The staff at West Didsbury CE tell us what their favourite book was when they were younger.

Mrs Sheehan

When I was younger my favourite books to read were the Malory Towers series by Enid Blyton. Malory Towers was a boarding school in Cornwall and the books were filled with the adventures that the girls had while they were away from home. They had midnight feasts, an outdoor swimming pool and put on school plays which all sounded fantastic. I am just reading them again with my daughter and she’s enjoying them just like I did when I was 7 years old! 

 

Mrs Dunn

I was a real bookworm as a child and loved to read The Famous Five Books by Enid Blyton. I loved the fact that the dog was called Timmy which was also my brother’s name. I also have a very strong memory of snuggling up with my mum every night while she read a story from a big book of short stories. Even though they were often repeated, I still enjoyed listening to the stories over and over again.

 

Miss Baines

My absolute favourite books as a child we’re The Magic Faraway Tree books by Enid Blyton. I loved the exciting characters like Moon Face, Silky the Fairy and Saucepan Man and the adventures the children had with them to different lands at the top of the tree.  Most of all I looked forward to all the amazing descriptions of food that they had, from fabulous picnics to the magic pop biscuits that Silky used to make. At the end of each adventure there was always a thrilling ride home down the slippery slip slide, through the trunk of the tree. Even though I knew it was coming I loved this part and used to dream of being able to have a go!

Mrs Jamodu

I have always enjoyed reading and when I was little I loved reading the Enid Blyton Faraway Tree stories. My absolute favourite book as a child though was called ‘Corduroy’. It’s about a teddy bear that that tries to find his lost button in the department store he lives in and the girl who becomes his friend. It’s a lovely book that teaches you about the value of friendship being more important than how you look.

When I was little what I loved most about it was when my Dad read it to me at night time and used to do all of the character voices. When I had my first little boy, Tobi, my Dad wrapped up the copy for me that he’d kept and gave it to me to read to him. I have enjoyed reading it to my boys and also to the children in school. I don’t do the voices as well as my Dad though! 😊

Mrs Lau

My favourite stories to read when I was younger were the Jaqueline Wilson stories. I had a lot of the collection and I always read them at every opportunity I had. They also inspired me to write my own short stories in my spare time. I loved reading and writing, it was my hobby. The Jacqueline Wilson stories helped me to use my imagination and create new characters for my own stories! 

Miss Thompson

I loved reading about naughty children... one of my favourites was Naughty Amelia Jane by Enid Blyton. When I was in Year 3 we made puppets of our favourite character on World Book Day - here's mine!

 

 

Mrs Large

One of my favourite books was Ramona the Brave by Beverley Clearly.

Ramona was an awesome girl who had an over active imagination. She was impulsive and got into lots of scrapes. She once went to school wearing her PJs under her uniform as she wanted to be like the firemen who woke up when on shift and jumped into their uniform to fight fires. She also once wasted a whole tube of toothpaste by squeezing it on the sink by making pretty patterns with it. That is still an ambition of mine... to squeeze the whole tube out!

I was an absolute bookworm... I loved books and could read when the Hoover was on-nothing put me off a good book. I loved all of Enid Blyton’s books, particularly the ‘Mystery of ...’ series of books.

A proud achievement was earning my Gold Silver and Bronze enamel badges for the library awards. I had to read 10 books and review them for bronze, followed by another 15 for Silver and another 25 for Gold totalling 50 books and reviews in all!

Mrs Taylor

When I was a little girl, we didn’t have Roald Dahl books to read. Can you imagine that? I loved reading everything especially classics like The Secret Garden and What Katy Did (Jacqueline Wilson has written a great modern version of this). My favourite book has always been The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The children are such normal realistic characters (as you can see I was a bossy big sister like Susan), but then have such magical amazing adventures. It has a brilliant good versus evil battle with a happy ending - what more could you want in a good book?

 

 

Mrs Jones

One of my earliest memories as a child is role playing my favourite book ‘The Tiger Who Came to Tea’. My brother, who is older than me, always got to be the Tiger and I was Sophie. I loved all the beautiful illustrations in the book and I loved that the Tiger made such a mess in Sophie’s house. It was the first book I bought for my daughter when she was born.

I enjoyed all of the books written by Judith Kerr especially the ones about Mog the Cat. I am so glad that all these books are still available today for children to read as they are timeless.

 

Mr Briggs

I can’t imagine ever loving a book as much as I do ‘Danny the Champion of the World’.  When I was in Year 3, Mrs Topcoat was my teacher and she read it to us. She had the best voices and expressions ever when reading this story.  She had big glasses and her eyes looked huge behind them! 

 

Miss Chapman

I always loved reading books when I was a child and I still do today. When I was in Reception, I really enjoyed reading the story Elmer by David McKee. When I was a little girl, Elmer taught me that you should love yourself and be proud of who you are. I learnt that it is okay to be different and we should celebrate our differences because that is what makes us unique. My favourite part is when all of the elephants are happy at the end of the story because Elmer shows his true colours. I now really enjoy reading Elmer to my Reception class. 

 

Mrs Phoenix

As a child I loved to read. On hot, sunny days I would be curled up on the sofa devouring my latest discovery, whilst my mum would be trying to get me to go out and play. It is difficult to pick a favourite book- I read lots of Enid Blyton, the Noel Streatfield ballet books, Heidi, Little Women, Tom’s Midnight Garden and The Secret Garden. One of my favourites was A Little Princess, I would imagine it was me! I also adored fairy tales. Escaping to a different world made lockdown much easier to bear for me. If you have a book you always have a friend!

 

Mrs Porteous

I loved reading and being read to when I was little. Anything where there were magical characters or settings like The Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton sparked my imagination. The Enid Blyton books didn’t have many colourful illustrations back then but I still remember being able to picture the lantern-lit woods at nights, be able to taste the pop cakes and toffee shocks and feel how exciting it was to slide down the slippery-slip. It took me to another world and I read it again and again!

 

Mrs Davidson

I have always been a bit obsessed with books and reading, even when I was a little girl. I used to love summer holidays when we would go on adventures in our campervan, and my Dad would read us a chapter book every night. But I think my favourite book was probably The Adventures of Paddington. My teddy and I were inseparable, so I found the idea of a real talking bear quite exciting! Of course, we all know Paddington through the films these days, but I still have my original copy of Paddington on my bookshelf today!

 

 

Mr Roberts

When I was little I actually didn’t enjoy reading. I used to try lots of different books and genres but I got bored quite quickly and I used to skip chunks to try and finish them more quickly! It wasn’t until Year 4 when my teacher – Mr Hamer – spent some extra time to find me a book he thought I’d enjoy. It was called The Silver Sword by Ian Serrallier. He read the first chapter and asked me to read the rest at home. I loved the story and it was the first chapter book I read from cover to cover. From then on I loved reading and it transformed how much I enjoyed school and how well I did in lessons. If it wasn’t for Mr Hamer I know that I wouldn’t have done as well throughout high school and university and I possibly wouldn’t be a teacher today. And it was all because he found me a great book. So if you haven’t found a book like that yet – keep looking!

 

 

Mrs Bull

My absolute favourite childhood reads have got to be Mandy by Julie Andrews (Mary Poppins!) and The Secret Island by Enid Blyton. They are tied favourites and the only children’s books that I have reread many times. They share a similar theme of independence; an adventure story that involves making a home and surviving without adults. Growing and building everything yourself in secret with ingenuity and creativity. The kind of book that you are sad to finish as you feel you will never read something as good ever again!

 

 

Miss Pennington

When I was younger, my favourite book changed every week! One book I remember loving was Billy and the Minpins by Roald Dahl. It was actually the last book he wrote before he died. I read it with my Dad at bedtime and then we had a cassette tape of it that we listened to in the car. I can still here the last paragraph read out loud; "And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places."