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I read voraciously as a child. I was always losing myself in other worlds. Here are the four top stories, out of many, that helped shaped my childhood imagination:

The Hobbit
Read to me when I was eight. I heard the story before I read it for myself, and I already knew it off by heart. It thrilled, captivated and enchanted me. The world it led me into was like a dark mysterious forest full of mysteries ... I loved Bilbo - he was so funny! - and pitied Gollum. Even as a child, I sensed the huge horizons beyond this story ... the Great War of the Third Age beckoned, and the long-ago forests of Beleriand. All because Miss Nye read this tale to us every afternoon, and ended each story-telling session on a nail-biting cliffhanger. The world Tolkien opened up for me was ancient, yet strangely familiar. It also goes to show how deeply his work is rooted in the oral story-telling tradition ... all his work is wonderful read aloud, with a deep rhythm of its own.

The Chronicles of Narnia
Another Oxford don who could spin a magical tale ... seven of them, in fact. I absolutely loved Narnia. It is a sign of how much affection I have for CS Lewis's wonderful stories that I am feeling hyper-critical about the upcoming movie (I liked the trailer, but have reservations about the White Witch). As an adult reader, I can find Lewis problematic, stylistically (his 1950s English kids swear like Edwardians, his avuncular tone can grate and sometimes he allows his politics to intrude), but that doesn't detract from the fact that he was a marvellous storyteller. 'The Voyage of the Dawn Treader', 'The Silver Chair' and 'The Last Battle' are perhaps my favourites, but all the stories have wonderful moments.

The 'Little House' books by Laura Ingalls Wilder
A huge influence on my imagination. Ingalls Wilder is not exactly a feminist writer, but Laura in girlhood was a great role model: independent, feisty, hard-working, determined. The books provide a fascinating social history of an American pioneering family - Ingalls Wilder seems to have total memory recall. Wonderful, inspiring books, leading me not into a fantasy world, but America's Wild West.

Anne of Green Gables
Probably the most likable heroine of that particular genre. Much less saccharine than Pollyanna or the fascinating but rather preachy 'Little Women'. Anne was the fictional heroine I identified with most: the lonely orphan with a vivid imagination. It's a gorgeously heart-warming story, beautifully written - Lucy Maud Montgomery makes Prince Edward Island sound like Paradise.

I loved Kevin Sullivan's decidedly non-purist TV adaptation of the first four Anne books, in the late 1980s, with Megan Follows as Anne. I thought she was a perfect Anne, but my mega-purist, Anne-loving aunt raved and ranted like Wildwood about the production.

As an adult reader, I am far more critical of the rest of the series. Poor Anne, she just gets boring once she's married and has six kids. Sheesh. And a somewhat reactionary attitude pervades the last of the books, about Anne's youngest daughter, 'Rilla of Ingleside'.

The first Anne book is far and away the best.

Good idea, Di.

The Hobbit
My mum read it to me when I was eight. I was hooked, literally from the first sentence. I thought it was the coolest thing ever, and would beg for more each night. When we finished it, she wouldn't read it to me again, so I read it for myself.

The Dark is Rising,
A quintilogy by Susan Cooper. I was given the first book, Over Sea, Under Stone, by a neighbor when I was six or seven. This might have been my first fantasy, and I loved it. In it, there are a circle of immortals who protect the world from the Dark, and for years I was convinced, beyond any doubt, that I was one of them. Clearly, I'm not. But that never stopped me from trying out their powers as described. . .

Ditto what you said for Anne of Green Gables and Little House on the Prairie.

I enjoyed Narnia, however I never got all the way through. I had gotten to The Silver Chair when I lent Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader to a friend. For some reason, I stopped there and decided that I wasn't going to read Narnia all the way through until I had my complete set again. I did enjoy what I read, though I just couldn't get into The Horse and His Boy. . .

Lastly is an author, Bruce Coville. He wrote the first SF book I ever read, when I was six. It was called Aliens Flunked the Planet, and it's a lot deeper than it sounds. I still have my first copy. I absolutely loved his books, and they started me on my love of SF. One of the highlights of the last Boskone was getting to meet him.

Yep, that's all I can think of.

Anne of Green Gables/Anne of Avonlea/etc and the 'Little House' books here too. I remember my mom used to read Anne of Green Gables to me before bed and I'd have to keep poking her as she'd be falling asleep.

Some more...Misty of Chincoteague, Stormy Misty's Foal, Sea Star, King of the Wind, Black Gold...all of the horse stories by that author whom I cannot remember the name of at the moment. After reading Misty of Chincoteague, I always wanted to go down to Chincoteague and Assateague to see the wild horses (which I did get to).

When I last visited my father, I was able to snatch away two books out of his shelves stored as "the kids's stuff, to be thrown away if they don't care for it". Those were:

Tales of gods and heroes of the classic antiquity by Kurt Schwab. And German tales of gods and heroes by the same author.
Both books were solid, canvas-bound works of about 800 pages each, thick pages, necessarily so because I thumbed them through backwards and forwards over and over again. They were, in fact, the first books I remember reading, and reading before I could read, as there were illustrations here and there - but what illustrations! Not comic-style or child-friendly, but realistic pen-drawings in the "German" and blacl-and-white woodcuts ind the "Classic" book.
Their contents are the tales mentioned in the titles, the re-told stories of the Iliad, the seven against Thebes, Herakles, Odyssey, the Edda, song of Gudrun, Parcival, Dietrich, and the Nibelungs.
The stories of murder and wonder impressed me much, as well as the illustrations which I tried to copy. I still cannot do coloured drawings today.

Off the top of my head:

Tales of the Arabian Nights
Wind in the Willows
Watership Down
The Hobbit

Each captured my imagination in ways nothing else ever had before. There were many others of course, but these are the ones that stand out more than any others.

Alatar

Um, Winnie the Pooh (I believe) and the Dark Crystal. My parents used to read that to me over and over and over and the funny part is that I've never seen the movie.

Rune, it's Margeurite Henry. Nice photos of the wild horses!

I have an inscribed hardcover copy of "Stormy, Misty's Foal." She was the first real author I ever met, and I remember being astonished that she looked like my grandmother. I had envisioned a tall, slim woman about twenty years old with long brown hair in a ponytail and dressed in jeans, who went everywhere on horseback. (I was seven.)

I loved those books, and Walter Farley's "Black Stallion" books (although they got bizarre in the late going), and earlier all Dr. Seuss. I loved H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds"—I checked it out of the elementary school library over and over. "A Wrinkle in Time" was a favorite, and the Heinlein juveniles—I read "Starship Troopers" at 8 and read it many times, but as soon as I found "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel," that took over. A geeky, brainy 11-year-old girl—there weren't many of those in kid literature at the time.

Oh, and Alcott, especially "Little Women." I still revisit that one.

I remember loving the Frog and Toad books when I was a kid. They were the first "real" books I read...or at least that's what I thought. I didn't want to count the kiddie Golden Books that were only 10-15 pages long.

As for later I remember liking Hatchet, Beauty (such a tear jerker!), and Jack London books like The Call of the Wild. White Fang was another good one.

I remember being forced to read some of the Chronicles of Narnia in 5th grade and I really disliked it. I should give them another go now that I'm older. I think being forced to read books in school made me already have a bad taste for them unfortunately.

When I was really little there were a couple of books

One Was the Big Red Fire Engine
The Other was one of theCzech Mole Stories.

Then I really went to Narnia in a Big Way, started off with Prince Caspian, I was really lucky we still had my Dad's books and they were inspiring writers Gunby Haddeth and all, after that it was on to Ronald Welch and his Carey family stories, before moving on to Alfred Duggan - the only "classics" I like as a child were real classics, Suetonius, Plutarch

Eborr, so you also know the Mole stories by Zdenek Miler? I've still got two Mole books from my childhood - "How the Mole got trousers" and "How the Mole got a car". I loved them.

I don't remember myself but, my parents have told me that, I never got enough of a book called "Three Little Kittens". They still have the book somewhere.

At the time of my keenness of horses and riding, I loved Ruby Ferguson's "Jill" books about a girl and her ponies and horses. There was also a book called "Black Tiger" about the friendship between a cowboy and his horse that I read a gazillion times; I just don't remember who was the author of it.

And, of course, the "Anne of Green Gables" and "Emily Starr" series were a must.

All the other childhood favourites of mine were Finnish books that wouldn't say anything to anyone else.

Am I one of the rare people who haven't read Anne of Green Gables?

Eru - yes. Actually, I read Anne as an adult for the first time, and enjoyed it immensely. It does get repetitive and a bit preachy in the later books but I think the second book was my favorite. The part where Anne sells the cow had me in stitches.

Rowanberry - I adore Mole books!

To add to the list:
Astrid Lindgren's books - Pippy Longstockings, Ronia Robber's Daughter, and my absolute favorite, the hilarious Karlsson-on-the-Roof, which sadly is out of print in the US.

Kipling - Mowgly and other Jungle Stories, and for the older kids Kim and Captains Courageous. I still reread them. Kim especially has passages of absolutely gorgeous writing. High adventure, exotic background - what more could a kid want.

Though Frelga already mentioned her, Astrid Lindgren's books have absolutely dominated my childhood... Ronja the Robbers' daugther...Children of Noisy Village... and the lovely yet dark fantasy "The Brothers Lionheart".

Narnia as well. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe being the most prominent mention. I watched the bbc miniseries in Poland... boy did that seem magical back then!

Plus countless Polish favourites that would mean nothing to most people here

I also read comic books as a kid... but European ones... mainly French-Belgian ones... some of those were lovely. I dont remember the title now but my favourite one was set in some medievalesque magical fantasy land and the hero was a little boy with a big bear guy and a tiny fluttering thing for sidekicks... the boy's love interest was Wrozka Sliweczka... a young girl sorceress... Rodia, do you remember the title/author? I loved those books... have to bring them back from Poland on next trip back.

I barely remember most of what I read as a child. The Narnia books, defiately, and The Hobbit.

And Elinor M Brent Dyer's Chalet School stories...recently I discovered that the friend of a childhood friend is doing her thesis on these, and I've been rediscovering them.

Another one I just thought of... Matilda. I always wished I had her powers.

People here have already mentioned Astrid Lindgren, but I'll do it again: Astrid Lindgren.

I also want to say a few words about Selma Lagerlöf, the author of The Wonderful Adventures of Nils (Nils Holgerssons underbara resa genom Sverige). The book it amazing. My mother read it for me and my sister, and we wanted more, more, MORE! Poor mum... We made her read when we were supposed to go to bed, when she had work to do, when we were out driving (which made her sick...). We even made a little song that we sang every time we wanted to hear more about poor, lucky little Nils:

Holgersson, we want Holgersson!
Holgersson, Holgersson,
HOLGERSSON!

Dad read me The Hobbit when I was about four, and again at about six or seven. I don't know what exactly constitutes childhood, but when I was ten The Lord of the Rings had a spectacular effect on me.

Rowanberry, I've still got a few Jill books. I didn't adore them, but I liked them well enough to buy them every time I trawled the second-hand bookshops.

His Dark Materials. I started on Northern Lights when I must have been nine and read them as they were released. Awesome bloody stuff.

And I liked Enid Blyton so much I apparently went through a 'Jolly Hockeysticks' phase, which must have been amusing in Inner Bristol.

Great thread Di!

*~Pips~*

Whoa.
So many of you are sooooooo much younger than me!!! As a mom and a teacher, it's good to hear that recent books (hey.......at least recent to me ) like Matilda and Hatchet are included in your favourites lists.

I actually believe that the quality and variety of children's literature has improved greatly over the past couple of decades. I really think my own kids and the kids that I teach have a far better selection of books to choose from than I ever did.

As for my personal favourites from long ago and far away:

Although Anne of Green Gables gets all the attention, L.M. Montgomery wrote anothers series called Emily of New Moon which will always have the "number one" place of affection in my heart. I identified far more with the quiet, reserved heroine of the "Emily" books, who had a mysterious gift of "second sight", and wanted to become a writer when she grew up. It's interesting to note that "Emily" was far closer to the real Lucy Maud in circumstance and character than Anne. She rang very true to me when I was ten years old, and she still does.

Another wonderful series that I truly loved is rather obscure as well: The Magic books by Edward Eager. I think there are five or six books in all, each about a different kind of "magic" experienced by different kids in different times, but many of them tie together in some way or another (the kids in one book are the children of the grown-up kids who had adventures in another book........that sort of thing). Does anybody else know this series? It really is quite clever.

And count me as one of the many girls who sw00ned for Misty of Chincoteague. I spent an entire summer drawing horses, researching horses, nagging my mom to let me learn to ride horses..............I had a brief and exhilarating time staying at a ranch doing just that........until I got bucked off "Big Red" and broke my arm............but even that was cool!!

edited to fix a glaring spelling error

Oh dear, my childhood seems so long ago and soooo far away.
Still, I can remember always reading.

"Got her nose stuck in a book again" my mother would say.

Anna Sewell's 'Black Beauty'
Enid Blyton's Famous Five Series.
The Biggles books written by Captain W.E. Johns
Swallows and Amazon by Arthur Ransome
The Swish of The Curtain, Pamela Brown.
Lots of World War II books, Colditz Story, The Wooden Horse.
Narnia, especially 'The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe' which I tried to hand-copy before it went back to the library. I gave up after about six pages when my hand cramped.

By age 10 I was raiding my mother's bookshelf. Gone With The Wind. I loved that book. Idolized Scarlett O'Hara. I got the green eyes, never got the 17 inch waist. Had a couple of Rhett's in my life, though.

I read my mom's copy of Gone With The Wind too, Sass!
But you were more precocious than I...............my twelfth birthday had passed before I ventured into that enticingly thick book! But the "grown up" book I remember most vividly from later childhood was The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck. God, I loved that story.