Those magical Unusual Books of childhood

[Nesacat]

My girls loved Beatrix Potter when they were tiny.

Goodness yes. I loved them too especially the tale of Peter Rabbit, which is also a firm favourite with my mother. I don't think I'll ever forget Mr. McGregor and Peter trying to get under that fence.

Anomander; the book is Bedknob & Broomstick and is by Mary Norton.

 

[Carolyn Hill]

Thornton Burgess was the author.

Hmm. Could the books I'm remembering have been written by Burgess, the author who wrote The Adventures of Peter Cottontail? That's doesn't seem right somehow, but maybe they were . . .

Thanks for the clue! I'll investigate further.

 

[Nesacat]

Have just finished Angela Carter's Sea-Cat and Dragon King. I did not know she had written a children's book. And it apparently is her only original tale for children. It's a simple tale and the book is filled with the most intricate, whimsical illustrations by Eva Tatcheva. Black and white line drawings.

Sea-Cat lives at the bottom of the sea with his mother who makes him beautiful jewel-encrusted clothes. Dragon King also lives at the bottom of the sea but he 's ashamed of his ugliness and hides from everyone in a palace made from the skeleton of a whale. He lives surrounded by priceless treasures and works of art but is alone. One day he hears the sea critters talking about Sea-Cat's beauty and he's oh so jealous. He too wants to be beautiful and admired. But how?

"Sea-Cat was dressed in all the colours of the rainbow which arches constantly over the realms under the sea whenever the sun shines through the water, because under the sea, it is just as if it were always raining. But everybody is used to it, so nobody complains about the weather."

The illustration of this page is of two seahorses sitting under a beach umbrella. One is sitting on a deckchair sipping from a glass. The other is lying on his back with sunglasses on.

 

[Adasunshine]

Books that really stand out from my childhood are

Tom's Midnight Garden
The Little Vampire Series
The Borrowers
The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe
The Worst Witch Series
Are You There God? It's Me Margaret
The Faraway Tree
Nancy Drew
ANYTHING by Roald Dahl - I was and still am a HUGE Roald Dahl fan but my favourites are Matilda, The Witches, Charlie & The Chocolate Factory, The Magic Finger (OMG The Magic Finger, memories...), George and his Marvellous Medicine, James and the Giant Peach, Revlting Rhymes and a couple more besides!

I'm sure there are more to add to that but those are the ones that really stand out.

We lived right opposite a very small local library which was situated next to my primary school and I don't think more than 2 days went by without me going in there, I loved it there and went there as often as I could, luckily, they had a good selection for such a small library and it's where I got most of my reading material between birthdays and Christmas'! The librarians were all really friendly and introduced me to many things I would otherwise have skipped over.

*sigh* I miss those days...

xx

 

[littlemissattitude]

I could have sworn that I replied in this thread...guess I'm hallucinating again.

Anyway...I didn't read a lot of YA or children's books (to the despair of the library ladies, who looked askance on it when I started using the adult section of the library when I was quite young), but a few stand out.

On the SF side, first, Heinlein's Red Planet was probably the first proper science fiction that I read on my own (as opposed to being given it by my father), although I had been exposed to it on film virtually from birth.

However, most of the books in this category that made an impression on me were not science fiction or fantasy. As others have said, I was a big Nancy Drew fan. I didn't read all of them, as my library did not stock them, but I was given a few of them as gifts and I treasured them. I also loved the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. I still read those from time to time. And there was something called Susie and the Ballet Horse, whose author I cannot remember. It was about a little girl who went off to ballet summer camp (I was studying ballet at the time, so the subject matter attracted). She fell, however, and broke her leg. With nothing else to do, she started exploring the area around the camp - cast, crutches and all - and discovered a nearby farm where the owner was training a Lippizan dancing horse, where she begins to help with that.

Another YA book that was a formative influence in my life was The Romance of Archaeology by Anne Terry White. I had discovered archaeology on a visit to an ancient Native American site in Arizona...there was this mummy, and that was it for me...and so I grabbed this book and absorbed it and have been in love with archaeology ever since.

 

[carrie221]

Two books stand out that influenced what I read today "Little House on the Prairie" and the "Narnia" books.

Little House on the Prairie may not be about magic but it always sparked my imagination and I still love to read books set in the past, (I also have a degree in History) I love to read books about other times whether it be in the future or in the past.

Narnia well I first saw the BBC version on the Disney Channel which caused me to go and find all the books. These books made me believe in magic and I sent a lot of time (not that I will admit to this every again) looking for a way into narnia.

This was as science fiction or fantasyish I got until I was 13 and saw Star Wars in the theater for the first time (20 year anniversery). After that I became hooked and started reading a lot more fantasy books and scifi.

 

[ray gower]

Think the book that put me on to Science Fiction was Kings of Space, because I was partial to Biggles.
Otherwise it was whatever was in the bookcase: Hammond Innes, Alexander Kent, CS Forrester and some ghastly dragon thing the school wanted me to read because my reading was sub-standard for an 8 year old.

 

[Milk]

The Phantom Tollbooth.
I was crazy about that book.

And before that, lots of Hans Christian Anderson Short Stories.


Oh yeah and I cant remember the exact books, these were very specific and had amazing artwork, but there were these Greek and Norse mythology picture books I read over and over again. I mean, I had these books practically memorized back then. I loved the artwork. Some of the concepts I still remember like : The giant Ymir's feet mating with eachother to produce multiheaded trolls.