Nostalgia Thread: Best Children's Author?

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Melvil

Guest
I was given Famous Five books, C.S. Lewis and Roald Dahl when I was growing up...am rather fond of them now...anyone else have a few fave authors they read as children?
 

Andy in Sig

Vice President in Exile
Kenneth Graham for The Wind In The Willows, closely followed by Tolkein for The Hobbit.
 
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User482

Guest
AA Milne
Roald Dahl
Arthur Conan Doyle
JRR Tolkein
CS Lewis
Jules Verne
 

ChrisKH

Guru
Location
Essex
The usual Famous Five and Secret Seven when I was growing up.

Now, my kids prefer Francesca Simon (Horrid Henry), David Roberts (Dirty Bertie) and Cressida Cowell (Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III). All of which I would recommend. They like a bit of Famous Five now and then but it's beginning to get a bit dated and they're not quite old enough.
 
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User482

Guest
Tim Bennet. said:
Arthur Ransome

+1. He was an interesting character too - acting as a secret agent by spying on the Russians IIRC.
 

Arch

Married to Night Train
Location
Salford, UK
Kenneth Grahame for writing possibly my all time favourite book, and AA Milne.

Also, not all that good a writer really, but nostalgic, because I read them all as a kid, Willard Price for the Adventure series... Hackneyed, formulaic, and with some unfortunate racial stereotypes to modern eyes, but I hoovered them up...
 

lycradodger

New Member
Location
Edinburgh
What do I remember best?

Willard Price series. Fantastic: a disaster a page. One of my favourite ever scenarios from any book was from Whale Adventure where one of the heroes, Hal (an impossibly mature & sensible 18 year old) got stranded on top of a dying whale. He managed to bring it back to the whaling boat by covering one of its eyes with a hankie so it swam round in a giant circle. True, they were written in another era, but if memory serves me correctly they did not suffer from the aggressive stereotyping of Biggles (i.e. no "filthy japs").

I also always enjoyed the Littlenose and Mrs Pepperpot series and, when older, books by Leon Garfield (his books were set in 18th Century England).

And lashings and lashings of Enid Blyton of course: - you couldn't escape it 25/30 years ago.

Oh, and Roald Dahl of course. I always preferred his rhymes to the elvish nonsense in Lord of the Rings, etc ("Augustus Gloop, Augustus Gloop, The great fad greedy nincompoop").

And Arthur Ransome. Although "Titty" caused the odd snigger.

The first book I can clearly remember is The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Good to see it is still going strong, and I now read it to my toddler son.

Back to work/Olympics now....
 
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