraway Tree to my list, another great favourite.

Magic Far Away Tree has been made into a film I think it’s coming out next year anyone want to come with me?

I was an avid reader, an only child, so books were my friends
Enid Blyton set me on my reading trail and I read all her books Magic Faraway tree series I absolutely loved then secret 7 famous 5 then all the boarding school one
Noel Stretfiekd books and the just William ones too Little women and What Katy did Alice in wonderland
I had lots of comic favourites Girl, Bunty, Dandy Beano girls crystal

As a child I enjoyed the famous five and later on as I’m from Scotland I loved the Broons and oor Wullie they were so much fun.
While at secondary school the first adult book in paperback was Lady Chaterlys lover, oh so raunchy it was handed secretly around the classroom to the tittering goings on behind our desks 😂😂James Herriot books were so good too

Oh yes Moonwatcher Ladybird books were so clever and those illustrations were iconic, and we learned to read with those at infants school. Happy happy days🥹

I loved the Diana comics and the annual at Christmas. Enid Blyton's Mallory Towers. I have the full set my daughter bought me and read them all. Also loved Ladybird books.

I read all the Mallory Towers series aged about 10 I think and some of The Famous Five.

In primary school at story time, the teachers read us Worzel Gummidge, still love that, Milo and the Phantom Tollbooth(a bit surreal) and Stig of The Dump.

One friend was into her comics so had a phase with those -the one with The Bash Street Kids in made us laugh

At senior school the first book we all had to read was by Alison Uttley: A Traveller In Time and I loved that too.

After that it all descended into a dark place with Jaws, The Omen and others of the same ilk, oh and Denis Wheatley The Devil Rides Out😅

I couldn’t be doing with Teen Mags like Jackie etc though, but did share some with friends. Then went straight onto the Glossy Mags, loads of them.

I loved Arthur Ransome and E.Nesbit. I devoured all the pony books I could get hold of, especially Monica Edwards. I used to read Girl and Eagle, and sometimes Schoolfriend. I like Topper as well. The cartoon strips were very funny and they had some really interesting stuff on the centre pages.

The Magic Faraway Tree, The Famous 5 and Brer Rabbit by Enid.

The Phoenix and the Carpet and 5 Children and It by E Nesbitt.

These were the books that took me into another world, and then there were so many more. As I got to 12ish it was Agatha Christie, then I loved Jeeves and Wooster and the James Herriot stories.

Suzieque66

George was a Lesbian ? Enid Blyton was well ahead of the game , 1950's ...

I think of late she was well ahead of the game, George would be trans imo

Grandmabatty

I could read before I went to school and read anything and everything. I read all the standard children's books and worked through the children's section in the library by the age of ten. My favourites were Mallory Towers and The Chalet School series. However I loved a book called When Marnie was There by Joan Robinson. I moved onto Agatha Christie at the age of nine or ten, then the Katy books, Wind in the willows etc. The children's librarian gave me an adult ticket when I was ten which I used.

A bit older than 9, but I think there was a small gap between the Blytons tailing off and starting on Agatha Christie early teens, interspersed with Gone with the Wind, moaning to my mother one long school holiday "I'm bored" she disappeared upstairs and came back with that book with "read this" I was captivated and quite bereft when I finished it. Teen years also saw me reading quite a bit of Jean Plaidy as well as classics like Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. Aged 18 I embarked on Lord of the Rings which I enjoyed then, but certainly wouldn't now!

Strictures not structures

George was a tomboy. She might have been a lesbian or not. Many wee girls were tomboys in the 50s and 60s. Boys seemed to have more freedom and girls often resented the structures of being well behaved. I was a tomboy until I went to secondary school and started puberty. George was a role models for all us girls who didn't like chores and housework like her cousin Ann.

George was a Lesbian ? Enid Blyton was well ahead of the game , 1950's ...

I could read before I went to school and read anything and everything. I read all the standard children's books and worked through the children's section in the library by the age of ten. My favourites were Mallory Towers and The Chalet School series. However I loved a book called When Marnie was There by Joan Robinson. I moved onto Agatha Christie at the age of nine or ten, then the Katy books, Wind in the willows etc. The children's librarian gave me an adult ticket when I was ten which I used.

One of my early memories being taken to the library and choosing my books, at that very early age it was Alison Uttley I think, I do remember a bit later Milly Molly Mandy and Noddy. Junior school years, my favourites were all the Enid Blytons, Secret Seven, Famous Five, The Adventure series, Mallory Towers. I ordered a lot of Blytons from the library to keep me occupied during the school holidays if I didn't have anything else to do. They were interspersed by Wind in the Willows, What Katie Did, Heidi, Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass a lot of my favourites as was The Water Babies, I loved that book, I remember many of those latter ones because they tended to be keeps in the form of birthday and Christmas presents rather than library books.

I remember getting Bunty my brother had The Beano and The Dandy, so I read those too. Later on it was Jackie and Petticoat.

Books , books and more books !
I think that they became the bane of my mother's life .
I believe that I had most of the aforementioned books and once opened couldn't be put down .
Then , there was the library as well !
I used to read under the bed clothes with a torch .
At the moment , I'm wading through a huge collection of books and trying to thin them out .
I'm finding it extremely difficult if not painful !

My favorite books were by Enid Blyton.
The Famous Five and
The Secret 7.
I still have most of these books.
As soon as my grandaughters could read well(by aged 9) i offered them my Enid Blyton collection.
Was told thankyou but they arent the books children read now .
Its all Harry Potter etc.
My first comic was The Bunty i loved cutting out the clothes on the back page.
Then i moved onto the Jackie .

When I was a teenager I read Sherlock Holmes stories, Brave New World, Animal Farm and 1984. I don't remember there being any specifically teen fiction around then.

Noddy. Rupert Bear. Alison Uttley books.
Beano. Dandy. Bunty.
Bobby Brewster books. Bobbsey Twins.
Famous Five. Secret Seven.
Katy series. Heidi books. Little Women.
Tom Sawyer. Huckleberry Finn.
Jennings and Darbishire series. Billy Bunter.
My favourite of all: William books, Richmal Crompton.

Always been a bookworm, in school holidays I could take out and read 3 books a day from the library, returning for more the next day. I still read a book a week at least.

As a young child loved Little Grey Rabbit and as soon as I could read just devoured the children’s section of our local library. Much loved were The Dimsey books about boarding school and the all Malcolm Saville’s Lone Pine Five series, all Noel Streatfield’s novels but particularly ‘The Bell Family’. Lorna Hill’s books about ballet ( heaven knows why as I had never seen a ballet or learned a single step!). I roared with laughter at the antics of Jennings and Darbishire and I remember one Christmas hiding behind the curtains to read undisturbed Oliver Twist ‘that my sister gave me.
A lot of my choices were sparked by hearing adaptations on Children’s Hour. I recently reread ‘TheBox of Delights’ which they broadcasted in the 1950s and I still found it thrilling.

Comics were a stolen pleasure, for some reason my mother thought they were harmful to my development! I was allowed ‘The Girl’s Crystal’’

I wish I could still lose myself in stories the way I did then.

I loved Enid Blyton’s Mallory Towers, St Clare’s, Five findouters Secret Seven and Famous Five. I also loved the Katy books. I was a big reader from early years and still am. My kindle is my best friend😂

I loved comic day remember Bunty, Jackie, Diana and my younger sister had Twinkle. I also enjoyed the Beano and reading The Gambols in the Daily Express.

I now see my 11 year old Dgd2 with a head in a book all the time. I’ve always been one for losing myself in fiction I am frequently to be found in la la land reading it got me through covid and other difficult times. I have lots of eye issues and I dread ever not being able to read. I can live without a TV.

Comics: Dandy on Mondays, Beano on Wednesdays. As I moved into the teenage years I read Valentine, Mirabelle and Jackie.

Books: All the classics, anything by Enid Blyton. My all time favourite though throughout my childhood years was The Bobbsey Twins by Laura Lee Hope. Happy days

Swift was the first comic I read, followed by Girl and my brother’s Eagle. I loved the historical biographies that were serialised on the back pages. Gladys Aylward and Horatio Nelson were my favourites.
My favourite books were most of the children’s classics, the Jill books, Wish for a Pony by Monica Edward’s and the Famous Five books by Enid Blyton.
I still have my battered copy of We Couldn’t Leave Dinah by Mary Treadgold about children in Guernsey during the war, hiding their pony in a cave and uncovering a spy plot….So exciting for a nine year old.