Your Favourite Book?

[Dan Goodwin]

What was your favourite book as a child?

What stories could you get in lost in for hours on end?

Which characters did you long to meet in real life? Who did you want to be?

How did reading stories influence your creativity, then, and and now?

Share your comments with us below...

[Ang Monsoon]

i'll have to read The Little Prince, it sounds good....

[Ang Monsoon]

i had a Pinnochio doll, he had a hard face and a soft body, I used to just pretend he was a regular baby not Pinnochio.....which was very boring of me...

[Kerry Hargraves]

I read and reread Black Beauty and Alice In Wonderland. I so wanted to be Alice. Such amazing adventures. Made my mother crazy asking for hair bands and wide blue ribbons around the waists of white dresses - none of which were either in my wardrobe or flattering to me. Such is the power of imagination - long blond hair, crisp white crinolines, shiny black mary-janes, ruffle cuffed nylon ankle socks. Plus the natural ability to communicate with animals. What little girl didn't want to be in perfect communion with a horse?

I got over the dresses and hair bands but as I type there is a dog sleeping on my feet. If I pay attention, the communication is clear. It's interesting that it works best when we realize that the problem is us - the animals manage to understand us to an amazing degree. We are the ones too "stupid" to understand them.

Later came the Trixie Belden series. I suppose I never got over the desire to be a detective or a spy. Even now, 50+ years later. That must be why I watch "Burn Notice". Like maybe the tips they giive might still come in handy someday. We may age but, if we're lucky, we don't ever grow up.

[Barbara Ann Storrier]

I agree, Kerry ... we are really pretty predictable to our pets, they can tell so much about us by our tone of voice or body language. Half the time my dogs have me convinced that I'm their pet :) And they know just what to do to cheer me. I remember being a real horse lover as a girl and wanting to grow up to be a veterinarian until I stopped to think how sad it would be not to be able to save one ... :)

[Ang Monsoon]

enid blyton had me well & truly hooked. A lot of the books i read as a kid came from the library & its frustrating now 'cos I can't remember the authors & titles, tho one that has stuck is "The Strange Affair of Miss Adelaide Harris" or something like that. I liked stories of magic, of the wardrobe ilk, and stories that involved big families, 'cos i only had one sibling. the next phase i think was books about poor families, The Dead End family?, the books of Christine Pullein Thompson & Noel Streatfield. We read The Silver Sword at school by Ian Serraileur, that was good. In "highschool" i had a passion for john steinbeck, especially Cannery Row, and following on from that all the UK Northern grit writers like Alan Sillitoe & esp. John Braine's Room at the Top. But all roads lead to Stephen King somehow, and the horror phase. My big passion was comics (Sandie, Tammy, Judy) & annual at Xmas (they smelled wonderful). They were proper comics then with stories that ran on from week to week. The first poem that rocked me was Blake's "Tyger", as quite a young child. I picked up Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass as a teenager & the Penguin Book of Romantic Poets....there was no hope for me after that...

[Ang Monsoon]

oh mi god, what flood gates has this forum openend...i forgot to mention: Pippi Longstockin'....right I'm outta here.....

[Dan Goodwin]

Oh, Walt Whitman, wow, big influence on me... Song Of The Open Road especially, just magnificent wide screen romantic poetry...

[Ang Monsoon]

I'm going to re-read Walt....he'd definitely be someone I'd have liked to have met in a "parallel universe".

[RobynG]

Winnie the Pooh, Enid Blyton, Grimms Fairytales and then my all time favourite as I grew older, My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell.....a must for all age groups 6 to 106.

[Ang Monsoon]

yes, i enjoyed "My Family & other Animals", I feel like I've visited Corfu, even though I haven't in real life...

[Ang Monsoon]

My children's bible was a "feast" of stories. Especially I loved the picture of Moses being discovered in the bullrushes. There was a lot of turquoise blue in that picture, as far as I recall.

[Susan Hosken]

I loved snow white and the seven dwarfs and still have my child hood copy. Yesterday i bought a figurine of snow white and dopey. happy memories.
lots of love from susan in australia