so what did you read as a kid????

Katie, I was so amazed by this thread that I´ve re-read all Lindgren´s books I posses this week. They are all still fabulous, however, I slightly disliked Pipi this time. Since I have my 3 yo, I realized that Pipi might have inspired her for telling lies in future.,..:-)))

So many of my favourites have been mentioned here!

I also loved the "Booky" books by Bernice Thurman Hunter and the Madeleine L'Engle "Wrinkle in Time" books.

I'm sure I'll think of more...

John Dennis Fitzgerald's "The Great Brain" series.
Girly stuff like "A Little Princess" and "Secret Garden" by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

christine noelinger if i remember that author's name right -austrian (or german) who wrote a lot about greenpeace. loved her books. became an environmentalist at the age of 7.

Some of my favourites:

Five Children and It

The Magic Faraway Tree

When Marnie was There and A Stitch in Time - both good time-travel stories

Friedrich by Hans Peter Richter - I came across this as a teenager, then read it at least ten times in a row. It's a simply written but very hard-hitting story, set before and during the Holocaust.

The Sherlock Holmes stories

The Little Prince

The Water Babies - I'm glad I read this again. When I was younger I didn't realise how profound and ahead of its time it was.

Does anyone remember the book of an European author. It was one of my favourite childrens books, but I can't remember either the title or the author.
The book was about a girl (Karolina) who found a magic pearl. The pearl could make the girl's wishes come true, but at each time, after every wish, it would get paler, and eventually it (the pearl) would die?
I thought that would be a nice present for my niece.
Anyone?

John Marsden series - 'Tomorrow when the war began' is the only title i can think of off hand but there were about five or six. Asterix and Obelix comics before that.

OP - it was Cherry Ames and I loved her too.

ethelred, you're the first person I've ever spoken with who read Betsy Tacy and Tib - I loved them too. And the "Shoes" ones, including Circus SHoes. They were all by Noel Straitfield, or something like that. I also was never a big "Little House on the Prairie" fan.

One book I loved and read repeatedly was called "Snow Treasure" - not sure who the author was. It was about kids in Norway saving the country's gold supply under Nazi occupation. They'd put it on their sleds, go sailing down the mountain past the bad guys, then build snowmen with the gold bars in their bases. AT night someone would come and knock down the snowmen and get the gold, to take offshore.

No idea if it was based on any fact at all, but I LOVED it.

Also - a Canadian one - a girl who wanted to be a figure skater but her family couldn't afford lessons. Then her grandfather, who'd been a famous skater "in the old country" comes to visit and teaches her. What was the name? I think "skates" was in the title. Anyone know it?

For some reason I liked lots of horse books as a child: the Black Stallion series, and King of the Wind...

I read Nancy Drew and also the Babysitter's Club.

I did like the Little House series, but I never thought of how xenophobic they probably are until later. There is a similar book called The Birchbark House, and a sequel, the Game of Silence, that tell the story of a Native American family. I'd like to get copies of those.

Also liked the Anne of Green Gables series, and some books by Louisa May Alcott (author of Little Women).

I got into reading Jack London and Edgar Allen Poe, too.

This list includes a lot of books I read as a kid - most of the winners from 1936 to 1970 (except the '50s - I only remember 3 of the books from the '50s winners).