World Book Day | My Top 5 Childhood Books

It’s World Book Day!

Which means, it’s basically Christmas for all bookworms out there.

So, what is World Book Day?

“World Book Day is a registered charity on a mission to give every child and young person a book of their own. It’s also a celebration of authors, illustrators, books and (most importantly) it’s a celebration of reading. In fact, it’s the biggest celebration of its kind, designated by UNESCO as a worldwide celebration of books and reading, and marked in over 100 countries all over the world.” – worldbookday.com

The theme for this year is Share A Story. Myself and a whole bunch of other lovely and talented UK book bloggers have decided to celebrate by posting our top 5 childhood reads. The graphic at the bottom of this post illustrates all the bloggers who will be participating and posting every half hour throughout the day.. The lovely blogger before me was Olivia from StageyBookish!

Choosing only 5 was particularly hard for me, because when I was a child, all I did was read. Every waking moment I had, if I wasn’t at school, I was reading a book. My Gran always encouraged me to fit in at least an hour or two of reading before bed every night as well, so it’s fair to say that I read a lot of books when I was little.

But of course, I always had a couple of books that I always gravitated towards if I wasn’t sure what to read. That’s what I’ll be sharing today, my top 5 childhood books. Without further ado, let’s get started!

This list is in no particular order, and contains no affiliate links.

‘MY SECRET UNICORN’ SERIES BY LINDA CHAPMAN

Let’s start things off with the first series I really got into when I was younger. The book revolves around Lauren, and her pony, Twilight, that she gets as a gift from her parents when they move to a new town where everything is new. One night, Lauren recites a spell and surprise! It turns her beautiful white pony into a magical Unicorn. Together, Lauren and Twilight use their magic to help others and save other Unicorns.

The first thing that attracted me to these books was the covers, they were so colourful and really just captured my attention. Plus, it has a Unicorn on the cover. Who doesn’t love Unicorns? There are 14 – 15 books in this series and I can happily say, I collected every darn one.

Amazon | Book Depository | Wordery | Waterstones

‘SLEEPOVERS’ BY JACQUELINE WILSON

Now I don’t know about US, or other international bookworms, but if you’re a young reader in the UK, chances are that you have at least one Jacqueline Wilson book on your bookshelf. Jacqueline Wilson is the wonderful author who created characters such as Tracy Beaker, Hetty Feather, Ellie from Girls in Love, etc.

One of my favourite books was called Sleepovers. It revolved around Daisy, a new girl at school who made a group of friends who loved nothing more than having sleepovers for their birthdays. The book involved many other things like struggling with a bully, living with someone with disabilities, etc. I thought it was a great quick read when I was younger and one of my favourite parts was seeing the illustrations of each girl’s birthday cake. I genuinely read this book so much that I could almost recite it word for word.

Amazon | Book Depository | Wordery | Waterstones

‘BEST FRIENDS’ BY JACQUELINE WILSON

Surprise! We have another Jacqueline Wilson book on the list. Best Friends. I actually read this one because it was made into a short series on CITV or CBBC. Ten points to your Hogwarts house if any of you remember those channels.

I remember the book being just as enjoyable when I read it, and just like Sleepovers, it was a book I ended up reading many times. It revolves around two best friends, Alice and Gemma. They’ve shared everything since they were babies, even their birthdays. One day Alice tells Gemma that she’s moving to Scotland and Gemma, being the troublemaker that she is, convinces Alice to run away with her so they can stay together and be best friends forever.

It was a bittersweet ending, and I remember wishing that I could be as daring and as cool as Gemma’s character was.

Amazon | Book Depository | Wordery | Waterstones

‘UBOS: THE ULTIMATE BOOK OF SPELLS’ BY KAY BARNHAM

The next book was also a TV show, but it had some novels to accompany the TV series and I adored them. I loved the art and the magical aesthetic of the characters. Who remembers UBOS: The Ultimate Book of Spells? If you do, congratulations! That’s another 10 points to your Hogwarts house.

The book series (and the TV series) revolves around Cassie, Verne and Gus who attend a school of magic. Sound familiar?

At this school they learn all different types of magic and one day, they find a book of spells in their mail. The book helps them with their magic and travels with them to the centre of the Earth to fight Zarlak, an evil wizard who is stealing Earth’s magic. Ooooo!

I adored this book series and I remember being mind blown when they threw in the plot twist that the book was actually Cassie’s great grandfather in disguise. Did not see that coming, I tell ya!

Amazon

VOYAGE ON THE GREAT TITANIC: THE DIARY OF MARGARET ANNE BRADY, 1912

Finally, this last book is a random one and not at all what you’d expect a child to be reading. But, I have always had a big interest in the Titanic.

I saw the movie on video. Yes, video. And, just became completely addicted. Fast forward a couple of months, the book fair arrives at my Primary school and I find a book called Voyage on the Great Titanic: The Diary of Margaret Anne Brady, 1912. It also came with a free heart of the ocean necklace, which I was thrilled about. Despite being a piece of costume jewellery.

This book was filled with information about one of the Titanic passengers, Margaret Anne Brady. It had scans of her diary entries and all sorts, and I found learning more about the Titanic so interesting. Seeing all her diary entries about the experience of being on the Titanic’s maiden voyage before disaster struck was entirely fascinating to me.

I realise that that this has to be one of the most random books to have in a childhood reads list, but it is a book I went back to over and over again to read, so I couldn’t not include it.

Amazon | Book Depository | Wordery | Waterstones

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

‘Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging‘ by Louise Rennison | ‘Boy‘ by Roald Dahl | ‘James and the Giant Peach‘ by Roald Dahl | ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory‘ by Roald Dahl | ‘Goodnight Moon‘ by Margaret Wise Brown

Next up on this blog hop is Shaye over at AReadingBrit, so head on over to her blog to find out what her top 5 childhood reads are. Below is a list of all the fantastic UK bloggers that are participating today, please show them a little love and check out their posts. It’s World Book Day after all!

Participating Bloggers: Lauren from Northern Plunder | Charlotte from Wonderfully Bookish | Layla from Readable Life | Vicky from What Vicky Read | Isabelle from Folded Paper Foxes | Connie from Connie Reads | Neelam from The Tsundoku Chronicles | Beth from BooksNest | Olivia from Stagey Bookish | Lauren from FictionTea | Shaye from A Reading Brit | Jaz from Travels in Fiction | Nikki from Books and Lemon Squash | Amy from Little Booknerds in the Corner | Ben from Ben Reads | Imi from Imi Reviews Books | Faye from A Daydreamer’s Thoughts | Stephanie from Never Enough Novels

What are your favourite childhood reads? Are any books on this list your favourites too?

I hope you all enjoyed this blog post, and I’m wishing you a very magical World Book Day.

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