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.)

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

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.

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.

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.

Been trying to get the impettes into Jennings and William, but though they try to be vaguely amused for my benefit (given that I keep laughing as I read them), they're not what I'd call converts. The standard of writing in both is outstanding, in a very pooterish, English way. Still, at least I'm getting a kick out of them.

I was very keen on the Danny Dunn series for one school year, either third or fourth grade. I read all 15 of them that year.

Danny and his friends Irene and Joe would get up to all sorts of adventures, scrapes and shenanigans with the professor/inventor who boarded in Danny and his mother's house.

It would be interesting to read them again. They were written from the mid fifties through the mid 1970s, so the science and technology presented as futuristic would now seem either very primative or prescient or both.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Dunn

I swear to God that Anthony Buckeridge was my favourite author until I was well into my twenties.

I'd have given anything in my early teens to go to public school, and realised my dreams of derring-do adventures after lights out (steady!), playing cricket on lush green fields and plenty of Latin vocab.

Wizard!

My favourite kids' book was Sword in the Stone, which has remained my favourite telling of the Arthur tale. I also like A Kid for Two Farthings, although I'd be hard pressed now to give a synopsis, but I read it loads of times as a fledgling teenager.

Also all the Michael Hardcastle footy books, which allowed me to fantasise that I was actually any good at the game, transposing myself into the lead characters' roles.

Unfortunately, my kids don't seem to be particularly into reading, and I'm struggling to get them to put aside their Nintendos and Play Stations and pick up a book, even though I buy ones that I think will appeal to them.

Wow. I'd forgotten all about Tootles The Taxi. The memories come flooding back.

Mine were Charlie & The Chocolate Factory and Danny The Champion Of The World. I never got on with James & The Giant Peach. The Twits was pretty good, though.

Should I ever be given a pile of dead racehorses as part of someone's will, I'll start a company called "Hugtight Sticky Glue".

As a child I enjoyed the William books, the Professor Branestawm books, the Arabel's Raven books, Winnie the Pooh, Roald Dahl's stuff, and Thomas the Tank Engine.

As a father I cannot say enough good things about the worksof Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler. I can recite "Room on the Broom" by heart, and the Gruffalo is pretty good too (they may have jumped the shark slightly with the Gruffalo's Child though).

ad hoc wrote:

QUOTE:

As a father I cannot say enough good things about the worksof Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler. I can recite "Room on the Broom" by heart, and the Gruffalo is pretty good too (they may have jumped the shark slightly with the Gruffalo's Child though).

Totally and utterly agree with all that. And don't forget "The Smartest Giant in Town" and "The Snail and the Whale", both of which add greatly to their canon. I must admit that I had high expectations of "The Gruffalo's Child", but it failed to live up to the high standards they'd set in their other books.

Others that my kids absolutely love include We're Going on a Bear Hunt, Peep-o, and Where's My Teddy. All top-notch stuff.

My all time favourite by a country mile is This Time of Darkness by H.M. Hoover.
It was dark and compelling whn I was a kid. I re-read it recently and it's as good as I remember. Really distopian but rewarding none the less. It's like 1984 with a happy ending.

I'm with Gramsci all the way on this thread. Check out the book bit on my profile. And although I loved Asterix, Tintin is my homeboy. Red Rackham's Treasure was, I think, the first I read, and I was hooked after that. I still am. I want to buy them all again for if and when I have kids.

Also a big shout out to Roald Dahl. Danny Champion of the World and Matilda especially. I love the strong anti-authoritarian undercurrents in them. Pure underdog fairy-tales. And better than anything that's fallen out of the pen of J.K. Rowling.

I remember getting The Witches and sitting on a beanbag to read it all in one sitting. Magical.

Good shout on The Hounds of the Morrígan, Toro.

as well as CS Lewis, Arthur Ransome, E.E. Nesbit and Roald Dahl I was a big fan of Philippa Pearce, especially Tom's Midnight Garden, and Frances Hodgson Burnett (A Little Princess is great). A more modern classic series is The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper. For younger children, A.A. Milne is incomparable, and Peter Pan is great.

I confess a terrible weakness in this regard though. I collect antiquarian illustrated children's books from c.1900-c.1939. A rash and costly hobby for someone as perennially skint as I am.

My favourite illustrators: Rackham, Dulac, and more recently Jan Piekowski.