Your Favourite Book

Have you ever loved a book so much you think about it  long after you’ve finished it? That you have read, re-read and re-re-read  until the cover falls off and  pages start to flutter out of it when you open it?

What makes a great book? What makes a special book?

What is YOUR desert island book?

The children’s book from my own childhood  that has stayed with me long after I read the last page is Children of Green Knowe by LM Boston. I loved the world it created: a world very different from mine growing up in the Australian country.

When I was a bit older (okay a LOT) older and buying books for my own children my favourite was the wonderful wonderful Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. I loved the way he played with language and words and made jokes and puns about English.

The book I have most enjoyed reading recently has been a toss up between Keeper by Mal Peet (yes, 5/6 I DID cry at the end) and Andrew McGahan’s The Ship Kings.

But what would I take on that desert island now? Ask me, I’ll tell you.

What about YOU? Leave me a reply. I’d love to know.

11 thoughts on “Your Favourite Book

  1. Ive posted Mrs Hogg’s response for her because the spam filter is not playing nicely today.
    When I read your question, the first book that came to mind (a memory dragged from a distant past childhood) was Ivan Southall’s “Ash Road”. A great book for Australian children. However, my memory of it is entwined with the memory of my fabulous Year 5 and 6 teacher who helped us understand how the characters and story had been constructed and the devices used by authors to create high quality fiction. This was a revelation to me – that stories are planned and constructed and crafted… it was a whole new way to appreciate the role of “author” and I suddenly found myself enjoying books for both the story and the opportunity to try to understand how the author had planned it! Thank you, Mr Eagleston! 🙂 
Regards, Mrs Hogg (GRC Penshurst Girls Campus)

  2. When I was really little, there were books called Little Golden Books. I loved one called Quick Draw McGraw. It was about a cowboy horse. When I was older in late primary school I enjoyed science fiction titles such as the Pool of Fire and The Day of the Triffids. Now I love the Scarecrow series, the Eragon series and I am a huge fan of authors such as John Flannagan (rangers apprentice and brotherband) and Emily Rodda (deltora quest and Rowan of Rin).

  3. I liked Seven Little Australians and remember being deeply moved when Jo died. I was also very fond of the Famous Five and the Secret Seven. I liked the short stories of Hans Christian Anderson, and I came to love Edgar Allen Poe and Lovelock etc. I particularly remember a book of called ‘Twisted Tales’, which had an assortment of short stories of the horror genre by masters of the craft. I often wish I still had that book, as several of the stories in there are still etched on my brain. I bought it at a church fete when I was about twelve.

  4. It is very difficult to chose one. The first one I thought of was Hughie (David Martin). it is loosely based on the Freedom Bus Rides to Moree and Walgett. The reason it struck me was because I had never experienced any form of racism, and didn’t know it existed in Australia. It wasn’t until I was older I realised these events happened in Australia. At school (up to Year 12) Aboriginal History was barely taught. We did American History in great detail, and learnt all about Martin Luther King, Malcolm X etc. I have always been resentful that I wasn’t given the chance to learn about what was going on in our own country.

    Another that comes to mind is February Dragon (Colin Thiele). It was the humour and danger that I enjoyed. I read this to my daughters when they were in primary school, and they still talk about how much they enjoyed listening to the story.

    I also enjoyed Ash Road and To The Wild Sky (Ivan Southall). I loved the drama in these stories. They were the books I had to read in a day.

    I read the series of Donna Parker books, while everyone else read Trixie Belden.

    I wish I could go back to those days where I could spend the whole day reading during the holidays!

  5. I was a “reader” as a child, I found new favourites regularly and at a rate of at least a book a day had many that seemed held together more by good luck than their actual bindings. In 5th class some of my favourites were Jane of Lantern Hill by LM Montgomery, Helen Keller’s Teacher by Davidson and The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet by Eleanor Cameron.
    Earlier in primary school I loved Blyton’s Enchanted Wood and Wishing Chair series, Ghosts Who Went to School by Judith Spearing, The Birthday Plan by Elisabeth Batt and Charlotte’s Web by EB White. 
    I had many other favourite re-reads during 5th class; E Nesbit’s books, The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, The BFG by Roald Dahl, Enright’s Gone Away Lake and the Anne, Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden and Famous Five series. 
    I also had favourites from the school library, such as the Little House on the Prairie series, Little Women and Little Men and the What Katy Did series and many others whose names I forget but whose stories are etched on my soul.
    By year 6 I preferred science fiction, non-fiction or based on true life stories and was reading War of the Worlds, Diary of Anne Frank, I am David, Animal Farm, All Quiet on the Western Front, Nineteen Eighty Four and Gerald Durrell’s books in amongst other, more factual, reads about space, science and the history and myths of Pompeii, Egypt and Greece.
    I don’t think it really matters what you prefer to read, as long as you do read and your choice allows your imagination to flourish and opens your eyes to the world… it’s also good to put the book down and go to sleep sometimes!
    Happy reading Timbumburi!

  6. From a young age I enjoyed the Famous Five books, and another that really made an impact on me was The Neverending Story (translated from an original German novel interestingly enough, and also my first experience of “the book was so much better than the movie!”)

    Another that made a huge impact on me was a series of books by Canadian author Gordon Korman. They were fun breezy kid novels (middle grade now I suppose), but the more important thing was how I saw him as a writer — he had his first novel published at 14, and had 3-4 published by the time he’d finished high school. Needless to say, reading a young author this young was quite an influence on me 🙂

  7. A book that I got when I was ten, loved and still have is Tolkien’s The Hobbit. I was with my mother on a trip to Brisbane, just her and me, and we went to a bookshop and she said I could choose a book. I read it all the way home on the train.
    I think that books are often tied up in your memories at the time when you read the book. Consequently one of our favourite book series in our family is Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series. I read these aloud over several months to my whole family and I think the shared experience is why we love it so much. We will often be in a museum and one of my children will suddenly say “Laura would have had that!”.

  8. There are so many titles mentioned here that I loved as a child, and even some that I’d forgotten about. I read Enid Blyton’s Magic Faraway Tree series many, many times, and enjoyed introducing my children to it more recently. I also read and reread The Secret Garden and I couldn’t get enough of Little Women and Little Men. Seven Little Australians was another favourite. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy will hold a special place forever, and is a book I could quote more of than any other!

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