I was looking for a Friday post and couldn't see anything then I found Top Five Friday from what looks like a now unused blog Little Birds Book Blog and decided I might try a different topic each Friday except for the last Friday in the month which I'm going to post my Favourite Five Reads for the month.
It's harder than I thought it would be to come up with a topic for each post so I've been doing a lot of Googling.
This week's Favourite Five Friday is five of my favourite books I read as a kid.
My mum made me the reader I am today by reading me books she loved as a child like Doris Finds the Way and What Katy Did and buying me so many books throughout my life. I could read by age 4 and have continued to devour books ever since. I still have a few of the books she read me, the copy of Little Women below was a present to my auntie in 1955 and Doris Finds the Way was my mum's from 1958.
As I started writing this so many of my favourite childhood books, stories and authors began to come to mind, Alison Uttley, Roald Dahl, Mrs Pepperpot, all the Ladybird books 🐞 from learning to read Dick and Jane to classic stories like Florence Nightingale,
I started to wonder if I could narrow it down to just Five Childhood Favourites.
The books I remember devouring were Enid Blyton's The Famous Five, I was very in love with Julian as a 7/8-year-old and wished I could have all the adventures that these kids did, part of me still wishes I could! and also The Faraway Tree series another world I wished I could have explored. I'm super excited to find this article today about an adaptation of The Faraway Tree being made 💕
Enid Blyton's kids picture books and stories like Noddy, The Secret Seven, The Wishing Chair, Naughty Amelia Jane, The St Clare's series (which made me want to go to boarding school), The Adventure series and all the other wonderful stories she told where the toys were alive and got up to all sorts of things; Enid Blyton probably made me the avid reader I am today.
I still have a lot of my Enid Blyton books, most are in boxes but I have a few on my bookshelf.
The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S Lewis
This is a classic and I'm sure at one time or another everyone has read the book or seen an adaptation of it. My first introduction to this was when I was around 8 and one evening there was a cartoon movie (1979) on TV. I was hooked and remember wishing I could find a magical land at the back of my wardrobe, alas it has never happened. Then when I was a bit older I read the novel and the rest of this series, but this will always be my favourite and I have a soft spot for that 1979 cartoon that introduced me to this magical world.
Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian
I was given this book when I was 8 years old, it is a book whose story I have never forgotten, one of my first introductions to historical fiction, though I had no idea of this as a genre back then. I just love this story, a young boy who has been sent to the country from London along with a lot of other children, to keep them safe during the war. William has no experience with being treated with any kind of affection or goodness and when he is left with a crotchety older man who is a bit of a recluse, life as they both know it is about to change. See my review
My next favourite was Heidi by Johanna Spyri originally published in 1881 which is incredible. I remember watching the 1979/79 TV series and later reading or being read the book. I still have the copy on my bookshelf (see above photo).
Deciding on a fifth was hard, I asked Mum and she suggested The Railway Children or The Secret Garden, I can't decide, there are too many wonderful childhood books that have remained favourites even 40 years on.
I'd love to know what some of your favourite childhood books were.
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