I found the story of Moomintroll waking up alone in a world transformed deeply unsettling as a child - and still do, writes historian Tom Holland

With coconut cricket pitches, popcorn-puffing steam trains and, best of all, a jelly swimming pool, this was reading rich with dreams

This 1960s classic about a mouse who wants to learn the balalaika and tour central Europe seems entirely different to today’s rainbow picture books

Mr and Mrs Twit’s antics, from spiking spaghetti with worms to booby-trapping a bed with frogs, are malign and vindictive – and I loved them

As a child I found these comics, where the superhero’s foe first kills him then co-opts his identity, intensely disturbing. Today, I am filled with hope

Echoes of lockdown abound in the adventures of no-longer-bored Milo – daft, entertaining and oddly reminiscent of Ulysses in its linguistic flights of fancy

This series of beautifully illustrated stories of a brave rabbit made Matthew Parris a Tory, he says. They made me a socialist

Rhik Samadder is still moved by the story of a precocious foundling and a teenager exploring London’s East End and spiritual life

Their fantastically detailed illustrations and breathless plots awoke me to books as a child. Today they’re a tonic for ‘literary’ nonsense

The author of the bestselling Bone Season novels rereads the book that first showed her fantasy could make room for the heroic female

Despite some dodgy politics, this is an ingenious riff on international rivalry and has an inspiring friendship at its core

Dating from long before Harry Potter, this story of young magicians’ adventures still enchants

Kicking off a series where writers revisit the book they loved most as a child, Sam Leith returns to a ‘sinister’ classic