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Originally posted by Angel Wrestler:

Sambo (it's sad that the name Sambo has taken on a different connotation than what the original story even imagined; I just thought it was a really cool story about a little boy outsmarting tigers who made butter to put on pancakes)

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I too just thought it was nice story about a boy and some tigers. I still think of that book if I ever hear the word "ghee" as that's where I learned it. I wonder if it could be rewritten to keep the story and leave out the bits that are unacceptable today.

I also continue to believe fervently that if tigers ever run round and round a tree they will turn into melted butter. And no one will ever convince me otherwise.

[ 27. January 2016, 15:41: Message edited by: Helen-Eva ]
 

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Posted by St Everild (# 3626) on :
 
The Tale of Peter Rabbit - Beatrix Potter. I loved that story, and could recite it word-perfectly long before I could read the book, or so I was told.

As I think about it, Where the Wild Things Are - Maurice Sendak is every bit as scary but has similarly good ending.

Love them both....read WTWTA as a middle aged childless adult. Just because.

Edited because it had too many Ws and not enough Ts.....preview post would have been my friend...

[ 27. January 2016, 16:02: Message edited by: St Everild ]
 

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Posted by Tree Bee (# 4033) on :
 
My Grandma had a copy of Ferdinand the Bull which I loved and read regularly when I visited.
My Dad read the Naughty Little Sister books and I remember Little Grey Rabbit with equal fondness.
 

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Posted by Uncle Pete (# 10422) on :
 
My parents never read at bedtime to me (how do you read to a little deaf boy with his hearing aids out? But as an adult, I read Goodnight, Moon about 50 kazillion times to a set of 4 little kids born between 1968 and 1974. Goodnight, Nobody is my favourite line.

My own kids,little philistines, obsessed on The Bernstain Bears, and Miffy's Birthday, to the point where, if I attempted to condense the story, I was pulled up short, and made to start over
 

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Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on :
 
So I guess I was the only one who was totally grossed out by tigers melting into butter (and then being eaten)? I couldn't stand that story, and it had nothing to do with race.


 

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Posted by Pine Marten (# 11068) on :
 
I never read Little Black Sambo, and I can't remember what my parents may have read me - they both died years ago.

But my earliest favourite books, other than classic fairy stories, were Through the Looking Glass and Alice in Wonderland (in that order). I was also very fond of another Victorian book called something like The Adventures of Tim Pippin, full of wonderful illustrations.

Later on I loved (and still love) E. Nesbit, particularly The House of Arden and The Story of the Amulet.

Gosh, I do sound old....
 

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Posted by BessLane (# 15176) on :
 
I loved, and still love, Five O'clock Charlie about a retired draft horse who rings the pub bell every day at 5. Angus and the Ducks and Ferdinand were also favorites, but Carl Sandburg's Rootabaga Stories are my go to stories when I feel sad or sick or just want my mommy to read to me. I actually have a recording of her reading several of his stories aloud and will play that and revert to a happier, less stressful time...
 

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Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
I don't remember my parents reading to me - though I was an avid story addict. I do recall my elder brother and I (ages about 4 and 7 I suppose) having a nightly ritual whereby he would recount the rambling adventures of Robbie Squirrel and Bobbie Bunny (our imaginations at the time were much possessed by the Rupert annuals) until one or the other of us fell asleep.

I remember my early story books - the one about Hesperus the car, the one about the three kittens, the adventures of the lamb - with a clarity missing from my recollection of most of the texts I've read in the intervening 60 years.
 

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Posted by georgiaboy (# 11294) on :
 
My memory of early childhood is that I was read to EVERY NIGHT. I'm sure that's not true, but I like to think it is.

So many favorites:

• a book of stories about various Indian (Native Am) tribes, each story was just about the right length for bed-time. Some were a bit scary, but not too much.
• some (but not much) of 'A Child's Garden of Verses', though I liked the illustrations
• 'Rumpelstiltskin' and 'Twelve Dancing Princesses' from a beautifully illustrated volume of fairy tales
• possible favorite of the favorites 'Peter Churchmouse' and its sequel 'Gabriel Churchkitten' the b&w drawings were superb, and the vicar 'Parson Pease-Porridge' was totally over-the-top

All of these I would demand to have read to me, long after I could read them for myself.
And when my son was small, the joys of reading Maurice Sendak and Mercer Meyer to him.
 

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
Winnie the Pooh, when I was quite small. Night after night after night.

"Wouldn't you like a change?" my parents asked hopefully after weeks of this including me correcting them if they got anything wrong, thereby proving I knew it by heart and didn't need to have it read yet again.

"No, I want Winnie the Pooh."

"What about this nice story instead -"

"No! I want Winnie the Pooh," I said firmly and wouldn't settle down until with a sigh of resignation they settled down to read it to me yet again.
 

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Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :
 
In an old house in Paris, covered in vines lived twelve little girls in two straight lines Madeline, the original. I loved it because she was the smallest and she was brave.

The Little Taxi That Hurried was a Golden Book that I have been unable to find again, possibly because of the speeding(?).

Millions of Cats I think it influenced my life

In the early 1950s there were far fewer books available. England where many books came from still had some rationing, so I have been told. Golden Books, from America were wonderful because they were relatively cheap. We got most of out early books from Playcentre, a NZ organisation run by specially trained parents and partially government funded.

Mum read to us for years and I read to my two younger brothers. I can still recite great chucks of Green Eggs and Ham, my middle brother's favourite book.

Huia
 

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Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :
 
Winnie the Pooh, all the many and various Thomas the Tank Engine books.

Then when I was about 7 it all clicked reading-wise for me and I motored through E Nesbit, the Swallows and Amazons books, Just William, Jennings, etc.

Standout favourites:
any Arthur Ransome, but especially Missee Lee
Nesbit - The Phoenix and the Carpet
Philippa Pearce - Minnow on the Say
Dahl - Danny the Champion of the World
any of Gwynedd Rae's Mary Plain books

Sounds like I was born in about 1948 - actually I was born in 1980!

I still read some of them.
 

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Posted by Chamois (# 16204) on :
 
Winnie the Pooh. "The clock slid along the mantlepiece, collecting vases on the way" When I was about seven years old I thought that was the pinnacle of descriptive writing. I still think it's great.

Before I learned to read I loved Orlando the Marmalade Cat. Fantastic illustrations.

As a beginning reader I mainly remember Thomas the Tank Engine and the Mary Plain books. I can remember where they were shelved in the public library - the lowest shelves, right at the left hand end of the independent reader section. Not with the picture books for pre-readers.

My parents and my grandmother (who lived with us) were great about reading stories to me. I was always pestering for more, but adults were busy doing boring things like cooking dinner. I remember being desperate to start school so that I could learn to read books myself. At school we started with Janet and John. The teacher had a rule that you weren't allowed to turn over the page until you had read the page you were on aloud to her. On about Day 3 of school I worked out that by reading the page to the teacher and then going straight to stand at the back of the queue I could get through 2 or even 3 pages a lesson. The teacher realised quite quickly that I'd got the hang of it and I was then allowed to read a whole book without stopping. I've never stopped since!
 

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Posted by Sparrow (# 2458) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by betjemaniac:
Winnie the Pooh, all the many and various Thomas the Tank Engine books.

Then when I was about 7 it all clicked reading-wise for me and I motored through E Nesbit, the Swallows and Amazons books, Just William, Jennings, etc.

Standout favourites:
any Arthur Ransome, but especially Missee Lee
Nesbit - The Phoenix and the Carpet
Philippa Pearce - Minnow on the Say
Dahl - Danny the Champion of the World
any of Gwynedd Rae's Mary Plain books

Sounds like I was born in about 1948 - actually I was born in 1980!

I still read some of them.

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quote:

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does anyone remember a series of books about twins?

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Yes!!! Thanks for the reminder, I hadn't thought about that series for years. The one I remember best was The Eskimo Twins. The Eskimo people were very worried - seals and humans only ever have one baby at a time - and there was some concern about what the Spirits thought about their mother having twins. I don't remember anything else about the plot, but it's a long time ago……….
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
There was a long series (from the same stable that offered the Nancy Drew series) about the Bobbsey Twins. They were four siblings, two sets of fraternal twins: Bert and Nan, and Flossie and Freddy. There must have been parents but they were practically invisible; the twins solved crimes.
 

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Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 
Very educational those twins books. Historical twins - Spartans and so on - and geographical twins, such as those Eskimo. But because they were by different authors, they weren't filed in the same place on the library shelves, so getting to read them was a random thing.
 

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Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :
 
I remember the Bobbsey Twins, particularly the book where they visited England and one of the twins thought their uncle was a terrible driver because he drove on the left forcing the other drivers to move to the left to avoid him.

I don't remember reading the series about twins from other countries, but I do remember a series called My Home In... featuring children in different countries. I though they were fascinating, especially one set somewhere in Africa.

Does anyone remember Friday's Tunnel or February's Road by John Verney? I had them both out as library books. After reading about February digging up some Roman treasure I decided to try it myself, I started digging in the garden but was bitterly disappointed when my mother told me the Romans never came to New Zealand. It started me on a quest for New Zealand books or even books set in New Zealand, a fairly hopeless task then. Even later, reading adult books NZ only seemed to be mentioned when the author wanted to send a character far away, or mention distant relations.

Huia
 

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Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 
Definitely remember John Verney, whom I came across in a magazine called Elizabethan - I bought copies of those two books recently to reread!
 

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Posted by Eigon (# 4917) on :
 
The first book where I knew what was going to happen next before I read it was Jemima Puddleduck by Beatrix Potter. "No! Don't go off with Mr Fox! He wants to eat your babies!"
It was the only Beatrix Potter book I owned, though I was aware of others, and read several.
And pretty soon after that I was in the glorious territory of Wind in the Willows and Pooh.
 

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Posted by nickel (# 8363) on :
 
I have vague memories of my sister's reading our two Dr Seuss books to me: I liked "Green Eggs and Ham", but was creeped out by Yertle the Turtle's illustrations. Turtles all the way down! My very favorite book was "Bread and Jam for Frances." More than any other, this was the book that got me reading on my own, instead of waiting to be read to.
 

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Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
We were a wild bunch-- my mom used to read us "No Fighting No Biting" about a couple of quarreling alligators to try and induce us to stop fighting amongst ourselves.

I enjoyed Are you my Mother? the Madeline books when I was younger, and of course Nancy Drew and Harriet the Spy when I began reading myself.

But my favorite (or at least more vivid) are the books I read my kids:
Board books including Good Night Gorilla, Go Dogs Go!, and all the Sandra Boynton books. Quickly followed by anything by Maurice Sendak, especially Where the Wild Things Are. Chronicles of Narnia, of course.

[ 30. January 2016, 03:40: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
I don't recall ANYBODY ever reading to me! My home was not a house that had books.

Of course, I quickly compensated for this as soon as I discovered the school library. Fie on lending limits!

I used to save my video game money to buy science fiction. My parents must have thought they'd birthed an alien.
 

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Posted by Nenya (# 16427) on :
 
I loved Alison Uttley's Little Grey Rabbit books - Beatrix Potter was too dark for me - and Wind in the Willows and Winnie the Pooh; also the Just So Stories and the Jungle Books. And poetry, lots of poetry. A Puffin Book of Verse was the favourite. *makes sure she knows where these books are on the shelves for revisiting later today*
 

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Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :
 
The book I can remember from early childhood was one called Moomin. It was printed on card pages, rather than paper ones. That was because on each page, there was a hole that you went through to get to the next page. The text and the picture were all mixed up together, so that the story led you to the hole.

Has anyone else ever heard of it?

As I got a bit older, my father used to read to me every evening, usually from Conan Doyle or John Buchan.

For reading myself, I never reckoned much to the Swallows and Amazons. Thinking back, I think they struck me as about children the way adults like to imagine we were. I also didn't reckon much to Enid Blyton. It was too improbable to think children would be solving crimes, having unbelievable adventures etc. I much preferred the Just William books. And non-fiction.
 

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Posted by Eigon (# 4917) on :
 
Ah, I loved the Famous Five, mostly because I wanted to be George! And they went camping, and stayed in houses with proper secret passages and things.

Another story I adored - mum scoured every bookshop in Manchester to find it, because she'd adored it too - was Marigold in Godmother's House. You're never quite sure whether the magic is in the child's mind, or actually happening, and there are lovely details like the maid's skirts filling the narrow corridor as she leads Marigold to her bedroom. And by the same author, Joyce Lankester Brisley, the Milly-Molly-Mandy stories. I desperately wanted her attic bedroom!
 

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Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 
The prices on Marigold are astonishing. I have a huge woodland mural to put in my downstairs loo, in case the young ones come to stay, chiefly because of that book. But it was from the library, so we never had a copy.

We've given Milly Molly Mandy to the next two generations down - for one thing, it gives an idea of what my mother's village life was like. I definitely had that as an earlier read.

[ 30. January 2016, 15:57: Message edited by: Penny S ]
 

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Posted by Foxy (# 2409) on :
 
Being read to by my mother, and now reading to my kids, are two of the great joys of my life. There are too many books to enumerate that have been dear friends--but I can't not mention the Ramona books by Beverly Cleary. My mother read us the whole series of those, and the Henry Huggins books, too--and now I've read them all to each one of my kids--and they simply never get old. Certain passages are as funny to me now as they were when I was seven--some more so.
 

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Posted by Mili (# 3254) on :
 
I was a voracious reader once I learnt to read at 5 years old, so have read a lot of those mentioned. When I was younger and being read to some of my favourites were:

'Little Black Sambo'.I also just saw him as a clever boy who outsmarted tigers and got to eat a lot of pancakes.

'Mrs Pepperpot's Busy Day' about an old woman who sometimes shrunk, which complicated her life. There was a whole series, but my family only had this one.

'Miss Flora Mclimsey's Birthday' about a doll who came alive (also one from a series that we only had one of)

'Would you rather be a Bullfrog?' by Dr. Seuss and also 'Yertle the Turtle', 'The Sneetches' and another story about a pair of living pants/trousers.

The Aboriginal Dreamtime stories 'Tiddalik' about a frog who drunk all the water, 'How the Birds Got their Colours' and best of all 'Turrumulli the Giant Quinkin' about a giant, bad spirit who tries to eat some children.

I also liked the church mice series, particularly 'The Church Mice at Bay' where the mice get rid of a mice-hating hippy vicar.

Finally, before the list gets too long, I loved 'Whistle up the Chimney' and its sequel 'An Eye Full of Soot' by Nan Hunt. These are about Mrs Millie Mack who has trains that come through her fireplace due to burning some old train louvres or some other train part. In the second book her cat accidentally falls onto a train and goes on a fantastic journey, taking many trains to find his way home.
 

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Posted by Barnabas Aus (# 15869) on :
 
Mili, Nan Hunt only passed away last October at the great age of 97. She also wrote under the name of N.L.Ray, and was prolific for about 40 years, being first published in her early 40's.

My first story memories are of my father telling us the story of Pedro the Fisherman while lying in the double bed with mum and him on Sunday mornings. My grandfather started my interest in trains so Thomas the Tank Engine in the original was part of my young life as well.

I was an early reader, so read many of those books upthread, and had progressed to The Hobbit by the time I reached third grade. Dr Dolittle was a favourite, as were the classic stories by E Nesbit and Elizabeth Enright. Australian writers such as Colin Thiele, Ivan Southall and Patricia Wrightson were just achieving fame, and brought much enjoyment.

I exhausted the children's section of the local public library by the early years of high school, and was allowed to move onto the adult collection, providing I didn't try to borrow anything too adult.

All of this led to my later work as a teacher-librarian, armed with a major in children's literature. Now, I hope to encourage the same love of reading in my grandchildren.
 

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Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on :
 
"The Box of Delights" by John Masefield.

Mind you, this is partly because there is a gory passage early on which made my mother wince. As a result I read it out to her many times. Many, many times....
 

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Posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe (# 5521) on :
 
My favorite book to be read to from was The Bumper Book, a wonderful anthology of prose and poetry featuring such classics as "The Owl and the Pussy Cat", "The Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat", "Wynken, Blynken and Nod", and so many others. All with wonderful illustrations.

I believe The Bumper Book is still in print. Vintage copies can be found now and then on ebay.

I don't remember if "The Wee Kitten Who Sucked Her Thumb" and "The Tugboat that Lost its Temper" were included or were in other anthologies, but I remember them quite well too.

And, of course, "The Little Engine That Could."
 

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Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 
I had a thick green book called The Children's Treasury, which had a collection of works by a number of proper authors - it had A A Milne's autograph in it (some relatives lived near Hartfield by 500 acre wood* and the Pooh Sticks bridge). At some point my mother, without asking, lent it to a cousin, from whom it never returned as that family passed it on elsewhere. When I was teaching, I wanted it back, because some of the stories would have been useful, and I eventually found another copy - minus, of course, the autograph.
The stories introduced me to other things as well, as characters would refer to other authors.

*Oh yes it is.

[ 01. February 2016, 21:11: Message edited by: Penny S ]
 

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Posted by tessaB (# 8533) on :
 
My mother would read to me the sort of books she liked, such as Mrs Pepperpot and Milly Molly Mandy. My father would recite nonsense poetry, Hilair Belloc's Cautionary Tales and the Just so Stories. The first books I remember reading for myself (that weren't learning to read books) were the Narnia books and the Waterbabies.

Did anyone ever read a book called, I think,The House with Tall Chimneys? All I remember about it was that there was a scene where the topiary garden comes to life! Lovely stuff, I would enjoy reading it again if I could find it.
 

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Posted by Fineline (# 12143) on :
 
I liked the Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf stories - those were read to us at school when I was five. I could read too, but those were read to us in assembly. I don't remember stories being read to me when I couldn't read.
 

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Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
I cannot remember the title of my favourite childhood book - give me a break, I learnt to read when I was three, so we are going back a very long way. But I do remember it was the story of a 'flag' waving, except it turned out not to be a flag at all:

'What can it be? Oh me, oh my, it's Molly's washing, out to dry!'.

Strange how I can remember those words verbatim well over 50 years later. Which just shows the power of repetitive phrases in literature. I remember being similarly fascinated with the words of hymns and liturgy in my BCP prayer/hymn book, only a couple of years later.
 

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Posted by Moo (# 107) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Huia:
Millions of Cats I think it influenced my life

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