Judge Me by My Favourite Children's Books

[Anton Gramscescu]

Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. The greatest children's book ever. I can recite the entire thing from memory.

The Voyage of QV66 by Penelope Lively. Fantastic in the anthropomorphism department and one of the most amusing post-apocalyptic novels ever written. The image of agressive packs of dogs roaming the street of Manchester singing football songs is quite vivid and Stanley the monkey is a wonderfully flawed hero.

[Gangster Octopus]

Judge Me by My Favourite Children's Books

Probably Biggles Fails To Return.

[Crusoe]

Judge Me by My Favourite Children's Books

Tootles the Taxi. Proper old-school anthropomorphic cars.

And I adored the A.Mazing Monsters series as a child. Some amateurish artwork only added to the charm. I think I had the four original books - I certainly remember Webfoot, The Great Gulper and Wormball.

http://www.amazingmonsters.com/monsters/

[Anton Gramscescu]

Judge Me by My Favourite Children's Books

GO - heh.

Wait, that's not actually a book, is it?

[Gangster Octopus]

Judge Me by My Favourite Children's Books

'Tis.

[Anton Gramscescu]

Judge Me by My Favourite Children's Books

Go on. It sounds like a Monty Python sketch.

What's it about?

[ursus arctos]

Judge Me by My Favourite Children's Books

D'Aulaire's Book of Great Myths
All-Star Baseball
Winnie the Pooh (not a surprise, I know)
The "Landmark" series of American History books for "young adults"; there were more than 200. I read them all.

[Andy C]

Judge Me by My Favourite Children's Books

Blimey, GO, you were advanced. I wouldn't have called Frank McCourt a children's writer at all.

[Anton Gramscescu]

Judge Me by My Favourite Children's Books

So you are a spiritual Winnipegger, Urs!

[San Bernardhinault]

Judge Me by My Favourite Children's Books

The House At Pooh Corner by AA Milne and EH Shephard (slightly controversially going for the sequel)

and

How Tom Beat Captain Najork and His Hired Sportsment by Russel Hoban and Quentin Blake

[Gangster Octopus]

Judge Me by My Favourite Children's Books

Frank McCourt

Que?

[ursus arctos]

Judge Me by My Favourite Children's Books

[Gangster Octopus]

Judge Me by My Favourite Children's Books

He's no Captain W.E. Johns...

[imp]

Judge Me by My Favourite Children's Books

Of late - The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales. When I was a kid I read tons but can't really remember much. Didn't go for the classic series like CS Lewis, or much fantasy stuff. I liked stories about sullen, lonely kids. And the Pan books of ghost stories, the more grisly the better.

[Brandenburger Toro]

Judge Me by My Favourite Children's Books

The Hounds of the Morrígan
The Three Royal Monkeys
every single Asterix book, but especially The Twelve Tasks of Asterix

[Gangster Octopus]

Judge Me by My Favourite Children's Books

imp wrote:

I liked stories about sullen, lonely kids.

Isn't it surprising when something doesn't surprise you...

[Anton Gramscescu]

Judge Me by My Favourite Children's Books

Good call on Asterix, toro. Though I preferred the currently highly-relevant Obelix and Co, which is as good an explanation as any of the current sub-prime crisis.

Here's another question for the thread: Asterix or Tintin?

Tintin edges it for me, I think, but it's awfully close.

[Reed John]

Judge Me by My Favourite Children's Books

Too many to mention, many of which I can't recall the titles.

But one that sticks out was Strange but True Sports Stories which had great cartoon illustrations. I must have read that 30 times.

[San Bernardhinault]

Judge Me by My Favourite Children's Books

Asterix in Switzerland and Asterix at the Olympics are my two Asterix books of choice.

I always struggled to enjoy Tintin, but never did with Asterix.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Judge Me by My Favourite Children's Books

Read as a kid:

The William books

The Jennings books

Most of E. Nesbit, especially Five Children and It and The Phoenix and the Carpet

Mustn't forget Alice of course.

Read as an adult (with a kid):

Goodnight Moon

The Box of Delights

[kugelrund]

Judge Me by My Favourite Children's Books

I used to love the Just William and Jennings and Darbyshire books, too. I think I preferred the latter.

I can remember a line from one even now. Jennings and Darbyshire are attempting to creep back into school late at night, up a staircase, but Darbyshire is wearing flippers on his feet.

Jennings, exasperated, orders him to take them off, because "...every time you take a step, you sound like a round of applause." Which I thought was comedy gold.

As for Asterix versus Tintin...

I was introduced to Asterix books as a student by a Welsh-speaking friend (who said the word-play in the Welsh translations were as good, if not better, than the English versions).

I'd never seen them before, and couldn't believe how they'd created an entire, logical world with such rigorous graphical attention to detail, yet still managed to go beyond that and include that joyful, slapstick violence and humour, so that soon you took the drawings for granted.

After I'd worked my way through the lot, someone said I might like the Tintin books. But although individual Tintin frames are things of beauty (lending themselves nicely to all sorts of marketable products) I find the stories so earnest and boring I struggle to finish one, and I've never wanted to own the books, while I have almost a complete collection of Asterix. It's Asterix for me, every time.

(Mind you, the last one, Le ciel lui tombe sur la tête, is rubbish.)

[Amor de Cosmos]

Judge Me by My Favourite Children's Books

I remember the flipper incident. I wonder what kind of teacher Anthony Buckeridge was? Well liked I suspect, but effective too?

[Gangster Octopus]

Judge Me by My Favourite Children's Books

Count me in with the William and Jennings books. I never really got on with Bunter, it seemed to much as though it was from a different planet.

[Ginger Yellow]

Judge Me by My Favourite Children's Books

Asterix for me, partly because my parents made me read Tintin in French to improve my language skills, whereas I read a lot more Asterix in English. Also because I could never get past the fact that the villains would almost always have got away with their cunning plans if just they hadn't tried to kill Tintin. He's really not a very good reporter.

[Andy C]

Judge Me by My Favourite Children's Books

Even when very young I could tell that the quality of writing of AA Milne and Kenneth Grahame was a cut above. And I reckon that Norman Hunter (when not chewing on the odd tibia) was pretty adroit, too, in the Professor Branestawm books.

One book that I recall reading several times over was The Red House Boys by John Sweet - I'd like to get hold of a copy now to see if I can still detect whatever it was that I found so entertaining about it.

And another supporter of Jennings and Just William here, too.