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Childhood books

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Amanda
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Location: Sydney, Australia

Post by Amanda » Tue October 28th, 2008, 9:07 pm

The Worzel Gummidge books by Barbara Euphan Todd
I had forgotten about him! I read a couple of the books, but I do remember the TV series. That was something I tried not to miss!

We made sure we watched it at first, as it was filmed on a relative's (distant) farm.

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sweetpotatoboy
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Location: London, UK

Post by sweetpotatoboy » Tue October 28th, 2008, 9:28 pm

And Enid Blyton's Secret Seven books (more than the Famous Five)

And the E Nesbit books: not so much The Railway Children, but loved Five Children and It, The Phoenix and the Carpet, The Wouldbegoods etc.

Ditto the Alan Garner books.

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MrsMorland
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Post by MrsMorland » Wed October 29th, 2008, 12:05 am

The Anne of Green Gables books
Little House books
The Velvet Room by Zilpha Keatly Snyder
The family nobody Wanted by Helen Doss
The Secret Garden by Burnett

for a start anyway, there were lots more. ;)

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Margaret
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Interest in HF: I can't answer this in 100 characters. Sorry.
Favourite HF book: Checkmate, the final novel in the Lymond series
Preferred HF: Literary novels. Late medieval and Renaissance.
Location: Catskill, New York, USA
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Post by Margaret » Wed October 29th, 2008, 11:34 pm

My childhood was full of books. One of my favorite places was our local library, which was rather badly funded and disorderly in those days, with the children's books tumbled all over a table and some shelves. I recently rediscovered a book that made a tremendous impression on me. We checked it out from the library only once, and my memory of it was a bit vague until I read about the author's books being re-released recently. It was Eloise by Kay Thompson, about the irrepressibly naughtly little girl who lives in a New York high-rise apartment building. I was an excessively well-behaved little girl, myself, so I can see how it would have appealed to me. I remember that I absolutely loved that book and longed to read it again for years. I was also very fond of The Secret Garden.
Browse over 5000 historical novel listings (probably well over 5000 by now, but I haven't re-counted lately) and over 700 reviews at www.HistoricalNovels.info

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Susan
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Post by Susan » Wed October 29th, 2008, 11:49 pm

I was a big reader as a child (I would imagine most of here were!) and among my favorites were the Betsy, Tacy, and Tib books about three girls growing up in Minnesota that culminated with Betsy's Wedding. I also adored Beverly Cleary's books. I had a book of Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales that had belonged to my mother and a rather old book of Bible stories. My aunt gave me a copy of Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses when I was born with the inscription, "I hope you love these poems as much as your Mommy did." I did!
Last edited by Susan on Wed October 29th, 2008, 11:56 pm, edited 2 times in total.
~Susan~
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Telynor
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Location: On the Banks of the Hudson

Post by Telynor » Thu October 30th, 2008, 10:50 pm

Oh, how I read in childhood! I too was a very precocious reader, and I vividly remember one of the first adult books that I read was Stone's The Agony and the Ecstasy about Michelanglo. Another early one was Massie's biography of Nicholas II and Alexandra.

I adored the Black Stallion books, Lloyd Alexander's Prydain novels, Madeline L'Engle's Time novels, I wore out a set of the Anne of Green Gables series and the Little House books -- The Long Winter is still one of my favourites. Charlotte's Web, the Arthur Lang Coloured Fairy books, The Egypt Game, Mistress of the Two Lands (I was an Egypt nut back then), and many others that I can't remember.

But one thing that I do remember was that nothing was forbidden to me to read, and devour books I did. Oddly, my brother never turned into a reader, and my mother only read if a book was needed for her work, or if it was fashionable to have it on her shelves. So I have no idea where I got my need for books from.

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MrsMorland
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Post by MrsMorland » Thu October 30th, 2008, 10:53 pm

[quote=""Telynor""] The Egypt Game, Mistress of the Two Lands (I was an Egypt nut back then), and many others that I can't remember.

[/quote]

I LOVED The Egypt Game!!

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donroc
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Post by donroc » Thu October 30th, 2008, 11:15 pm

For me it was the four volume Howard Pyle Scribners Brandywine Edition of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. They cost $3.25 each, and my parents bought them for me one at a time during the Great Depression.

Illustrations were by Pyle and his student-followers.

Prose probably could not be read comfortably today by most U.S. college freshman.

I still have them.
Image

Bodo the Apostate, a novel set during the reign of Louis the Pious and end of the Carolingian Empire.

http://www.donaldmichaelplatt.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXZthhY6 ... annel_page

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Margaret
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 2440
Joined: August 2008
Interest in HF: I can't answer this in 100 characters. Sorry.
Favourite HF book: Checkmate, the final novel in the Lymond series
Preferred HF: Literary novels. Late medieval and Renaissance.
Location: Catskill, New York, USA
Contact:

Post by Margaret » Thu October 30th, 2008, 11:27 pm

I don't think anyone's mentioned the Nancy Drew books yet. The summer I was 7, we spent several weeks at my maternal grandmother's house, and she gave me a box of books that had been my mother's when she was a girl. Most of them were Nancy Drews. I still remember the tweedy blue-and-white covers and the old-fashioned illustrations. Come to think of it, these may be partly responsible for my love of historical fiction, because the stories reflected the time period when my mother was a child and definitely felt like a different world to me than the one I lived in.
Browse over 5000 historical novel listings (probably well over 5000 by now, but I haven't re-counted lately) and over 700 reviews at www.HistoricalNovels.info

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Susan
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Post by Susan » Thu October 30th, 2008, 11:40 pm

[quote=""Margaret""]I don't think anyone's mentioned the Nancy Drew books yet.[/quote]

Oh, yes! Thanks for mentioning Nancy Drew books! How about the Bobbsey Twins...Nan and Bert, Freddy and Flossie? I used to like those also.
~Susan~
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