Which books did you love reading as a child?

The stories of Mary Plain by Gwynedd Rae – a little bear born in the Bearpit at Berne in Switzerland who is found and adopted by a man she calls The Owl Man because of the glasses he wears, and she is taken by him on a journey including a stay in a hotel where she also meets The Fur Coat Lady. Other favourite books in my childhood were Astrid Lindgren’s Pippi Longstocking, Dodie Smith's The Hundred and One Dalmations, Norton Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth and Norman Lindsay’s The Magic Pudding, an Australian children’s story, as well as Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat. All of these books I thought witty, brilliant and imaginative. The adventure stories of Enid Blyton were among my top favourites too. And certain beloved books I have read over and over again: Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis, Heidi by Joanna Spyri, The Little Princess and The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery, What Katy Did and What Katy Did at School by Susan Coolidge. Among the most thrilling books I'ver ever read is King Solomon's Mines by Rider Haggard. I also enjoyed the books of Monica Dickens: e. g. My Turn to Make the Tea and the stories of how she tried her hand at a career in nursing and a career as a new reporter. Again I found her a very funny writer, and one who described her experiences in ways I could identify with. In addition poetry was very important to me, especially the poems of Walter De La Mare and narrative poems like The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes and The Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. I have long loved Shakespeare’s sonnets and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Later I discovered the Liverpool Poets – Roger McGough, Brian Patten and Adrian Henri. I admired their poetry in print and at public readings.