<p>I think I read just about everything Noel Streatfeild wrote (Ballet Shoes author) including her adult books. Other favorites from my childhood were Arthur Ransome, Madeleine L’Engle, Edward Eager and E. Nesbit.</p>
<p>In addition to the American horse books I read a fair number of British ones like the ones by the Pullein-Thompson sisters and Ruby Furgeson (Jill had two Ponies)</p>
<p>I’ve driven across the country three times, but still haven’t managed to do the route that would take me through Laura Ingalls Wilder country. :(</p>
<p>I know this is OT but when one of my Ss spent his Jr. year of H.S. in France his French sister was hooked on “Little House on the Prairie” and watched it every day after school. It was weird to see it when we visited. I really wanted to like the series on TV but, like Gone With the Wind, I had my own vision and the screen images conflicted with how I had pictured everything in my mind’s eye.</p>
<p>Five Little Peppers fan here! Loved it. I remember them searching the house for a scrap of paper to re-use and contrast that with our kids who have any kind of paper they want, and they only write on one side of it!</p>
<p>I sometimes like to re-read The Long Winter in January when it’s blizzardy outside. </p>
<p>When I was young I also read a couple of Bobbsey Twins books and Campfire Girls, that had belonged to my aunt. They dated from the 30s! I think they would seem very odd to kids now.</p>
<p>Strawberry Girl is a good one I discovered when my D was of an age to read it.</p>
<p>I had all the Bobbsey Twins books…and thought of them recently when I met a couple named Nan and Bert. I didn’t really enjoy them but my dad haunted used book shops and had fun collecting the series. He also bought the Elsie Dinsmore books…what a prig she was! I have a lot of my childhood books still but when I helped my mom with a garage sale I found she was selling some of mine that she had brought with her through several moves. I don’t understand why she didn’t give them to me or offer them to my children. I don’t know what she sold before I got there. Mom sold her mink coat for $75 when my D didn’t own and couldn’t afford a winter coat when she moved up north after college.</p>
<p>Oh, the Herriott books–they were SO wonderful. I also go back to Little Women and anything Jane Austen. I love romance at this time of year–romantic images like snowy English countrysides with a warm fire and a toddy…sigh…</p>
<p>In about 8th grade my D read Little Women, and Little Men, and then also Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom because she thought anything Alcott wrote must be worth reading! The latter two were disappointments to her, but she didn’t like to give up so read them to the end.</p>
<p>Really? *Eight Cousins *and especially Rose in Bloom are my favorite Alcott books. In fact I liked Rose in Bloom so much I made it the focus of a paper I wrote for a women’s history class I took in college.</p>
<p>There are four books in the Melendy quartet: The Saturdays, The Four-Story Mistake, Then There Were Five, and Spiderweb for Two. My favorite when I was younger was the last, but now I like the first one best.</p>
<p>mathmom - D has the Melendy quartet, though to my knowledge, she has never read any of them. I haven’t read those either - just Enright’s Gone Away Lake books. They were favorites of mine when I was growinig up, and D refused to read those too. I should read the Melendy quartet if I can find them on her bookshelves!</p>
<p>I just finished “The Long Winter” at my in-laws’ house this morning. My MIL started cooking bacon, just when the Boasts arrived at the door for Christmas in May with a lump of butter as a present. Perfect timing.</p>
<p>A local author wrote one of my favorite holiday themed kids books
( she also wrote The Egg and I, which were the inspiration for the film starring Fred Mac Murray and Claudette Colbert and then the Ma and Pa Kettle movies- & is hilarious)
[Betty</a> MacDonald Farm - Books](<a href=“http://www.bettymacdonaldfarm.com/bmf/books.html]Betty”>Betty MacDonald Farm - Books)
<p>I loved Little House. I always had the impression that more girls than boys read it though… to the extent that when I was in third grade I often didn’t want to be caught in public reading it! (On the other hand, in third grade I also investigated Babysitter’s Club – nothing particularly meritworthy but it wasn’t bad reading material. The elementary school version of an airport novel, I guess.)</p>
There was a british movie made of Ballet Shoes a long time ago. I remember seeing it at least 30 years ago. I loved Ballet Shoes (with Pauline, Petrova and Posy!), also Circus Shoes and Skating Shoes!!!</p>
<p>Oh yes I do. It was my first chapter book (in my life!) that I dug into lol. Probably marked my transition to standard English fluency. Although the books after #19 were the same thing afterwards… when I was younger I used to wonder how they could produce books after her death. (I thought they kept on discovering new long lost notes lol.)</p>