General Chat

Sylvia I used to read the Chalet School books :-)

I always had a library ticket when ever we lived near a library, if not it used to be books from jumble sales. I think it was in the Isle of Man we came home from one with a big pile of Bunty and Judy annuals , and 'Look & learn' magazines. :-) Bliss lol.

I hadn't realised how long the Chalet series went on for , nor that they were being re-printed until I googled them just now

I also hadn't realised that Dennis Wheatley books were being re-issued!

My Father was a reader/reviser for Express so I always had the Rupert annuals (which I loved).

No comics allowed...I was subscribed to 'look and learn' and 'bible stories' as per his instructions.

Enid Blyton was approved..lolol he had a fit when my first study book aged 11 was 'lord of the rings'.

I had moved to live with my sister before he would have discovered that Ulysses was on the list. He would have been apoplectic :-D

My kids read everything age appropriate, we had about 800 books at home.

My grandkids read in both Welsh and English and as long as their imagination is captured the story line can be as daft as anything.

They do have a fascination with medical procedures though which makes me laugh when you hear the 4 year old narrating the surgical pictures. None of you would ever visit a hospital again.

I think, because I had to live in my mother's imaginary world whilst trying to keep in touch with reality, I have hardly read any fiction.

Some I have had to read but, the only author of whose books I can say I have read any number for pleasure is John Steinbeck.

Generally, if I have read biography it is for escapism and I have read a lot of Miss Read and Margaret Powell.

I taught myself to read before I went to school - though possibly 'helped' by my sister (nearly 5 years older) insisting on playing schools - which is probably why I could always count to 5 in Welsh (sister's first school was in Wales).

As for children's programmes, I watched Bill & Ben, and AndyPandy (I thought Andy was a girl) :-S But my favourite programme was 'The Woodentops'.
I disliked Enid Blyton books, and avoided any books about boarding school!
When I was 5, my brothers went to boarding school, and didn't like it.
Mind you it was probably a lot different to the 'average' boarding school, it was the Royal Hospital school Holbrook, near Ipswich. A school for (at the time) sons of Naval personnel, and was run like a ship.
If I was naughty, my mum threatened to send me there :-(

I was forced, at school to read the 'Janet & John' books - sometimes more than once, as I moved schools.

The first book that got my attention was 'The Red Pony and Other Stories' by Steinbeck, which arrived with the School Libraries Service when I was 8.
Then I found the John Wyndham Books. After that, I tended to read Sci Fi - but wasn't aware it was Sci Fi :-S I didn't think it was real, I just liked the stories.
Then came the Horror Stories. I think I liked them because they were so unreal.
I also 'found' detective stories about this time too.

After about 11 I'd read almost anything, apart from Austen, or Bronte.
I enjoyed Mrs Gaskell, though.

I picked up a Wide Range Readers book at a jumble sale or somewhere like that when I was about eight. It was several levels higher than I was kept on at school and I read it ,no trouble.

There was one story about a road and all the things that it had seen over the centuries and that was what first made me take an interest in history.

That sounds a good book, Sharron :-D

I found that most books that I had to read for school I hated as we read a little then discussed it...now I'd read the same book and love it ... says more about my English masters than the books I'd say.

I dont think Bill &Ben etc had any play in shaping my life.

Read the usual learn to read books,,,,,,,,,,but the first real book was a Mark Twain and was away with Huckleberry Finn.....then Daniel Defoe Robinson Crusoe and read all manner of books from the Library.

I loved Bill and Ben perhaps that's where I got the love for the garden from ;-) :-D. My sister taught me to read from Alice in wonderland before I started school. I detested Janet and John with a passion and refused point blank to lower myself to read them. I can remember Dad being summoned to the school and them telling him I could not read. He produced a decent book and we showed them ;-) :-D :-D. I still read and devour books mainly non fiction these days

" I loved Bill and Ben perhaps that's where I got the love for the garden from. My sister taught me to read from Alice in wonderland before I started school. I detested Janet and John with a passion and refused point blank to lower myself to read them."

And so say all of us. I still have an addiction for 1950s gardening paraphanalia.

I had forgotten Lewis Carrol who posed the very interesting idea to young people that things may not be quite as they were supposed to be. The Red Queen makes it quite clear that authority and rationality are often far apart.

I also omitted Graham Green's defining work on what it means to be British i.e. "the Wind in the Willows". All tv and film versions of this have failed because the book is a dream not objective reality a la Trumpton or the Woodentops.

I never got into Beatrix Potter though my sister did. I thought Christopher Robin was an idiot of the first order. There you go.

As I woujld not take part in painful class reading (if you can call it that ) of "Janet and John" I was allowed to read on my own enyoying such stuff out of the ragged school library as "A Pattern of Islands".

Then there was the day I was caught reading "Le Petit Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in French. I was suspended from school and there was a heck of a row as my father refused to back down. I ended up moving school. Again.

Is there an echo in here :-S

:-D :-D :-D

Don't remember ever having J & J, but maybe a series of reading books graded by the colour, eg 'little orange reader'? Not sure, as one school was in Wales so may have been that but in Welsh.

Which Echo would you like LaG? ;-)

When I was an older child, before going to school I used to read both newspapers delivered to my home. I was usually running for the bus or missing it and, so, I was regularly late. It never bothered me at all because I hated school with a passion.

I can't remember a time when my parents or their offspring never read books but all I have remaining from childhood is Little Women - Mum must have got rid of the lot.

I really like Steinbeck's descriptive text and there's an enjoyable short story (The Wedge-tailed Eagle) by Geoffrey Dutton that is wonderfully descriptive.

There has never been a time that I haven't enjoyed a good read.

Speaking of Echo... 'Echo and the Ferry' poem... My mum read poetry to me, and then I read her poetry books, that she had kept from her school days. :-)

I don't want an Echo Joy. If I wanted something to repeat what I say I'd go to the pet shop and buy a Parrot :-|

Don't under estimate parrots they are highly intelligent creatures as well as being beautiful..

In my eyes they are quite the opposite and lots are disease ridden Psittacosis for a start

Ah, I forgot mallory Towers books. Vera I mentioned the Abbey girls school books but I don't remember the country dancing :-D. I also forgot What Katy did and What Katy did next.

when I stopped reading school stories and branched out into adult books (age about 13/14 I liked Dennis Wheatley, Mazo de La Roche, Neville Shute Daphne Du Maurier and The Robe by Lloyd c Douglas among many others.