The Tiger Who Came to Tea. Owl Babies. Mog. We’re going on a Bear Hunt, Little Bear’s Trousers. Alfie!
You may wonder what all these titles are. These are my favourite childhood books and they bring back very strong memories of being young. My parents used to feed me and my two brothers dinner, give us a bath and put us to bed, but we’d never sleep until they had read us a bedtime story.
I love those books, even now, but my absolute favourite childhood story has to be Shirley Hughes’ Alfie. Alfie is a little boy who has a little sister called Annie Rose and there are lots and lots of stories surrounding the pair. There’s a part in the book The Nursery Collection which we used to wait for and join in with. It says ‘whisper very quietly’ (and we used to whisper) and then ‘SHOUT OUT LOUD’ and we used to shout as loudly as we could, so Mum could hear that we weren’t asleep yet!
Owl Babies was another firm favourite, because there were three owl babies and three of us and my mum always used to change the names of the owl babies to ‘Ellen and William and James’ and I can still remember the exact tone of voice she used to tell the story!
With the Tiger Who Came to Tea, Owl Babies and We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, it was always the tension and the build-up which we loved. The fact that we knew exactly how they ended didn’t matter, these were firm favourites and we loved to hear them again and again … and again!
Mum and Dad tell us (now that we are all grown up) how we never wanted them to stop reading and always begged for more stories and how sometimes they were often so tired that when Dad was reading me a bedtime story, he’d fall asleep with me and Mum would have to come upstairs and wake him up!
Have you got a favourite childhood story? Do you still remember any of it? Why do you like it so much?
