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What was your favourite book as a kid?

Started by Barry Admin, March 01, 2020, 07:34:06 AM

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Hymenoptera

Quote from: kitsofan34 on March 02, 2020, 02:37:03 PM
Where my Darren Shan fans at?

I tore through the first couple of those when I was in primary school. It was a box-ticker for all my morbid fascinations. Madam Octa was also spooky as fuck to little 9 your old me.

I didn't finish that series in the end (soz) because I started reading A Series of Unfortunate Events instead, all of which properly unsettled me between the constant sense of threat, the sinister nature of the mystery the orphans were solving and the cast of grotesques that they met at every turn.

On a lighter note I have really fond memories of having The Gizmo by Paul Jennings read to our class, which had us all in fits. Read quite a few of Jenning's books after that. As much as I loved and devoured them I can hardly remember any actual plot from them now, except for a Gizmo story that involved the protagonist sprinting from pursuers in a full wedding dress, covered in blood and dirt.

Jerzy Bondov

Is there a Paul Jennings story where a dentist has a big tooth hanging outside their surgery and at the end he turns a patient into a big tooth? Or was that something I dreamed?

Oh good it's real, sort of:

One-Shot Toothpaste
A dentist tells one of his patients the story of how he became a dentist in spite of wanting to be a dustman: one of his neighbors, despite being nearly toothless, always had his bin full of toothpaste which he tested on locked-up animals. This toothpaste is supposed to make sure people never have to clean their teeth again, but has a horrible taste. The old man gets a taste of his own medicine and transforms into a giant tooth, which the patients think becomes the dentist's sign. The story ends with the dentist telling a similar story to another child of how he became a dentist in spite of wanting to be a ballerina, revealing that the story is made up.

I just remembered another one which absolutely fucked my whole shit up:

No Is Yes
A man has kept his 14-year-old daughter Linda locked up in his house for her entire life; he is the only person with whom she has interacted, and he has deliberately communicated with her in 'mixed-up English', using words in opposite contexts (e.g. interchanging the words 'yes' and 'no') to demonstrate a point about the way a person learns to speak.
Spoiler alert
A young plumber visits and is horrified, and the father gives him permission to attempt to explain the experiment to Linda, convinced that she will not be able to comprehend what he is telling her; he tries several times, and as the story progresses she shows signs of beginning to understand what her father has done.

At the climax of the story, the house burns down with Linda's father trapped inside. When the fireman asks Linda if anyone is inside the house, she tells him 'no'; but, her meaning is left ambiguous.
[close]

Chollis

Quote from: Neville Chamberlain on March 04, 2020, 03:42:14 PM- Lots of books with titles like "The Big Book of Facts / Questions and Answers" etc etc

- The Guinness Book of Records (this seems quite Partridge-esque - I can imagine him saying that his favourite book as a kid was the Guinness Book of Records)

Good shouts. I absolutely loved the Dorling Kindersley ones like this:



Such a thirst for knowledge! Kids these days, it's all just vaping and acid attacks.

Jerzy Bondov

There was a picture book I had which was all diagrams of made up machines. I think there was one that painted sheep. Sort of Rube Goldberg style overcomplicated things. I loved that and I'm sure my son would like it but I can't remember what it was at all.

ToneLa

Clive Barker's Books of Blood

I know, I know - it's not a singular book

Did anyone else have the Dan Dare pop-up book? 

Alice in Wonderland, Alice Through the Looking Glass and Treasure Island were all old-school classics that I liked.

Crabwalk

I was another Dahl-head. Favourites were 'Danny, Champion of the World' and 'Fantastic Mr Fox'. I also loved the 'choose your own adventure' books, but can't remember the names of any of them.

Asterix, of course too. I had a book called 'Bogeys, Boils and Bellybuttons', which was full of gross facts and stories, which I used to love sharing with no doubt hugely irritated family members. A literary classic.

Oh, and Kays Catalogue.

Inspector Norse

Quote from: Chollis on March 05, 2020, 10:37:55 AM
Good shouts. I absolutely loved the Dorling Kindersley ones like this:



Such a thirst for knowledge! Kids these days, it's all just vaping and acid attacks.

I had some of those too. Castles and so on.

I also obsessed over the DK Picture Atlas of the World, which I thought was also a Stephen Beasty one but Google says Brian Delf. Nowadays there seem to be millions of kids' atlases with little pictures of donkeys and footballers and dams showing what goes on in the countries but I like to believe the DK one was first, even though it most likely wasn't.

Inspector Norse

Quote from: Wiki[Biesty] never uses a ruler, drawing everything freehand

ToneLa

Dahl was good. Liked "The Twats". "There are a lot of hairy faces nowadays" (what's the opposite of sic?)

"Georgie's Marvellous Medicine" was the first step on the road to my crystal meth empire

Liked some Blyton also. "The Magic Faraway Tree". Haha, moon face!! The nutter with the pots and pans. The old biddy who washed clothes constantly in a positive female stereotype. Blyton's ouvre was one rich tapestry of questionable values


studpuppet


thenoise

Everything by Alan Garner ('Weirdstone of Brisingamen', 'Moon of Gomrath', 'Elidor' ...), Susan Cooper ('The Dark is Rising') John Wyndham ('Chocky', 'Midwich Cuckoos'), the aforementioned Robin Jarvis, Tolkein...

Icehaven

"The Wolves of Willoughby Chase" by Joan Aiken. I must have read it about 10 times when I was about 8 or 9, although I'm embarrassed to say it was a long time later I realised it was set in an alternate history. I didn't even find out about the film until a few years back even though it was made in 1989, which was exactly around the time I was reading it.


flotemysost

Quote from: ToneLa on March 05, 2020, 11:06:29 AM
Dahl was good. Liked "The Twats"

I BET HE DID, THE DIRTY OLD BOLLOCKS.

Way too many picture books to mention, but anything featuring animals probably made its way into my clammy grasp at some point - special shout out to Nicola Bayley's beautiful, glowing illustrations of cats and tigers and the like.

I was fairly obsessed at 7/8 with the Usborne Detective's Handbook, which I don't think was in any way affiliated with the FunFax Spy File, but at least in my mind they were, combined, solid training for a stellar future career in intelligence. I remember being a bit spooked by a faked photo of giant birds flying over a city, even though the book explained it was a fake and showed how it was made.

Lots of pre-teen novels, but one that really stuck with me was Two Weeks with the Queen by Morris Gleitzman, a slim, deceptively humorous 1990 novella that deals with cancer, AIDS and homophobia with an impressive lightness of touch. I also loved Jaclyn Moriarty's novels when I was 10/11 although they'd probably be classed as YA - easy to read, inventive, charmingly offbeat humour, but genuinely moving in places. Better than Jacqueline Wilson, anyway.

Oh and I was obsessed with a dreadful adolescent mystery series called The Raven Hill Gang for a while. It would seem I was just really into Australian teen paperbacks and espionage.






Cerys

Anyone else read Ned Kelly and the City of the Bees by Thomas Keneally?  That was one of my favourites for a while.

Quote from: icehaven on March 13, 2020, 11:19:27 AM
"The Wolves of Willoughby Chase" by Joan Aiken. I must have read it about 10 times when I was about 8 or 9, although I'm embarrassed to say it was a long time later I realised it was set in an alternate history. I didn't even find out about the film until a few years back even though it was made in 1989, which was exactly around the time I was reading it.

Yes!  I loved 'Wolves Of Willoughby Chase', also 'Black Hearts In Battersea' and 'Nightbirds On Nantucket'.  I had a short story collection as well,which I forget the title of - Joan Aiken's very under-rated.

Another vote here for Enid Blyton's 'Six Bad Boys', mentioned upthread.  Child neglect, single-parent families...very dark stuff by her usual standards.

Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse

Quote from: Captain Crunch on March 01, 2020, 06:30:08 PM
Someone on here recommended The Velveteen Rabbit which is wonderful and you can read it for free.

I had this...



...and I never quite know if it's common or not.  It turns up a lot in charity shops and quite often you'll see stage productions but I don't know how many people would have grown up with it? 

It's online and well worth a look:

https://libwww.freelibrary.org/digital/item/54225
"As he had often done before,
The woolly-headed blackamoor"

...

0_o

I read a lot of Dahl and Blyton as a kid and would dearly love to re-read Mr. Pinkwhistle Terrorises Bastards Who Really Deserve It.

I also read Run with the Wind and Run to Earth by Tom McCaughran but had outgrown tales of foxes working together by the time Run Swift, Run Free and Run to the Ark came out. Always amazed that they were never made into a cartoon series. Much less death in them than Animals of Farthing Wood.

Cerys

Quote from: xxxx xxx x xxx on March 14, 2020, 08:31:08 PM
Yes!  I loved 'Wolves Of Willoughby Chase', also 'Black Hearts In Battersea' and 'Nightbirds On Nantucket'.  I had a short story collection as well,which I forget the title of - Joan Aiken's very under-rated.

And then there's The Kitchen Warriors, in which a community of elves live in an ordinary kitchen, battling concepts from Norse mythology.  I tracked down a copy to give to our daughter - but I didn't really get it for her.  I got it for me.

Captain Crunch

Quote from: Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse on March 15, 2020, 02:55:53 AM
"As he had often done before,
The woolly-headed blackamoor"

...

0_o

Don't be a dickhead, if you've fished that out you know the context. 

Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse

Quote from: Captain Crunch on March 15, 2020, 11:12:28 PM
Don't be a dickhead, if you've fished that out you know the context.
Don't be a dickhead yourself, the fact that the moral of the story is "don't make fun of black people, or Saint Nicholas Agrippa will dip you in his giant inkwell" doesn't take the curse off "the WoOlLy-HeAdeD B L A C K A M O O R"

I'm not implying that whoever recc'd it is a  s e k r i t   r a c i s t  if that's what you're worried about. I read Enid Blyton as a child, the original editions before they changed the good golliwogs to teddies and the bad golliwogs to goblins, I understand that some things that are offensive now were not considered offensive then. Just remarking on, you know, Black-a-Moor and its incongruity to the rest of the tale.

Chollis

Quote from: flotemysost on March 14, 2020, 01:17:40 AM
I was fairly obsessed at 7/8 with the Usborne Detective's Handbook

Ahhhh Usborne. Loved the puzzle ones. Escape from Blood Castle/Agent Arthur ones were superb.






gilbertharding

Not fashionable, I know, but I really liked the Railway Stories by W Awdry as a kid. I remember one of them being the first proper book I read unaided, and how oddly proud of that I was. I know they are 'problematic', and politically incorrect - but the illustrations were endlessly fascinating (especially the later ones) and the stories were good, if repetitive.

After that I became obsessed in turn with Biggles, Famous Five (but not the Secret Seven for some reason), CS Lewis, Jennings, Tin Tin, Asterix... never really liked Dahl.

There was a really good library in our town, and the whole family went there every week. And when we went on holiday we took our library cards and got reciprocal membership of wherever in Dorset we were camping.

Of all those, I'd like a quick read of a few Biggles and Jennings books, to see if they're still any good.

spaghetamine

The Moomins were a great bunch of lads. I like to think reading those books instilled some good Scandinavian morals in me.

Mobius

I was a massive Adrian Mole fan. Loved Sue Townsend.

Quote from: Mobius on March 18, 2020, 03:24:33 AM
I was a massive Adrian Mole fan. Loved Sue Townsend.

Pity the TV series gave a Leicester lad a brummy accent.

Cerys

To be fair, didn't the TV series predate Adrian's hometown being specified?

Mobius

I'm pretty sure they mention Ashby-de-la-zouch in the books but I haven't read them for 20+ years. I have a terrible memory but just remember things like Pandora Braithwaite, Sharon Bott. What was the old man he looked after who smoked woodbine and ate beetroot sandwiches called?

I don't remember the show much, wasn't there two of them? I remember one with Stephen Mangen before he was 'famous'

Cerys

Bert Baxter was the old bloke.

The first series had Gian Sammarco as Adrian, and I had a subscription to Smash Hits at the time, which would put it in about '86.