Tootles the Taxi already got my vote on the adult version of this thread. The ladybird books have taken flak recently for being too prim, that's probably true (maybe that's why I had to steal mine!) but i remember plenty of naughty children books about at that time like Just William etc. Still, I didn't like JW, like Billy Bunter etc I couldn't indentify as readily with him as I could characters in the Beano or Dandy. The middle-classes had the writing, but the characters were not any friends I had or wanted.

Who will comfort Toffle? Is my Tove Jansson choice, by default since it was the only one I owned; but I read and read it and its one of the few children's books still on a shelf (rather than attic box). My mum's copies of AA Milne were a treasure though I loved the colours in the cover of the 80's edition of Now we are Six I was given and it was all mine. That issue is ownership is interesting, I've watched friends pre-linguistic kids parade their books and toys - it must be important to us.

Mr Men were a treat, but the franchise gets too crowded. Where the wild things are seemed like a good place to be. Any illustration that looked East European was always good as I'm sure George Garnett would agree!

Later heroes were Stig of the Dump Catweazle[/i]. My childhood was very outdoors, I had many Stig like dens in the woods and many a pre-Walden fantasy in my head. I used to keep a draw full of things I'd need when I was going to run away and live in the wilderness. Catweazle played on that pre-modern idea too. to this day I still call telephones 'telling-bones'. I have no idea if the prose in these books is any good (I don't return to childhood things very often) but the ideas I enjoyed.

Ramond Briggs was big too - When the wind Blows was a truly a modern fairy tale, at once homely and charming, dark and menacing. The difference being that it's cautionary note was aimed less at the indivdiual and more at 'the powers that be'.

Hobbit and Lord of the Rings were wonderful at the time, but again I've never returned. Peter Jackson has not inspired me to look back.

Talking of Jacksons, Steve Jackson books were fantastic, literary video games before video games. You've encountered a huge wall of nostalgia do you bask in its rosy glow (turn to next post) do you run like hell towards some Henry Miller (turn the computer off, and go the shelf!)

I'm quite surpised no ones mentioned The Little Prince - I adored the illustrations.

Woolpack, Branestawm were both favourites, also anything by Geoffrey Trease, I was very pleased to ahve been able to put him and my grandfather back in touch, about 60 years after they were friends at school.

Like George I used to enjoy Swarm in May and William Mayne's other books, but am now somewhat in two minds (my great-uncle was head of the choir school at Canterbury, and Mr Ardent was apparently at least partly based on him.

Alan Garner, Weirdstone of Brisingamen and its sequels I also enjoyed, and like Ian, I was also happy to read my sister's books, particualrly Chalet School.

I'm glad I don't appear to be the only Malory Towers addict, it all seemed so glamorous, posh girls at boarding school compared to the Bash Street Juniors I attended.  Loved any boarding school stories.  Swallows & Amazons has already been mentioned, a favourite of mine.

Also, Children of The New Forest by Frederick Marryat was another favourite.  There were some books about a girl in Medieval times, gone completly blank on that one though.  Also, the mention of Heidi reminded me that was one I read and re-read.  (It must have been the goats .... !)

Pippi Longstocking anyone?  And discussing this at work someone mentioned Milly, Molly Mandy and her Farver and Muvver.  The Worst Witch was also nominated.

I remember a wonderfully lugubrious comment by Alan Bennett to the effect that he did not take to books in his local library because they were all bound in an identical austere style, which made "Milly Molly Mandy look like The Anatomy of Melancholy."

"Bows Against the Barons", a somewhat communist influenced retelling of Robin Hood, written just after he'd spent sometime in Russia in the late 20s/early 30s
"Cue for Treason", bringing in Shakespeare and a plot against Elizabeth is possibly now the most well known, it gets "taught" in secondary school these days.
Bannermere series.

He carried on writing until the early 90s.

Fogot to mention Swallows and Amazons in my initial post, I ddin't find these too ahrd to relate to, perhaps because I sailed as well (at that point), the sailing club even ran a summer camp on Coniston for several years, so we really could relive the adventures.

Among my favourites, in no particular order were :

The Water Babies
Five Children and It (just adored that Psammead!)
The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
Little Women
Good Wives
Jo's Boys
The Secret Garden
What Katy Did
Ballet Shoes
Black Bartlemy's Treasure
Martin Conisby's Revenge

These have all stuck in my memory to just pop up as instant reminiscences but as I was a bookworm with no tv as a distraction, there will have been countless more.  I loved Tolkien and still do.  I read Jane Eyre, Vanity Fair and Pride and Prejudice probably earlier than most and they've always been favourites too.

My boys loved Roald Dahl, Bobby Brewster stories, The Wind in the Willows, Panda and the Odd Lion, Panda's Voyage of Adventure, Tom's Midnight Garden and so on and so forth.  I still have them all and now they're being enjoyed by the next generation.  My grandson likes the Horrid Henry books although I'm not keen on them but he loves all the classics too.

P.S.  I forgot Grimms Fairy Tales!  I loved those. Also the classics, Hansel and Gretel, Snow White, Cinderella.....oh such happy days, lost in the world of imagination.