Celebrating World Book Day - What Are Your Favourite Childhood Books?

I always loved books and could read by the time I was three, thanks to my ever patient mum. My favourite book as a young child came from a movie of the same name - The Red Balloon. It tells the story of a lonely young boy who is befriended by an enchanted and mischievious balloon. The books that most inspired me to become a writer however, were a beautiful illustrated copy of Charles Kingsley's The Water Babies, which I had my mother read with me over and over again, plus a book of children's poetry. I also loved the Noddy stories and the book that came with The Tufty Club which taught road safety through the stories ofTufty the squirrel and his woodland friends. When I was about eight, I won a story writing competition at school and the prize was any book I wanted from the school's library. I chose Pamela Brown's The Swish of the Curtain. I still have that copy and, what's more, I still read it from time to time even as an adult. According to my mother, I was telling stories long before I could write and produced my first 'book' at the age of seven.