I think helping to develop a love of reading is one of the greatest gifts one can give to a child. Having made her way through the box set of Secret Seven books we sent her two years ago, we’ve now just dispatched a birthday present of the 21 book set of the Famous Five to my wife’s eight year old Milan based niece.
Enid tackled many of the issues we face today with prescient sensitivity. Gender fluid George and CIS Anne are two good examples. 
Goodness how people complicate life these days.
I still have mostof my copies from childhood in hardback.
All my pocket money went on them, and Biggles. 
Got them all (and much more) from the wonderful local public library that also had a fascinating local history museum and in retrospection, an amazingly adventurous contemporary art gallery.
Dread to learn what happened to it all, but suspect it hasn’t flourished in recent times
Yes, I was a great library browser as well. First got Tintin’s there and had read P. L. Travers long before the film.
You forgot body dysmorphia (Big Ears) and OCD (Noddy).
I remember the day when (I think I was 11) I was allowed an adult ticket.
When we cleared my mother’s house earlier this year I found my complete set of Arthur Ransome Swallows and Amazon books. I did bring them back to France with me thinking our granddaughter might be interested but she’s got the attention span of a goldfish if it isn’t electronic .
Used to lie on my bed for hours reading the above authors, transported into another realm away from squabbling siblings and shouting parents. Kids today don’t know what they are missing, there, I sound just like my parents at the same age but it is true!
I liked the first few S&A books but wasn’t so enamoured of the later ones. I re-read Swallows and Amazons last year and it’s still a classic.
May I also recommend the “Uncle” books by J. P. Martin (no not J.R. Hartley) - really good fun and excellently illustrated by the inimitable Quentin Blake:
Uncle is a millionaire elephant who has a B.A. and wears a purple dressing gown. He lives in a labyrinth of skyscrapers connected by water chutes, lifts and railways, and littered with oil lakes, walls of sweets and towers of treacle. He and his followers amuse themselves by exploring his home and falling into adventures with its inhabitants, a collection of lunatics, dwarfs and ghosts. Uncle also frequently fights with the inhabitants of neighbouring Badfort, among them the repulsive Jellytussles (a quivering blob) and the cowardly Hitmouse.
Mum was a voracious reader and as a young child I used to go to the library on a Saturday morning to pick books for her to read. She trusted me to get her things she hadn’t read before … this being when I had a good memory 
. I used to go upstairs into the reference section and spend hours pouring over books on physics, chemistry, electronics and more. I was also allowed to pick two adult books of my own. I think it was mums way of encouraging me.
That’s how I got to read books like Beau Geste, written by PC Wren. I was young and small and I could sit on the floor of the adult section and pick out books from the bottom row that had authors whose names began with all the last letters in the alphabet.
Out of nostalgia I’d rather fancy reading a Billy Bunter book.
Cripes! You rotter! 
When I got my first library card as a child it was like a golden ticket. My first book out was Jules Verne’s 20,000 leagues under the sea.
As a junior school pupil I spent hours in the local libarary which was on my way home. Discovered I could read Hank Janson books whilst there but couldn’t take them out on my ticket!
I think that’s the perfect age to introduce her to Le Petit Prince, if you’ve not already done so.
Actually, on that very topic Gareth, I bought this a few weeks ago…
Though, I ashamed to say, despite having least two copies of the book in the house, I have never read it 
Never too late…
I shall now assume the perpendicular and go out.
