Toad Hall, revisited

What was your favourite book as a child? Toss this conversation starter towards a few friends and be prepared for a startling array of answers, all delivered with an enthusiasm that must spark envy among the great ‘grown-up’ classics. Beneath our deservedly popular literary heritage of Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland or The Jungle Book lies a trove of considerably less famous titles, all loved just as fiercely by their followers. Before long you’ll tumble down a riotous rabbit hole of overlooked delights, such as The Fox’s Frolic by Sir Francis Burnand or, perhaps, The Adventure of Hadrian Hedgehog by Candida Lycett Green, a carefree vision of what Brideshead Revisited could have been without all that Catholic angst.

To re-read these books is the ultimate nostalgic indulgence, the closest we can get to time travel. Familiar words and illustrations unlock forgotten wardrobes in the brain, from which spill the same emotions of awe, reassurance and exhilaration originally felt by our younger selves. Often, too, there are the extra layers of allegory or observation that passed us by, observed: “A children’s story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children’s story in the slightest.”