What Were My Favourite Children's Books?

 I was an early reader, and from the get-go, I was hooked. Back then, I'm 70 now, there weren't all the paraphrased versions of the classics, so (between the ages of 7 and 11) I read most of the classics by Dickens, the Bronte sisters, Captain Marryat, Anna Sewell et.al. and some more contemporary, like Marguerite Henry and even Louis L'Amour.

My favourites back then were Brighty of the Grand Canyon, Jane Eyre, Lorna Doone, The Children of the New Forest and Oliver Twist. 

My Brighty copy was bought secondhand and was a dingy red hardback, that seemed huge to my 7 year old self, but I loved that book and read, and re-read, it over and over. It had awesome illustrations but sadly I don't remember the illustrator. 

I'm not sure what happened to it, whether my mum may still have it stashed away, since she has shelves full of old Ladybird Books, which were also my favourites and encompassed so many subjects.

My nan had bought it for me, and also regularly spent 2/6d on various Ladybird Books that were about things that interested me. Stone Age Man in Britain was one of them, and on annual holidays with my grandparents we toured Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall visiting historic sites - including burial mounds, caves with stalactites and stalagmites, places in the books that I read, and relics of the Industrial Revolution.

On those trips, on our first night out of London, we'd camp in the New Forest, which obviously fuelled my love of Captain Maryatt's book. In Somerset we'd visit Exmoor, the Doone Valley and Oare Church, the settings of R.D. Blackmore's novel.

I can't imagine not being able to have read those books, they fired up my imagination and created a lust for more, and for exploring the settings.

So, when I had my children, one of my first tasks in their toddler/preschool years was reading to them, and then teaching them to read and write before they started school.

At that point, I fell in love with Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar. As did my kids! They loved poking their fingers in the holes. Others on their bookshelf - Goodnight Moon, The Velveteen Rabbit, Thomas The Tank Engine (and I actually spent some time with the Reverend Awdry in Wisbech in the 70s), Richard Scarry Books and the Berenstain Bears books.

I actually used Bears In The Night as one of the books when I was teaching my three to read, because of its simplicity and repetition.

By the time my granddaughters were born (after I'd moved to America) I'd also become a fan of Dr Seuss, especially Green Eggs and Ham although I happily read his others to them, and the children I babysat, because I loved the cadence they introduced children to.

I am still an avid reader, I usually have 2 or 3 books on the go at any one time. My tastes are many and varied, as are the authors that I enjoy.