Your Favorite Children's Books

[hamlet]

Wow. Ironic that I find this thread after I collected up a bunch of my old kid's books from my mother's house before she could throw them out. I was reading them again for nostalgia.

Where the Wild Things Are
Micky and the Night Kitchen
Shel Silverstein
St. George and the Dragon

God I feel old now.

[heliona]

I'm dredging this old thread up because I've been reminiscing about some of my favourite children's book.

From when I was really young, I had a book about a squirrel. The squirrel was moveable, and you fed it through slots in the pages of the books. It was called A Squirrel's Tale by Richard Fowler. It was awesome! I think I'm going to try to buy it.

I also had this book called The Blue Banana by Bronnie Cunningham, which was about the quest for a magic, everlasting blue banana that tasted of whatever you wanted it to. My mum informs me there was a horse called Whirlwind in it, too. Sadly, it doesn't seem to be availably any where, but it was a fabulous book.

I've also got a few books by a woman called Angela Sheehan. They're in what's called the Eye-View Library and they're about British animals. They go through the lifecycle of each animal, with some gorgeous illustrations. I've got The Duck, The Fox, The Bumblebee, The Frog, and The Hedgehog. There are more available on Abebooks and I have to say, I think I'm going to have to buy them, because they're lovely.

As for other favourites (which I still own):

Shadow the Sheepdog by Enid Blyton - one of my all-time favourite books and a lesser-known Enid Blyton book.
The Hobbit by ... do I really need to say?
Swallows and Amazons and its sequels by Arthur Ransome. I love Arthur Ransome, he was a sailor and thus he writes sailing stories really well.
Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
Watership Down by Richard Adams

Those are a few of my favourites.

[Lalaith-Elerrina]

Cool thread! I have many favorite children's books, but some that I can think of were

Make Way For Ducklings by Robert McClosky and
The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter

[Morwenna]

I see that I didn't mention the fairy tale books I had; I might still have one of them packed away somewhere, who knows.

And I went theough a pretty good selection of Little Golden Books and a few Whitman's which were like them; the holiday season is reminding me of them, because of a lucky find I made a few months ago. In an antique barn in my neighborhood (which is seldom open, I got lucky one day) I found a LGB of "The Night Before Christmas," and even though the cover didn't look familiar, once I opened it up I was transported back about 60 years! It was a different printing (evidenced by the cover) of one I had and loved way back then--same illustrations! I think it was slightly older than the one I had. It was in poor shape, and they sold it to me for less than a dollar. SCORE!!

The other was "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," possibly Whitman, which I didn't find an exact copy of; but some years ago hubby and I were in a local bookstore (no longer there, alas) and found a newly-illustrated edition. I hadn't seen the whole story since I was a kid! And no it's not the TV version. Yes I bought it!! Just to have the whole story again, even if the illos were different; and these are lovely. (If I were to find one with the original illos in it, I'd GRAB it!!)

[Lalaith-Elerrina]

I loved The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherin Paterson. That was more of a middle grade, not so much 'children's' but I really enjoyed it.

[heliona]

Morwenna, I know how you feel. I've been receiving through the post the other children's books that I mentioned (the Eye-View library ones). It's like Christmas has come early.

[Morwenna]

I also read 101 Dalmatians back when I was 10 or 11, but not as a book: it was serialized in Woman's Day magazine as "The Great Dog Robbery." That was the only title I knew it by, till the movie (animated) came out.

[Elvish Hobbit]

I've not read too many children's books but my favorite has to be Chronicles of Narnia. The journey that starts in first book ends beautifully in the last one. I was preparing myself to cry at the end, but thankfully it all got easy and I didn't have to cry. :p

[Billobob]

One of my favorite children's books was the Redwall series.