This was mentioned on another thread and the subject seemed to raise interest.

Which ones did you like when young, or your own children liked and which ones do you like now?

Is it something the English are particularly good at?  Or is it that I just miss non-English children's books?

Whenever I'm in a bookshop, I always check the childrens section to see if they have the Borrilbles trilogy.  Clearly they never do!  I suppose I could get it from the river people

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Borribles-Trilogy-Michael-Larrabeiti/dp/0333908619/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1209317918&sr=8-2

NB

I don't read many children's books but a friend showed me some of the Moomin stories, which I rather liked the look of. They're not English.

Also, children's books that are also fit for adults (and not adults pretending to be children, which is absolutely fine, but different from what I'm thinking about, as it involves more nostalgia). Everyone says Philip Pullman: is it true? And surely he can't be the first?

Reading children's books is an occupational necessity(!) but I do think we are in something of a golden age of children's literature. There are some very fine authors out there - Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy is very well written (he beats J.K.Rowling hands down in terms of his prose), Anne Fine, Kevin Crossley-Holland's Arthur trilogy, Terry Deary (who writes good fiction in addition to his hugely popular 'Horrible Histories': his Tudor Chronicles series is very good),



but especially Michael Morpurgo who doesn't 'talk down' to children, but tackles some difficult issues with honesty; his 'The Butterfly Lion' is a gorgeously written tale and, in honesty, I've never felt let down by his books. Nice chap too.



I don't have a lot of time for Jacqueline Wilson, I'm afraid. A German author, whose work is published in this country, is Cornelia Funke - we read her The Thief Lord, set in modern-day Venice, last year and it's very good, with a fine twist at the end.



Amongst the classics, I love the Pooh stories (which are absolutely perfect for reading aloud, unlike others such as Wind in the Willows, which is actually very tricky), The Jungle Book, especially Mowgli's Brothers and Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, was a childhood favourite, along with the Alice stories and the Arabian Nights. A couple of groups in my class are just finishing Ian Serraillier's The Silver Sword, a postwar classic.

Limiting myself to a quick* post as a) I could go on forever, b) I haven't finished my planning for tomorrow...

For younger children there are so many excellent books nowadays which I'd have loved as a child. I particularly like Tony Ross, David McKee and Quentin Blake's books, all of whom are excellent authors and illustrators. I agree that Michael Morpurgo's books are remarkable though I still have quite a few to read myself. His Private Peaceful had me in floods of tears but not my older teenage son - actually he's one of the few authors who have appealed to my boys as they'd prefer to read non-fiction.

I much enjoyed reading all the Little House series of books to my daughter as few years ago. The author, Laura Ingalls Wilder, writes about her family's struggle to survive so simply and beautifully. Don't be put off reading them if you've heard of or seen the TV series very loosely based on her Little House on the Prairie book. My grandma Lou reread the whole series of books to herself every winter throughout her later years right into her 90s. Little R's just reminded me how much she enjoyed me reading Pollyanna to her.


I grew up with Noel Streatfield, E Nesbit etc as well as Beatrix Potter of course. I've just given my old copy of Ballet Shoes to my daughter to read so I'll see if she finds it too dated to enjoy.
Finally - for now!- when I lived in Sicily 20+ years ago I was nanny to a 1 year old and spent ages searching for good Italian children's books, for myself as well as my charge, but nearly every book I found was actually a translation into Italian from English, French, German or  Swedish.

*

I think the best children's books are those you read again as an adult and decide are far too good for children Of course Pooh and Alice top that list, with The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe a close runner up.

The subsequent Narnia books didn't stand up very well in comparison to the first, I thought, but conversely Through the Looking Glass was a far more clever work than Adventures in Wonderland.

From Lewis Carroll I would also put Sylvie and Bruno in the top rank; in many ways it's better than the Alice books, though I've always had the nagging suspicion that it was really written for adults.

Enid Blyton's fantasies are outstanding works of imagination: The Book of Brownies, The Magic Faraway Tree, and many others, all of them far superior to her better-known schoolchildren adventure stories.

Does anybody know Teddy Lester by... Frank Richards, I think? Probably published in the 30s. I read a set belonging to my father and they were the best "boys own" style stories I've ever encountered.

And the biggest disappointment of my childhood reading... The Wizard of Oz. I had been spoiled by seeing the film first, and the film was far more cleverly written than the book. I feel no inclination to read the book again as an adult, but I watch the film every year and love it still...

Agreed Tommo





Not only the Mr Men though:

I also could go on for ever on this subject. I am still passionate about children's books, though I'm not very up to date. Very glad to hear dislike of Harry Potter. I did try, and gave up from sheer boredom and irritation very quickly. I think I would have disliked them when I was a child, too. 

My all-time favourite book was What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge - characters that leap from the page, humanity laced with strong morality. I was ill a lot as a child, and identified with Katy's trials, and how she learnt to cope. What Katy Did at School came in the same volume, and I loved that just as much. I've still got the copy I was given when I was ten, very battered.

Hans Andersen, a quirky genius.

Winnie-the-Pooh I still go back to - I've read it in German and Latin as well . The Disney version enrages me, as do his Alice, Peter Pan and everything else.

Little Grey Rabbit by Alison Uttley.

Noel Streatfeild - again, lively characters, real humanity (though sometimes rather dodgy punctuation).

Eve Garnett, The Family from One-End Street.

Just William, all of the books

The Secret Garden.

E. Nesbit, though I came to those rather late.

I always disliked Enid Blyton, except for her books on nature. This made me a bit of an odd one out at school, but I stuck to my dislike and didn't join the crowd. I also disliked my brother's favourite, Arthur Ransome - poor characterisation - and I didn't like Little Women.

My children loved Moomins, Roald Dahl, and one of them had a passion for the Narnia books, which I didn't share. The other one loved Little Grey Rabbit so much that I eventually knew the books by heart, as I did quite a few Beatrix Potter books. (I can still recite Peter Rabbit.)

Sorry this is all a bit disjointed. I'm very tired, for reasons that may eventually appear on the Grumpy Rant board.

(Just seen mention of the Orlando books - yes! I've had two marmalade cats called Orlando.)