Books and magazines

Baby-sitters Club was a series of books for teenage girls by Ann M Martin, popular in the 80s and 90s. They were popular with the same readers as Judy Blume and Paula Danzinger books.The series was based around a group ...

This was a magazine very similar to Jackie. It was full of interviews and news of the current pop stars, fashion etc for young teens. It often came with a free gift - the first issue had a pot of ...

I'm remember going to the library every week to read the next one in the series of Bobby Brewster books. They were written by children's author H.E. Todd, and the stories were fantastic - many of them involved things in ...

Many magazines for girls have come and gone over the years, but one of the most endearing had to have been Bunty. Created by prolific publishers D.C. Thomson (famous for many other comics including The Beano and The Dandy and ...

When I was a child, Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) was the most exciting series of books in the world. Not just your simple ‘start on page one and progress numerically until you reach the end’, oh no. These stories ...

Every Christmas I got the new Cor Annual, just as others would get the Beano or Dandy. Characters such as Ivor Lott and Tony Broke, amongst others, whose names escape me now. It cracked me up every Christmas. ...

Dick And Dora was a series of primary school reading books, very much like the Janet And John, Peter And Jane or Topsy And Tim series, from the the mid-1950s, but they can still be found dog-eared and slightly dusty ...

Disco 45 was a non-glossy magazine with all the latest music news and had the lyrics to the latest songs. You just don't get anything like that any more. It was for the serious music fan. ...

Disco 45 was a small magazine, published monthly which featured the words to the latest hits along with record reviews, tour news and artists photographs. They sold music books and t-shirts, vests and sweatshirts with a variety of designs. ...

Suspending disbelief is all-important when you first enter the Discworld; if you like your literature straightforward and true to life then perhaps Terry Pratchett’s series of fantasy novels is not for you. If you aren’t prepared to believe that a realm ...

The official Doctor who annual started with William Hartnell in about 1964 and continued yearly but skipped 1972 for some reason, but then regularly from 1973 until 1986.When the series returned in 2005 the Doctor who annual was relaunched and ...

The official Doctor Who Annual began as a weekly comic style magazine in October 1979, with a photo of Tom Baker and a Dalek on the front cover.As the years went on it went out as a monthly production ...

As a kid brought up on Formula One I always used to buy F1 news over any other Formula One magazine. F1 News was a fortnightly magazine with the most in-depth news any Formula One fan could ask for. Its ...

Fab 208 was the official magazine of Radio Luxembourg (so called because the broadcast on 208m) and was prominent in the 60's & 70's. It contained lots of information about the stations DJ's and had loads of pin-ups of ...

Fighting Fantasy Books were Dungeons and Dragons type books created by Ian Livingston and Steve Jackson. You would get to a choice in the book and move to that page (also using dice to fight creatures). Of course, most of ...

FunFax was the kids' version of the adult Filofax. It was white and multi-coloured on the front and contained all sorts of activities such as quizzes, jokes, calendars, stickers and other fun things. ...

These were a series of children's horror books, the covers were always a different colour and looked like goo/blood dripping down the page, very scary at the time even my mum got scared reading one!!They were written by American author ...

A story about a hedgehog who created his very own hot air balloon to collect cheese from the moon. Uncle prickles met rainbow hedgehogs who lived on the moon and they helped him pack a hamper of their cheese ...

Grimley Feendish- the most hopeless crook in the world- actually began his life of crime in the pages of The Dandy during the '60s, but went on to feature into the early '70s too. Feendish was a curious character, half ...

How My Body Works was a series of hardback books which were available in the shops every week. Each book came with a body part and the end product was a clear plastic man with body parts inside. I also ...

I-Spy books were little pocket books that had pictures and descriptions of certain subjects like birds, transport etc. We used to have these books given to us by our parents when we were going on holiday or during a long car ...

This was a book about a caterpillar who was very hungry (no, not that book), who every time he found something delicious to eat discovered that all was not as it seemed. Basically, as you read the book, you turned ...

This was first published in September 1967, but "intro magazine" ran well into the 1970's. It was one of the first magazines that had slightly more racy content and was aimed at teenage girls.The first issue had 'Free Instant Eyeliner' ...

Short-lived, but good, weekly pop mag which ran for less than 40 issues from 1973-4. Featured pictures and articles on stars of the time, e.g Osmonds, Jackson 5 etc. Also featured song lyrics and a letters page called ...

Jackie Magazine was a girls' weekly magazine published by D.C. Thomson in the UK between 1964 and 1993. The popularity of the magazine was in no small part due to the somewhat controversial problem page called "Cathy and ...

My Mum and Dad bought me 'Haunted House' and 'Robot' both by Jan Pienkowski, sometime in the late 70s. As pop-up books go, they are works of art. I've never such intricate work in a pop-up book! There wasn't really ...

Jinty was a weekly comic book and annual for girls from 1974 to 1981, when it merged with Tammy. I seem to remember a story about two tower blocks that lead into parallel worlds. Unlike its rivals, Misty, Jinty focussed ...

Becoming a teenager is never easy, but for anybody hitting adolescence from 1969 onwards there was suddenly an adult who understood!Reading American author Judy Blume’s books was almost a rite of passage for me and my friends at secondary school; ...

This was the original girls annual.An innocent, pre-to-early teen magazine/comic for girls in the mid 1960's. As part of the annual you could join the Red Rose club for a small fee and they sent you an enamelled rose badge. ...

I am not remotely embarrassed to admit that the reason I first started buying Just Seventeen magazine as a young teen was that I had a bit of a crush on the (then) young Phillip Schofield. One day he was ...

Kung Fu Monthly was available throughout the 70s post-Bruce Lee. It lasted for 79 issues and was actually a giant Bruce poster that was folded into an A4-size 'zine. You read each side and gradually unfolded it bit by bit, ...

Learning to read with Peter and Jane (not forgetting Pat the dog!). Ladybird books were a mainstay of me and my sisters childhood - the artwork looks so retro chic now. ...

It’s pretty safe to say that most British children in the 1960s and ‘70s grew up on good terms with Peter, Jane and their dog, Pat.  In fact, so popular were these characters that featured in the series of Ladybird ...

I remember Look-In Magazine for many reasons: its ITV programme listings with kid-appeal highlights; its heads-up to every fashionable fad that came into being (BMX-ing, yo-yos and skateboarding were a few crazes featured during the magazine’s run), its interviews, picture ...

Madlibs were ______ (adjective) booklets sold in _______ (noun pl) near the _______ (noun) rack. Imagine a whole book of Fill In the Blank on newsprint and add rudimentary illustrations. Used them quite a lot at home when I ...

Magic Eye Patterns were pretty much a page of random patterns that looked like static on the TV. However, if you looked at them the right way (or lied) you could see a 3D picture. The patterns were found in ...

Magic Painting Books were for those of us who couldn't paint for toffee. All you needed was a pot of water and a paint brush. Apply water via paint brush to page and hey presto the picture was coloured. Just ...

This book created possibly the most popular treasure-hunt ever organized, many people will remember it gripping the nation's enthusiasm and imagination from the end of the '70s to 1982.It took the form of a beautifully written and illustrated book launched ...

Had every Issue from 1968 to about '72 or so when sadly publication ceased.It was the best hobby magazine, and a fantastic source of information and ideas, not just Meccano but railways, aero modelling, war gaming - the variety was ...

This was around in the late-80s and 90s, and acted as a guide to living for young ladies of the time. It was a precursor for the Elle and Marie Claire of today, and was in fact published by the ...

Misty was a comic-type magazine for girls with the horror twist in them. The comic only ran for a short time from 1978 to 1980. The style of the Misty comics were very different to any of the others around ...

The Mr Men and Little Miss characters are surely part of one of the most recognisable children’s brands across the world. It’s fairly well known that they came about after a question that six year old Adam asked his father: ...

My Guy was the first (that I remember) magazine which used photos for their stories. I even remember the first story. It went like this: There were three girls who were all in a relationship and somehow all had a wish ...

What I can remember of the Nancy Drew stories was that she was a great role model for young girls to aspire to at the time. I wanted to be Nancy Drew and solve the mysteries with her friends. Nancy ...

Same idea as Smash Hits i used to have it delivered every week. I think it came out on Fridays. ...

These were small, pocket sized hardback books with what seemed like hundred of subjects to choose from. No surprise really as they were produced from 1937 - 2003 (by Frederick Warne & Co in the UK) The books were about a ...

The Oh Boy! Annual was a bit like Jackie magazine. It was published in the late 70s, early 80s by IPC magazines. Targetted towards loved-up teenage girls one particularly memorable annual aimed to entice the reader by claiming "If you ...

Oink! was like a "Viz" for kids and was around in 1986-1988. The lead character in Oink! was Uncle Pig and his team were called the Plops. Other characters were, The Streethogs, Harry The Head, Ugly Face Watkins, Tom Thug, ...

Does anyone else out there remember Old Lob?  I remember the books from Primary School in the early 50s and the incredibly vivid illustrations live with me still. Apparently, for some strange reason, the books are as rare as hen's teeth ...