Literature Favourite children's books?

Muggle

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I'm feeling nostalgic and so I thought this sort of thread might be kinda fun.

What are your favourite children's books and why? Which books will your (hypothetical or real) children have to read whether they like it or not? :p Which books do you still read now?

I'll start.

Harry Potter.
More than any of my other favourites, I feel like I grew up with Harry. First book came out when I 6 the last when I was 16. It's not just because of what the books are about, it's the whole Harry Potter thing. Just the waiting and the excitement of a new release and actually having a common book with a lot of people my own age. Not to mention that I would use the books to escape from my own childhood.
I still read them. I'm pretty much always reading them and I don't really know why. I've read the entire series 5 times this year alone. They're my go-to books when I'm feeling sad or if I can't sleep.

The Famous Five.

This series is probably to blame for my book obsession. They're the first books I can remember reading and like HP it's not just the plots but the part they played in my childhood. I had about 4 of them as hand-me-downs from my siblings and then everytime we went on holiday to our usual destination the highlight of the holiday for me would be going to the bookshop there and choosing a new Famous Five book and sometimes I got to go there twice a holiday! (That went on up until my 7th birthday when my mother got me the 5 I didn't have.)

The Hobbit.
Most of you will probably know about my Tolkien obsession so I'll spare the details of why I love this book. :p

The other children's books that I love and still read now: The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud, the Wind on Fire trilogy by William Nicholson, The Edge Chronicles by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell, Chronicles of Ancient Darkness by Michelle Paver and the Tales of the Otori by Lian Hearn.
 
Harry Potter, definitely. It lets you into a world where you can be powerful and do all the things you dream about but know are impossible.

His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman. Similar reasoning, it creates another world, a bit of escapism. And we all wanted to know what our daemons would look like.

The Secret Seven, The Five Find Outers and Dog, Malory Towers, St Clares and The Naughtiest Girl - All Enid Blyton. They're all incredibly twee with very little character development and morals are always black and white, but somehow they are so appealing to children.

Ballet Shoes, Gemma and White Boots - Noel Streatfield. Wonderful characters and, again, a world of child entertainers that very few of us had ever been a part of.

The Railway Children - E. Nesbitt. I love it even now. It's both really sad and really uplifting and every character in it is developed and sympathetic and wonderfully written.

Cirque du Freak - Darren Shan. I tried to re-read this in my late teens and it was impossible because of the terrible writing and punctuation, but when I was about 12 I loved it. It's about a boy who visits a travelling freak show and gets bitten and transformed into a vampire. He's strong and fast and immortal, some of the things you dream about as a kid.

Fearless - Francine Pascal. This is more of a young adult/teen series, about a 17 year old girl who was born without a fear gene. She has a normal teen life, going to high school and dealing with normal teenage things, but she also spends her time luring criminals to attack her and then beating the crap out of them. She's a total Mary Sue - absolutely beautiful but thinks she's ugly, incredibly strong, IQ out of this world, world class chess player etc. etc. but that's probably what made her so appealing to teens - she's what they want to be.

There are probably lots of others but I can't think of them right now. Good thread!
 
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I actually read the Famous Five books when I was young as well.

With all that food.
 
I know these aren't necessarily considered "children's" books per se, but my daughter especially loved Calvin and Hobbs starting when she was very young, I would read them to her constantly, she would fall asleep with them, drag them with her everywhere etc., etc. Heck she even had me buy a couple new ones last time we were at Costco to replace some of her wore out 20+ yo copies. I will also add there are some awesome vocabulary words a young child picks up reading C&H, lol.
 
I missed the whole Harry Potter thing by several years. :p

I remember being very fond of everything written by Diana Wynne Jones. I've been meaning to re-read all of her books.

For pure silliness, I loved Daniel Pinkwater.

Edit: Other favorites were The Wind in the Willows and The Phantom Tollbooth. Also, Watership Down- which my library has in the adult section but I read it in middle school.
 
I read a lot of Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew books when I was younger. Many of them were my moms when she was young so they hadn't been PC'd yet. Oh and I was a comic book addict.
 
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz--hands down--where Dorothy is brave and clever and not a crybaby like Judy garland in the film and only 7 years old. Actually, any of the 14 Oz books by L Frank Baum--I am massive Oz collector--I even have Oz barbie dolls. The best is the Patchwork Girl of Oz or the Tin Woodman of Oz IMO. But all 14 are wonderful. You can download them free to your e-reader kindle doodah from Gutenberg or marvel comics is releasing them in graphic novel form and are currently on book 4--Dorothy and the Wizard. they are are illustrated wonderfully by Skottie Young.

Yeah...Oz dominated my childhood.

I like the sally lockheart series by Phillip Pullman--who recomended them to me himself when i said i didn't like His dark materials.
 
A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, and A Swiftly Tilting Planet, by Madeleine L'Engle.

All of The Black Stallion series, by Walter Farley.

Beautiful Joe, by Marshall Saunders.

Black Beauty, by Anna Sewell.

All of the Anne of Green Gables books, by L.M. Montgomery.

Call of the Wild, by Jack London.

The Little House books, by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Toby Tyler, or Ten Weeks with a Circus, by James Otis

The Borrowers series, by Mary Norton.

The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Graham.

Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain.

Misty of Chincoteague, by Maurgeurite Henry.

The Hardy Boys, the Nancv Drew, and the Bobbsey Twins series.
 
Bridge to Terabithia
The littles
The Borrowers
Wind in the Willows
Chronicles of Narnia
 
-A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

-Charlotte's Web by E. B. White

-Bronwen, the Traw, and the Shape-Shifter: A Poem in Four Parts by James Dickey

-Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

-Outside Over There by Maurice Sendak

-James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

-The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

-Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan

All I can think of for now.
 
-Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan

All I can think of for now.

Omg I read that as Sarah Palin!:eek:

The Babysitters Club series were on of my favorites.

Judy Blume books (Pickle Juice, SuperFudge, Tales of the Fourth Grade Nothing and Are You There God?, It's Me Margaret)

Sweet Valley High Twins (sort of like the 80s version of Nancy Drew)

R.L. Stine books

Christopher Pike books
 
I read a lot when I was a kid/teenager, but these are the ones I loved the most. The following are both children's and young adult books:

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (and its sequel, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator)
James and the Giant Peach
Charlotte's Web
Stuart Little
Where the Wild Things Are
A Gift of Magic (by Lois Duncan)
Harriet the Spy (and its sequel The Long Secret)
The Witch of Blackbird Pond
All the Half Magic books by Edward Eager
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (and by the same author, Black Hearts at Battersea)
Mary Poppins
The Cat and the Hat
Tistou of the Green Thumbs
Make Way for Ducklings (and when we had our Vebocon in Boston in 2007 and we visited the Common, I insisted that we had to visit the bronze ducks in the park which are a tribute to the author, who set the book in Boston)

also, I never read this book until my sister had kids, but I wish it had been around when *I* was a kid: If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. I LOVE that book. :D