Childhood authors...

MorbidMaiden

MorbidMaiden

What authors inspired you as a child...and which children's authors so you believe hit the spot today for you (and your kids)?

Personally, my list for childhood heros is never ending, but to name a few: Tolkein, Beatirix Potter, Enid Blyton, CS Lewis, Laura Ingles Wilder, Rosemary Sutcliff, Alan Garner and Asrtrid Lingren. Today, Jaquline Wilson, JK Rowling (naturallly) Michelle Paver and Roddy Doyle.

Carol

In the past I read lots of Enid Blyton, and other authors (who I can't remember the names of.)
Today, my sons, two of whom are very good readers, like Michael Lawrence, Anthony Horowitz, Dav Pickley, Garth Nix and R.L.Stine, J.K Rowling and Jonathan Stroud.
Other authors they read at random, the ones I've mentioned they'll buy any new book by them.

TaffetaPunk

Gillian Cross's book Chartbreak had a profound effect on me, as well as The Dark Behind the Curtain.  I read quite a few Betsy Byars books, too - The Midnight Fox, The Night Swimmers, Cracker Jackson (one of the best, I think), The Computer Nut, The Glory Girl...  Yep, reads lots of hers :o)

Jenn

ok the first novel i read, and it was my own without any adult help (save long words), was the lion, the witch and the wardrobe by c. s. lewis. and then my grandparents gave me famous five: five go to treasure island for my 8th birthday and that got me hooked on enid blyton for years!! my darling father tired on many attempts to extend what i read but i only read enid blyton and c. s. lewis. i am very stubborn.

and then, year 6 (age 11), my best friend at the time suggetsed a book. joan aiken, black heart's in battersea. absolutely amazing. good chidlren's book.

and then year 6 also i got hooked BIG time on brian jacques,a nd read his books for years. i suppose its only recently that ive begun to widen my reading range. but my childhood authors will always remain my favourite (especially, enid blyton's the enchanted wood =P). tamora pierce was also an adolescent  favourite.

=D

Anna

Good ol' Enid Blyton did it for me.  Oh, for one of those potted meat sandwiches - they sounded wonderful.  Also, Ruth Manning Saunders and Penelope Lively.

TaffetaPunk

The Voyage of QV66!

Evaine

Rosemary Sutcliff, Geoffrey Trease and Henry Treece for the historical novels - and Mary Renault was in the school library, too, with lots of stories about gay men in ancient Athens!  (And her magnificent Alexander trilogy).

Then there was Ursula le Guin's Earthsea trilogy - she's written some more, adult, stories in that world more recently, which are also very good.

I raced through Enid Blyton, the Famous Five and ...of Adventure series.  The first time I ever noticed different points of view was in Six Cousins at Mistletoe Farm.  All the way through, the housekeeper was this reliable presence who kept things going - and near the end another character came into the kitchen to find her snoozing on a chair by the range, and all he could see was a fat old woman with a cat on her lap.  I hated him instantly, and I also learned that different people can see the same thing in very different ways.

Alan Garner and Susan Cooper are other great favourites from the fantasy area, and the Swallows and Amazons series by Arthur Ransome was brilliant.  When we were living in Norwich, I made my husband read Coot Club, which is set on the Broads.
I was also amazed that he'd never read Winnie the Pooh, and I taught him to play Pooh Sticks.
Which reminds me of the wonderful Wind in The Willows.

It's not really surprising that the best job I ever had was in a Children's Bookshop....

MorbidMaiden

Oh my, RL Stine! I adored his writing when I was just under double figures. I tend to cringe now, whenever I pick one up. I suppose I should just remember all the wonderful hours I spent hiding under the covers with my torch...Oh, Robin Jarvis! His trilogy The Whitby Witches is worth a read whatever your age!

Hush Puppy

E.B.White (Stuart Little and Charlotte's Web), C.S. Lewis (Narnia books), Ursula Guin (Earthsea), Cynthia Harnett (The Wool-Pack and The Great House), Walter de la Mare's poetry and just about anything else I could get hold of!

Evaine

Cynthia Harnett was just brilliant at the detail of medieval life.  I loved her books, too - in fact, I read anything historical I could get my hands on.  Strangely, though, I didn't get into Kipling until I was an adult - and then I saw where Rosemary Sutcliff had got her Romans from.  Kipling's poem about the Centurion who doesn't want to go back to Rome makes me cry every time.

Kangaroo

I enjoyed reading Enid Blyton, Dr Seuss, Roald Dahl , a picture book called 'My friend the Moon' by Branko Radicevic and for the fun of it, Tintin.

Jay Mandal

First time I heard of Dr Seuss was on a record (are they still called that?) by R.E.M.

TaffetaPunk

I didn't like Dr Seuss, either - still don't.  Gives me the creeps.  Ugh...

jon80y

Enid Blyton and her "Famous Five"........And anything else I could get my hands on !!!! And I managed to get my hands on some ropey old stuff....

Evaine

Oh, my, that reminds me - my gran was a woman who could not pass a jumble sale or charity shop.  We picked up some very strange books as a result.  There was a whole series, written in the early 1950s, I think, called Corrigan and the Yellow Peril, Corrigan and the (insert colour here)....
Corrigan was, of all things, a rubber planter in Malaysia, though he didn't seem to spend much time planting rubber.  He was always off fighting dacoits or other dubious characters.  I rather enjoyed them.

sweetpea

I was a big Enid Blyton fan, but I read pretty much whatever I could find.  Having said that, I quite liked the Famous Five, but not as much as The Hardy Boys and the Nancy Drew mysteries. I'm afraid I can't remember the authors for either though.

Katy

I loved the Carbonel series by Barbara Sleigh, all about the adventures of a black cat with his own kingdom. As an adult, both of my cats are black - and one of them is called Carbonel!

Also loved Charmed Life by Diana Wynne-Jones, and read it over and over again as a child. It was only recently that I discovered she had written a whole series (called the Worlds of Chrestomanci) featuring the same characters - I have bought all of them "for my daughter" (ahem!)

Curly

I have found I'm reading more children's books now than I did when I was a teenager.  Over the last couple of years I've read the Dark Materials trilogy, Lord of the Rings, Isobel Allende, Cornelia Funke, Celia Rees, Jan Mark, Melvin Burgess & JP Taylor.  When I was young, I do remember loving Nancy Drew mysteries, Famous Five and Secret Seven.

NarnieB

AA Milne and CS Lewis were (and remain) childhood heroes. Re reading them (to my neice and nephew of course!) I find that both authors managed to infuse their works with a sense of melancholy that suits me down to the ground.
Now it's JK Rowling, Phillip Pullman and Terry Pratchett's books for younger readers. So far.

Betsie

As a very small child my passion was Milly Molly Mandy - I guess I'm probably so old no one else has read these books - I don't recall their author but I remember all the characters in the books.  MMM herself and Little Friend Susan and Billy Blunt.

Jay Mandal

Records, not R.E.M.! I think I probably meant track/song. Michael Stipe is on my 'who would you invite to your dinner party (or whatever you call it)' list. He's inspired some of my stories.

TaffetaPunk

Mrs Pepperpot!  I remember Mrs Pepperpot!

Evaine

Milly Molly Mandy books are collected these days.  I love them too - when I was six I desperately wanted an attic bedroom like MMMs.  The really rare, and beautiful, Joyce Lankester Brisley book is Marigold in Godmother's House.  When I was tiny, mum went into every bookshop in Manchester to find that for me, because she'd loved it so much as a child, and I adored it too.

NarnieB - if you like melancholy in children's books, have you tried the Moomintroll series?

Jay Mandal

They were after my time, but the Jane Hissey books seem to be beautifully written and illustrated.

Vel

I read a wonderful book when I was a kid called 'The Phantom Tollbooth', by Norton Juster.  It's the story of a boy called Milo who isn't interested in learning and thinks school is a waste of time. One day he comes home to find a suprise package containing a tollboth.  He set it up, chooses a place on the map to visit, gets into his pedal car and takes an Alice-like journey into the twin lands of Dictionopolis and Digitopolis accompanied by a watchdog called Tock.  A brilliant tale for (slightly older) kids and for adults who love wordplay.

Gary Kruse

I was a big fan of Blyton's Secret Seven, not so much the Famous Five. Plus I loved Micheal Hardcastle's football novels. They were brilliant.

Island Girl

Didn't have many books when we were young. I do remember bringing home a school library book of Uncle Tom's Cabin. I started crying when mum got to some part in it so she promptly closed the book and said, 'If you're going to get upset about it, there's no point in reading any further.'  Nan lived up the other end of the country and sent me an English Girls Own Annual which I treasured and still have to this day. Sad, aint it?

Betsie

I've Googled Milly Molly Mandy and there's loads of stuff on the Web

Eledhwen

I read Enid Blyton's Enchanted Wood series and we still have the books in the family (and it wasn't that long ago that I re-read them!) Also loved her Wishing Chair stories.  As I was a pony lover, I read loads of Ruby Ferguson and the Pullein-Thompson sisters' books.  Black Beauty by Anna Sewell remains one of my all-times favourite reads, and after reading The Hobbit at school when I was nine, I have in later years become a Tolkien nut.  I have recently read the entire Chronicles of Narnia and now, like everyone on the planet, I love Harry Potter! (I do occasionally read adult books too!)