I vigorously second the Nesbit, and the Gammage Cup, and Eager, LM Boston, Elizabeth Pope, and, oh my yes, Beyond the Pawpaw Trees (and its sequel!) - I loved them when I was young & it has been so much fun watching my kids discover them.
Less well-known favorites:
Eleanor Farjeon - Martin Pippin in the Daisy Field (and in the Apple Orchard) delighted me when I was small - and her Glass Slipper and Silver Curlew were the first modern fairy tale retellings I can remember reading.
Rumer Godden's doll stories - especially Miss Happiness & Miss Flower and its sequel Little Plum.
KM Briggs's Kate Crackernuts was a later discovery than the Farjeon, but equally loved.
I think Nancy Bond's best two books were Another Shore and Voyage Begun. I had to struggle to track these down (back in the years before ABE and Amazon marketplace made it somewhat easier). AS is a YA time slip, and exquisitely well done. VB is set in a USnA post energy crisis and deals with messy, painful subjects with grace, integrity, and understatement.
Jane Langton's odd Diamond in the window (and, to a lesser extent its sequels) fascinated me (and one part in particular terrified me as a small child, I was astonished at how tame it was when I reread it as an adult!)
I think some of Elizabeth Goudge's books have been republished - I remember my mother getting Linnets and Valerians from a book company in England... the internet makes things much easier, doesn't it? Her adult books (and there are gazillions of them) remain out of print - there were a few which entranced me, and many others which left me cold... I think Castle on the Hill, and Rosemary Tree(Bush?) were hits, but I had them on ILL, and (foolishly) thought I'd remember the titles until I found copies!
Margaret Anderson lived for a time in the same city I did - I remember her kindness in inviting me over to her house, letting me stand on her kitchen table and recite Shakespeare speeches, and my autographed copies of her books are the only autographed copies I have ever valued.... not many authors are so welcoming to a ten (11?) year old - or so willing to spend an hour or two discussing their works with even an adult fan.. at least in the pre-internet days! Searching for Shona and Journey of the Shadow Bairins are fairly straight stories (and two of my favorites), but she has a number of more fantasy stories - In the Keep of Time and To Nowhere and Back.. and her slightly disturbing, and my favorite as a kid: Light in the Mountain
Margaret Storey has some very sweet younger kids' fantasy (Timothy and the Two Witches is the only one we've been able to find affordably so far) and some older kids' straight fiction: Pauline, Family Tree, and Wrong Gear (I think that is the right title), and a few delectable things for much younger kids (I need to have my sister hunt these down for me before her next trip over from the UK...)
Two of my husband's childhood favorites (which we diligently tracked down so our kids could enjoy them too): The Spaceship under the Apple Tree (and sequels) by Slobodkin and Eleanor Cameron's Mushroom planet series. Perhaps kids' sci-fi will be republished as they run out of fantasy titles to resurrect!
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part 1 - fantasy and semi-fantasy
Less well-known favorites:
Eleanor Farjeon - Martin Pippin in the Daisy Field (and in the Apple Orchard) delighted me when I was small - and her Glass Slipper and Silver Curlew were the first modern fairy tale retellings I can remember reading.
Rumer Godden's doll stories - especially Miss Happiness & Miss Flower and its sequel Little Plum.
KM Briggs's Kate Crackernuts was a later discovery than the Farjeon, but equally loved.
I think Nancy Bond's best two books were Another Shore and Voyage Begun. I had to struggle to track these down (back in the years before ABE and Amazon marketplace made it somewhat easier).
AS is a YA time slip, and exquisitely well done. VB is set in a USnA post energy crisis and deals with messy, painful subjects with grace, integrity, and understatement.
Jane Langton's odd Diamond in the window (and, to a lesser extent its sequels) fascinated me (and one part in particular terrified me as a small child, I was astonished at how tame it was when I reread it as an adult!)
I think some of Elizabeth Goudge's books have been republished - I remember my mother getting Linnets and Valerians from a book company in England... the internet makes things much easier, doesn't it? Her adult books (and there are gazillions of them) remain out of print - there were a few which entranced me, and many others which left me cold... I think Castle on the Hill, and Rosemary Tree(Bush?) were hits, but I had them on ILL, and (foolishly) thought I'd remember the titles until I found copies!
Margaret Anderson lived for a time in the same city I did - I remember her kindness in inviting me over to her house, letting me stand on her kitchen table and recite Shakespeare speeches, and my autographed copies of her books are the only autographed copies I have ever valued.... not many authors are so welcoming to a ten (11?) year old - or so willing to spend an hour or two discussing their works with even an adult fan.. at least in the pre-internet days! Searching for Shona and Journey of the Shadow Bairins are fairly straight stories (and two of my favorites), but she has a number of more fantasy stories - In the Keep of Time and To Nowhere and Back.. and her slightly disturbing, and my favorite as a kid: Light in the Mountain
Margaret Storey has some very sweet younger kids' fantasy (Timothy and the Two Witches is the only one we've been able to find affordably so far) and some older kids' straight fiction: Pauline, Family Tree, and Wrong Gear (I think that is the right title), and a few delectable things for much younger kids (I need to have my sister hunt these down for me before her next trip over from the UK...)
Two of my husband's childhood favorites (which we diligently tracked down so our kids could enjoy them too): The Spaceship under the Apple Tree (and sequels) by Slobodkin and Eleanor Cameron's Mushroom planet series. Perhaps kids' sci-fi will be republished as they run out of fantasy titles to resurrect!
..Eliana