In Australia it’s Children’s Book Week where we celebrate children’s books.
Children’s Book Week is celebrated by most schools and Kindergartens in Australia. The children will dress up as a book character. Also many schools will have an author visit and have writing workshops.
Memories
I thought it would be good to take a trip down memory lane. One of the first books I loved was a book with three fairy tales in it. It was a birthday present with The Snow Queen, The Ugly Duckling and The Flying Trunk. The Snow Queen became my favourite fairy tale. I know frozen is based on it but it is totally different.
The next favourites were the Magic Faraway Series. I so wanted to have that tree near me and climb to those lands at the top of the tree. I loved Mr Gilliano’s Circus and The Naughtiest Girl at School. Next were the Secret Seven and The Famous Five.
When I was about 11 I remember being given Pollyanna. Mum said she read this series as a child. She had loved the series and wanted to share it. She also gave me Heidi which she had also read.
The year I turned 16 Mum gave me the first 4 books in a series she loved as a teen, Little Bush Maid by Mary Grant Bruce. My friend’s had some of this series their mother also had read so we could share.
Book Club
As a child I loved reading and our school had a monthly book club form where we could buy books. This introduced me to some new favourites. Helen Keller’s teacher and Betsy were two books I loved and still have to this day. Seven Little Australian’s is another I loved. These were clean books that parents knew would be safe to buy a child unlike many books these days.
Sunday School
I bought the Narnia series after receiving the first one as a Sunday School prize. My biggest disappointment was not being able to go through my wardrobe.
Oh you’ve already got so many books listed that impacted my life.
I’d have to throw in The Famous Five series as well as The Baby-Sitters Club.
In grade 6 we had a teacher who was big on reading. She would read to us and we often swapped books. I had a couple Secret Seven books and got to read more due to the little library we set up. I then read my first famous Five book and after that the Secret seven seemed a bit young. I remember I think it was the end of grade 7 I got a set of books with the Secret Seven and Famous Five books. I think there was 6 books (3 of each) and each had 2 or 3 stories in them.
The Baby-Sitters Club came out after I left school but I loved the Sweet Valley High books.
I loved any book to do with horses. The first Famous Five book I read was a horse story but the next Famous Five book I read didn’t have horses in it, so I lost interest and never read another Famous Five book. I remember reading Taffy – a book about a black pony. and a story about the origins of the Arabian horse. – to name just a few. Apart from ‘horse stories’ I don’t think I favoured any particular genre as a child but loved fantasy. I love to read anything educational -and/or historical: wars, past Royals, ancient Rome, biographies, autobiographies, memoirs and the occasional general fiction and now I tend to read a lot of romance because my mum passes them on to me when she has read them. Ha haaa. I now write and illustrate Children’s Picture Books.
I read FollyFoot which was from an English TV show of the same name. But wasn’t a big horse person. I was below my age in reading age so was still reading younger books as I got older.
Hi Jenny,
As with Keona, you’ve listed so many books that impacted me. But I also loved the Anne of Green Gables series. I was slow to begin reading but once I started around the age of six, there was no stopping me 😊📚