A while ago, I retrospectively reviewed some favourite childhood books with my usual 80-word depth, focusing on the select few I felt were worth adding to the big list.
I don't know why I was being so coy.* Here are 100 more (let's not get too crazy) that are worth mentioning, sometimes less so. It's not absolutely everything from the shelves, schools and libraries, but between these, the last lot and the Trek books, it's surely most of them.
Some are so obscure or poorly remembered on my part that I can't find images or other evidence of their existence. I should probably be glad that there's at least some nostalgia I can't ruin.
* Update: Oh I see, I didn't want to waste days of my life on something completely pointless. Bit late to start worrying about that.
1980s
N.B. I probably learned to read around 1990, in the transition from playgroup to school. But since I still count it as reading when I listen to audiobooks or look through a wordless art book, these were all presumably read to me at some point when I was the appropriate age (then occasionally re-read myself when I wasn't).
Unknown, Goldie Goldfish
Read 1986
***
A peaceful rhyme about a fish swimming about, notable for being waterproof so you could read it in the bath. They should make adult books like that.
Read 1987
**
My dad's a farmer, so maybe this was to show some solidarity, even if the story's no more eventful than your average Spot 12-pager. I was sure he was talking to a horse in a stable on the cover, but I can't find that version, or maybe I just couldn't tell my animals apart. Some farmer I'd make.
Mum's nursery rhymes book
Read 1987
*****
My mum's childhood nursery rhymes book hung around at my grandparents' house to entertain the next generation, adding another layer of heritage to these already archaic tales. I doubt I could track down a specific vintage compendium of public domain rhymes when I can't remember if it even had a distinctive title, but if I could, it'd be one of the most nostalgic things going.
Read 1988
*
Whether it was '87 or '88, I was evidently a bit young for books when I ripped this to pieces, so it could remain this weird, weathered artifact in my grandparents' house for slightly older me to try to piece together. Or maybe I was showing how much I hated the Care Bears?
Read 1988
**
Presumably an appropriate guide to help me deal with a new brother, this became more notable as a source of comedy when it hung around past its useful window, with its genuine enquiries about whether various lethal weapons are safe for baby.
Read 1988
***
With that dodgy cover and the rainbow song, it's a wonder I learned the correct order at all. Frequently returned to because I found its monochrome assortments soothing. Now my daughter has a cloth version.
Read 1988
**
I can't remember a time when the wheels still worked and this wasn't permanently stuck on the giraffe with duck feet. This is why my daughter's on the chewable cloth books.
Read 1988
****
I'd grown out of the TV series that this was only tangentially connected to by the time I was able to read these stories myself, but it was a nice selection. I liked the one with the cow, the pig and the tunnel and the one with the cross-section of the block of flats best, even if I hadn't grasped perspective yet, so was confused by the sudden, unexplained appearance of a giant mouse at the end.
Unknown, Sooty's Fireside TalesRead 1988
***
Another book I had to be content with looking at for a few years before I was finally able to read it, not that it made much more sense that way. Who were those random human kids hanging out with the now-anthropomorphic puppets? Where was Soo? The part where they got caught up in a machine and were converted into confectionery was pretty creepy.
The Rev W. Awdry (based on), Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends: Thomas Goes Fishing / James & the Troublesome Trucks / Thomas & Terence / James & the Tar Wagons
Read 1989
***
I don't remember Thomas and/or James being particular favourites, but I think these were the two books I had adapting episodes from the series (along with the Rev's original Henry the Green Engine, but that was too wordy for a preschooler). One of the pictures of James surrounded by foliage made me feel a kind of prelapsarian serenity in the same way as my parents' Vauxhall Chevette owner's manual.
Read 1989
**
A neglectful childminder leaves a cat and a baby to their own devices, with potentially lethal consequences. I probably should have read some other Mog books first before subverting the status quo like this, rookie toddler mistake.
Vera Southgate and Robert Lumley, The Gingerbread Boy
Read 1989****
Most of our Ladybird books were dreary Disney novelisations, but we had a few non-corporate classics in there. This tale of youthful mischief, manipulation and comeuppance was my favourite, from the farcical chase sequence to the grisly ending where our hero provides a running score of his own devouring. It didn't affect me, he's a biscuit. I was more disturbed when the Little Old Lady starred in one of my most memorable nightmares.
Read 1989
****
This slightly odd version was my only exposure to the world of Beatrix Potter growing up, so at least I didn't miss out completely. I still don't know whether these photo were made on spec or from some stop-motion adaptation of the time, but they're iconic by default.
Unknown Sinbad book
Read 1980s
***
Exhaustive image searches haven't revealed the specific small turquoise paperback that I used to flick through before I was able to read, and I don't remember having it any more by the time I could, but the scary Cyclops stayed with me.
The Yellow Book & The Blue Book (of...?)
Read 1989
***
I can't find these anywhere. It's not the Ladybird ones, these were a pair of widescreen paperbacks with various fairy tales and nursery rhymes that came with cassettes. The artist's renderings of Snow White and the gang, the pie-withholding mother cat and the maid getting her nose pecked off by a blackbird are the default interpretations as far as I'm concerned.
Graham Percy (illustrator), The Three Billy Goats Gruff & The Three Little Pigs
Read 1989
****
These mildly unnerving takes on the repetitive classics are as definitive for me as whatever versions of fairy tales you happened to read or see by chance as a child, even if Graham's intepretation of the troll was a bit odd. They read the goat one on You and Me one time, which was obviously satisfying validation if I can still remember that detail despite not remembering what You and Me even was.
Unknown, My Special Christmas: A Personalized Story about You and Santa
Read 1989****
I saw through the crudity of incongruous typewriting over template art of stockings and street signs before I saw through the Santa myth, but this was actually pretty special, taking Me on a world tour that introduced me to the Northern Lights and a vision of Russia I still naively conjure when reading Gorky and listening to Rimsky-Korsakov and the like. My brother had the birthday one, I didn't care for it because it wasn't about Me.
Unknown, The Transformers Gift Set (View-Master)
Read 1989
Stretching the definition of 'book' a little, but I eventually read along with the captions when I had the vocabulary, if not the franchise knowledge to really understand what was going on. That was around the time I learned to stop habitually closing one eye and finally appreciated the 3D effect. I can still hear the distant mechanical clunking.
Read 1989
****
Better than the anglicised Turtles stories tended to be, though they would be if they're just ripping off Doctor Who. It was a while before I could read this myself, but I mainly got the gist from the pictures, even if some of those were "unfinished" and needed colouring in (neon-pink felt tip being the natural choice for caucasian skin tones).
1990
Read 1990
***
The already juniorfied sequel is made more comprehensible for its target audience, omitting the mild innuendo that was for the parents. I've seen the film a few times, before and after, but my memory goes straight to the creepy screencaps of slime beasts, demonic baby-snatchers and the silent walk of Titanic victims.
Unknown based on the episode written by Peter Sauder and Richard Beban, Star Wars: Droids: The Adventures of R2-D2 and C-3PO – The Trigon Unleashed
**
It was nice of my mum to buy me a Droids book, but I can't have been paying too much attention to the show, since I didn't have a clue who any of these people were and couldn't really follow what was going on when jumping in at book three, so I just relaxed and enjoyed the dilapidated sci-fi imagery. VHS screencaps beat UK publishers' in-house illustrators any day.
David Hately, David
Read 1990*
Along with all the film adaptations, Ladybird's First Bible Stories range seemed to spell the decline of the once iconic publisher in the '80s by swapping their distinctive painted art for patronising simplicity. I didn't feel any vicarious glory from this guy sharing my name. I don't think I was the target audience, I liked Toitles.
Read 1990
****
This was a good value adaptation compendium that handily scaled up the text along with the pages, which I appreciated as a beginner reader just starting school. Spell 'Technodrome.'
Pat Hutchins, Don't Forget the Bacon!Read 1990
****
I hadn't encountered this classic picture book since that reading session in my first year of school. That I could still remember it so clearly shows how effective it was, or maybe I was just obeying the title.
Read 1990
****
I enjoyed Mr Bear's sleepless suffering as a child, but it makes a better book for adults who can relate more to the insomniac patriarch and speculate about the sort of stresses he's dealing with and how he's going to cope with the day ahead. I hope Mrs Bear did the driving.
Eric Carle, The Very Hungry Caterpillar
*****
I don't know if this is the all time best picture book or if it's just the one my mind goes to out of familiarity, but it covers biology, counting, the days of the week and healthy eating, while also being colourful, interactive, funny and having a shock ending (if you're under five). Dr Seuss can fuck off.
Read 1990
**
I only ever had a modest Mr. Man library, resisting the completist lure of the spine art as I would less successfully with Star Trek videos later. For whatever reason, this story of a superficial gay couple erasing someone's individuality and forcing him to conform to their fastidious lifestyle was the one I re-read the most.
Various, The Weetabix Wonderword Illustrated Oxford Dictionary & The Weetabix Oxford Illustrated Book of Facts
****
The main general reference materials I had in my pre-internet childhood, if these really came free with Weetabix tokens (probably with some extra contribution) they were good value. My primary school didn't give homework, so I only needed to rely on them academically when made to write an essay on 'why we should look after animals' after I got caught scaring a cat.
Read 1990
***
80% movie stills, 10% concise small-print summary, 10% large-print quotes or other random cool-dude exclamations. I wasn't so into the film, but the cinematography's good and there are plenty of iconic shots here.
Read 1990
*
Home-grown TMNHT stuff always had a sense of unofficial, careless crapness about it, even when they were adapting proper episodes. Reprinting some of the Archie Adventures comics would have been better. This didn't even have puzzles!
Read 1990
**
I liked American Dennis first, before switching loyalties, though tracing it back to the comic source didn't prove all that rewarding, just educational for teaching me some Americanisms.
Jim Davis and friends, Garfield Annuals 1991–93
Read 1990-93***
I didn't fully grasp the world-weary sarcasm and advanced vocabulary of the newspaper strips when I was pretending to be sick so my mum would read them to me, but they were better than the childish prose stories. The '93 book was the coveted prize after my dad taught me to swim on holiday, invaluable life skills evidently not being their own rewards.
Read 1990
****
My own Ladybird Bible was a bit heavygoing (literally, it was a slab), but my brother's was more accessible. Mainly for the vivid, expressive and occasionally ghoulish paintings that my inexperienced eyes couldn't distinguish from photos, despite the brush strokes. I got glasses at some point.
1991
Read 1991, re-read 1996
*****
Well done for getting the message aimed at five-year-olds, grown-ups, but you have to live by it too.
Read 1991, re-read 1996
***
I always felt this was the lesser counterpart of the dragon book, its own heavyhanded message not having the same eloquence and banking on notoriety with an edgy ending, but I can see it being useful in social work.
Unknown Donald Duck book
Read 1991
*
A pseudoeducational book featuring Donald and his nephews, this was a confusing combination for a reader who only knew the tykes from Duck Tales, but more troubling was the double-page spread of seasons that categorised winter as running from January to March with December being grouped into autumn, became some twat thought it was more important to have the months in sequence than to deal in reality.
Mike Young, Super Safe with SuperTed
Read 1991
**
I saw the educational cartoon at school before I was cautiously gifted the book adaptation, so I was learning while critiquing the minor dialogue discrepancies. The main thing that bugged me was the illustration showing Blotch's shoes clearly protruding over the edge of the curb, right above text expressly warning us to stay behind the line. My mum tried to justify it, but she was probably annoyed that the artist hadn't easily avoided that nitpick too.
Paul Groves and Edward McLachlan, Bangers & Mash: Eggs Is Eggs / Ghost Boast
***
My first primary school was down with the kids by using the original Bangers & Mash educational books to teach us to read. I can't remember what those books were like, but I obviously couldn't get enough of the cheeky chimps if I was going extracurricular too. I liked the ghost one a lot, but only got the other for completism's sake, they went from cheeky to infanticidal dicks in that one.
Read 1991
**
I can't say I thought too deeply at five about this rhyming parable of a dragon boy who's discriminated against for breathing water rather than fire (or something like that). He conforms in the end anyway, and turns out to be best after all. That's just the hare and the tortoise, isn't it?
Various, Blimey! It's Slimer!
Read 1990*
Cor! It's the throwaway out-of-character "funnies" from Ghostbusters comic collected for posterity they don't deserve because Slimermania. Slimer was never my favourite thing about the series, but I was still jealous when my mum bought this for some other kid's birthday and I insisted on reading it myself first. The jealousy diminished as it went on.
Read 1990
**
I associate this with B&Q, so it's either where I persuaded my dad to buy it or I took it along one time to alleviate boredom outside of the good bit with the fake bathrooms. I don't remember ever seeing the episode, it seemed incredibly average. I finally got the pun during the second year of my university English literature course.
Edward Kelsey and Colin Petty adapted from five television scripts by Leonard Starr, ThunderCats – Ho: The Movie
*
Ghostbusters II managed to squeeze into a 30-odd-page book, so I was disappointed when this turned out to be an adaptation of only the first bit of a TV miniseries. The fast-paced, athletic show didn't translate particularly well to print anyway, you couldn't even hear the guitar solos.
Read 1991
***
Superman's origin story retold for five-year-olds, as opposed to... oh yeah. Since Superman's only Superman at the end, this was by far the lesser sibling to Batman: Funhouse of Fear.
Marilyn Sadler and Roger Bollen, Alistair's Time MachineRead 1991
***
How I've grown. I was so inspired by this short tale when I read it in school that I set about plagiarising my own version, identical word for word but naturally with the character's name changed to 'David' (despite me having no aptitude for science), but lost interest after a couple of pages. The golden canopy aesthetic showed up in 'Doctor Disguise's Time Machine' shortly after.
Sarah Hayes and Inga Moore, Away in a MangerRead 1991
*****
The Nativity abridged with a mind to shoehorning in several carols along the way. I wasn't big on the songs, but diligently reading along to the cassette and absorbing the atmospheric Bethelemen scenery was a favourite pastime over a few festive seasons. It's a shame that didn't result in my internal monologue sounding like Stephen Thorne.
Lynne Bradbury and Jon Davis, Santa Claus Has a Busy NightRead 1991
**
This uninspired visualisation of the impractical fable was mainly notable for educating me about Australian seasons being reversed. "Reversed" unless you happen to live in the southern hemisphere, of course, in which case this book was probably pretty patronising, but they're used to that.
Dave Morris, Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles: Red Herrings & Sky High
Read 1991**
I didn't notice at the time that these were penned by the adventure gamebook legend. That makes the mediocre Turtles novels even more disappointing when I consider what might have been. Like the Ghostbusters Annual, I coloured in the black and white drawings that they forgot to, you're welcome.
1992
Read 1992
***
Stanley's condition wasn't gruesome or permanent enough to make a lasting impression on me, but teachers would bring out the Roald Dahls in due course.
Lydia Pender, Sharpur, the Carpet Snake
Read 1992***
The only one of the Ginn Reading 360 books that stood out as being worth reading on my own time (even if it was just to keep me busy when waiting for a belated pickup from school), it was noteworthy for its more substantial length (adapted from a proper book), comparative difficulty (I had to ask about "drawer"), and most of all the art, with its interrupted outlines, like they'd used the default brush on Deluxe Paint because they didn't know about the continuous one.
Stella Paskins and Rod Vass, Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles: Attack of the Time Spiders
***
Even at seven, I'd had enough disappointments with licensed franchise originals to lower my standards, so this one impressed me in its competence. So much that I decided it deserved an audiobook, so set about recording one on our Fisherprice junior tape deck. I then wanted to share this enthusiasm with my school chums, so brought the cassette in for Mrs Jones to play in our reading session. I realised within seconds that I'd made a huge mistake.
Read 1992, re-read 1996
***
Getting the alien perspective was three-eye-opening, but I didn't need to see the gimmick stretched over a whole series. When I read this again a few years later, the pitch black and sunflower yellow babies representing the different varieties of babies you get seemed a bit dodgy, but the willy was still funny.
Read 1992
**
Presumably an adaptation, I think this was the book I had on the London museum trip when there was a lunar eclipse, so it's one of the few childhood reads I can date precisely outside of Christmas annuals. It kept me occupied for all of a few minutes, I was more engaged with my Bugs colouring book story, whatever that was. Having a bit of a Bugs day.
Greg Steddy, Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, Books 1–4: Enter the Turtles / Turtle Power! / The Return of the Shredder / The Curse of the Evil Eye
****
The most worthwhile of the episode adaptations, not only for featuring screencaps throughout, rather than off-model paintings where Michelangelo's weapon is censoriously wrong and Shredder's mask invariably coloured blue, but also for adapting those elusive first episodes we didn't get to see on the BBC outside of edited highlights (though the books still omit a couple of less relevant adventures for good measure).
After receiving the first volume for Christmas '92, my quest to collect this series a year after Turtlemania had died down was comparable to the Turtles hunting down the Eye of Sarnoth. In the end, I only managed to find book three on holiday before requesting the other two for Christmas '93.
Read 1992
***
To judge it by its cover (Donatello loves rollerskating!), this looks to be just about the nadir of tie-in merchandise, but it was potentially useful (not that I remember ever using it) and their persistence in including the Turtles & friends as tenuous examples is admirable and amusing.
Read 1992
**
Thunderbirds was so late 1991 to early '92 (when it wasn't being popular decades before my birth), so I wasn't especially enthused by this festive latecomer. I mainly remember the inappropriately disturbing comic about a one-eyed alien snake thing and being stressed out by Jeff Tracy's biography stating he was born in 1979, taking longer than I should have to realise that the show's probably set in the future.
Read 1992
*
One of the stranger franchise tie-ins to have existed, until you see all the other merchandise based on the Broom Cupboard's inarticulate mascot that points to a craze, but might only have been wishful thinking. Edd was no Pinky Punky, where's his annual?
Graham Marks, Dinosaurs: Endangered Species
Read 1992**
The weird prehistoric sitcom was all downhill after the opening titles, but we were bigger fans than I remember, having toys and almost a video if our Nana hadn't got confused. I was shaken when I realised this picture book was novelising the most distressing episode where the little critters get eaten, I might have abandoned it before that ending.
1993
N.B. More notable books read from this point on were already covered in this timeline. These are some leftovers that I didn't remember or didn't feel were worth mentioning last time. Enjoy.
Unknown Topsy-Turvy Picture Book
Read 1993
****
Mrs Jones blew my mind when she showed us this book of painterly optical illusions. The one I remember was a scarecrow that became a waterfall when turned over. Seeing it again would almost certainly disappoint, but I've sure tried.
Read 1993
**
The tertiary spin-off of Danger Mouse via Duckula was my underdog favourite from Cosgrove Hall, so I was excited to snap this up at a school book fair, but it proved a bit of a slog, as these junior novels tended to. Some of the other books were written by series co-writer Jimmy "Victor" Hibbert, but I didn't know to look for that.
Read 1993
**
That aged well. I remember this seeming out of date even when my parents presumably picked it up for cheap. A nice reminder of the series, but no fascinating insights. An Art Attack book would have been better, not least for the legacy.
Read 1993
***
Released the year after his death, this will have been among the last of Dahl's works, not that I was aware of this trivia when enjoying appropriately ghoulish drawings of kids getting electrocuted and decapitated like Vyvyan in The Young Ones.
Colin West, Monty Bites Back
Read 1993**
I was always one for judging books by their covers, especially when those covers were drawn in the appealing cartoony style that I got bollocked for at school. The Jets range employed this tactic successfully to make completely mediocre and forgettable books seem worth reading and keep me stuck in the junior readers section of the library until my mum snapped me out of it. I can't even remember if there was a least worst one, this was just my first one.
Unknown, Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles: Spelling & Reasoning
Read 1993
**
You know how publishers license trendy children's franchises to garnish generic educational books aimed at parents who want to trick their kids into doing homework? I was such a Turtles freak that I chose these for myself. The pink Reasoning book was aimed at my demographic (7–8) and proved a decent precocious challenge, but I was disappointed in myself when the blue Spelling book turned out to be suited to its target 5–6 age rating after all.
Read 1993
***
A smart stocking filler that kept me from waking everyone else up for an hour, the pretense of a precocious child's hand-written book introducing his inconsistently anthoromorphic world appealed to my sensibilities, even if the romance angle didn't.
Read 1993, re-read 2020
*****
I always enjoyed this colourful interplanetary dinosaur book on the superficial level, but now that I appreciate its heavy-stomping hippie ideals a lot more, I recognise it as a true classic.
Read 1993
**
This was guaranteed to sell, however little effort they put in, and true to lazy tie-in form it just summarises what we already knew about the story, the dinos and the less interesting people, justified by a lot of nice photos. I'm sure I had another book that went more into the making-of and wasn't the grown-upvMaking Of, but that doesn't seem to exist.
Read 1993
***
A famously apathetic cat isn't the most natural fit for the detective genre, but I was too distracted by the lovely cover to care. I even let them have a free full-page advert in Doctor Disguise Book 7 so I had an excuse to copy it out.
1994
Read 1994
***
This lacked the heart of Charlotte's Web, all the jeopardy stemming from the brutal realities of agriculture as our porcine hero has to demonstrate his economic worth to avert his bacon, but it was still suspenseful, I suppose.
Read 1994
**
The more practical, down-to-earth sibling to Sun, Stars and Planets probably answered a lot of frequently asked questions, but was naturally a lot less interesting and too much like school.
Read 1994
***
The CBBC series arrived too late for me to be a Noddy obsessive, but I enjoyed pretending to be a child from the olden days when I picked up some of the vintage books in a market. I was surprised by the prominence of the Gollywogs, and it didn't take a lot of deduction to work out why we probably didn't see them on the telly.
Michael Kilgarriff and David Mostyn, 3001 Jokes
Read 1994
**
This fat tome seemed to offer exceptional value for its budget price when spotted in a holiday bookshop. I found a few of them funny ("do you mind if I throw him a bit?"), and I liked the drawings, so it was probably worth it, but the hit rate was incredibly low. This young sceptic did try to count up the jokes one time to see if there were really as many as claimed, but I didn't make it very far. We had a Mega Drive and stuff.
Norman Redfern and Arkadia, Biker Mice from Mars: Noisy Book
Read 1994
**
Either I'd become a little more discerning in my viewing habits by this point or I was just distracted by computer games, but I wasn't familiar with the Biker Mice. Nor was my three-year-old brother, I suspect, when he requested this as a Christmas gift so he could enjoy pressing the buttons at home rather than in the shop every fortnight. I read it through properly at least once, pressing the correct buttons when instructed to hear the appropriate sounds, as if I even needed to with repetition already having drilled "brrm, brrm, brrm, brrm," "screech," "ploo-plip-plip, ploo-plip-plip" and the rest into my bloody mind forever.
1995
Read 1995
***
Another book I took out of the library as a child and can't remember anything about. It can't have been very good then, but I was easily pleased, especially by anthropomorphic cartoon animals. Three stars.
Read 1995
**
Learning how to differentiate African and Indian elephants was my main takeaway from an otherwise dull rip-roaring adventure. Stick to the Demon Headmasters.
Martin Adams, Sonic the Hedgehog in Robotnik's LaboratoryRead 1995
*
Proper novels were likely as cultured as this franchise got. It's a shame they were so dull, but at least there was the flipbook in the corner when you got bored. I think I forced myself to finish this eventually, but even as a barely-discerning fan, I didn't bother with the others.
1996
Unknown based on the scripts by Brian Trueman, Danger Mouse: Planet of the CatsRead 1996
***
This had stuck in my memory as the most epic of Danger Mouse serials from earlier childhood, but after excitedly picking up the book and tape at a school book fair a few years later, I realised I was a little past caring. It's anthropomorphic hedgehog heroes these days, granddad!
Stan Cullimore, Sonic the Hedgehog: The Invisible Robotnik
Read 1996**
I can't remember whether I persuaded my impressionable younger brother to choose this so I'd still get to read it or if I just didn't care about my non-existent reputation. I'd buy any tat graced by the blue streak during my unfashionably late and tragically old Sonicmania, even a picture book clearly aimed at much younger children like the worst parts of the comic. But it had the proper zones in from the games, so there was no point trying to reason with me.
Read 1996
****
At something like £1.99, this thick, full-colour square of '90s space knowledge was great value while also conveniently fitting in your pocket so you'll know what to do if you come across a quasar.
Read 1996
**
It feels like I must have seen the TV series for this to attract my attention in the library (though even then it's a bit strange, since I was only lukewarm to it at best), but I know I definitely read this before I saw its plot directly adapted in a feature-length special. For both those things to be true, BBC Genome listings say I must have read it in April '96. At least I was branching out from Sonic.
Read 1996
***
'90s kids didn't have Lemony Snicket, so we had to make do with measly serials where we could. I think I read further pseudohistorical adventures of the evidently unmemorable gang (or at least, doing so seemed to be of the utmost importance for a very brief time), but I remember the Picasso pirate cover most clearly. Presumably, I identified with the glasses one.
Various, Mr Blobby's Joke Book: Radio Times Readers' Favourite Blobby Jokes
*
I remembered it being unreadable, but hadn't paid attention to the background that rather than bother to come up with their own puns substituting pretty much any word with "blob," they let the British public do it for them, then sold it back to them for £2.99. Our family had the Blobbymania, from the pink lemonade to the crap Amiga game and doomed theme park, but this might have been the lowest point of the laughable franchise.
Read 1996
**
Why was I reading 'A Young Puffin' in year six? Since I only remember this because I drew the cover to accompany a school book review, maybe I chose the shortest thing on the shelf to get it over with faster? Yeah, nice try.
Read 1996
***
Despite the tacky presentation, this proved an informative primer to some urban legends and the paranormal canon. I don't know how one went about curating a FunFax, they were just notable for being the cheapest books in the shop.
John McClelland, FunFax: Survive At School – English & Science
Read 1996*
I bought these for myself in year six. I don't know why I didn't really get bullied, they were letting me get away with murder. One of these books taught me the supposed longest word in English, which – as someone who bought school-themed FunFax for himself – I naturally learned. There were also some dead fun games, like reading a story and answering questions to show you'd been paying attention.
Read 1996
***
Not the most engaging trivia compendium, but I probably picked up some bits and pieces when going through improvising a "silly story" based on the drawings and getting in trouble with my Nana when I let a swear slip out.
1997
Helen Nicoll and Jan Pieńkowski, Meg & MogRead 1997
****
These books were knocking around my Christian primary school, so they can't have stirred up too much of an occult panic, but I wasn't interested in reading any until my youngest brother got this one in an audiobook pack. Lasting all of several minutes, the production was legendary for its solution to the sound effect of bread.
1998
Read 1998
*
A few show-off literary classics aside, I've never been one for poetry, and children's poetry with its jaunty rhythms and slobbery sibilants is the worst. I checked through this sole collection that my brother received at some point when we were asked to bring a poem into English, but I didn't like anything enough to endorse it.
Michael Jan Friedman and Peter Krause, Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Star LostRead 1998
***
Dependable Michael Jan Friedman and decent likeness artists kept the TNG cash-in comic somewhat better than it was required to be for a commendable 80 issues. This five-parter would have made a good if very derivative episode when economised down to budget.
Gerth Hansen and Ralph Whitlock, When Animals Die
Read 1998
**
Spotted in the school library, this appealed when I was going through a juvenile "lol gore" phase (thankfully without internet access) and the combination of its sincere tone, photos of bereaved children and their dead birds and the inappropriate context of me reading it for a laugh in "silent" reading sessions made me audibly amused, leading to my form tutor advising that I bring in something more appropriate for my age next time.
Read 1998
**
Since it was on the curriculum, this must have had more substance than your average genre parody, or we might as well have studied Star Wreck.
1999
Read 1999
***
Embodying the transition from kid books to proper books in Year 8 English, this was an impressively unsentimental wartime adventure and the swearing was a novelty.
Read 1999
****
On my own time I favoured the escapism of space stories over grim social realism, but this was one of the better books I was required to read, sequenced in the curriculum to steal much of Mockingbird's thunder.
2000
Tony Isabella, Bob Ingersoll and Aaron Lopresti, Star Trek: All of Me
***
Even as a 90s 'Trek kid, I tended to enjoy the classic series the most in print (presumably those writers were more likely to be familiar with the older series, and the field's more level today?), and this was my favourite of the early Wildstorm releases before I outgrew comics for a few years, in favour of more mature art forms like Blink-182. It does the usual thing of mashing up stock TOS tropes with unrealistically high-budget visuals, but it's satisfyingly on form.
Jean Ritchie, Big Brother: The Official Unseen Story
Read 2000***
A family holiday made me a captive audience to the gripping mundane drama and I enjoyed watching the rest of the interesting social experiment play out, accepting that this made me culpable in the decline of civilisation. This combination behind-the-scenes novelisation was a wise alternative to a twelvety-tape boxset and filled in the dull developments I'd missed, along with saucy extras like erections that were too hot for TV but fine to print in a best-selling paperback.
