Christmas is the perfect time to share classic books with children.
Stuffed in a stocking or in a big pile under the tree they are the most precious gift ...
... you can't help but feel the joy as you pass onto a new generation the pure pleasure your favourite books gave you as a child ...
... and that shared pleasure becomes a magical link that connects up generation after generation ... I am so looking forward to giving my daughter books that her grandparents and great grandparents and even great great parents loved when they were young.
And as we seem to get through books at such a rapid rate I've tried to come up with a massive list of all my most loved that I can't wait to share ...
Classic Children's Books
- Watership Down : Richard Adams ... rabbits escaping from property developers may not seem a promising basis for a story but this Carnegie award winner has been a best seller ever since publication
- The Wolves of Willoughby Chase : Joan Aiken ... fabulous adventure as Bonnie & Sylvia try to escape the evil governess and wolves who have taken over their home ... also look out for the sequel Black Hearts in Battersea
- The Book of Three : Lloyd Alexander ... knights, princesses and more in award winning fantasy from the 1960s ...
- *Mr Poppers Penguins : Richard Atwater ... how can you not have fun with 12 penguins in the house :-)
- The Wonderful Wizard of Oz : L. Frank Baum ... much more complex than the film but still magical
- The Children of Green Knowe : L.M. Boston ... a young boy goes to live in his strange grandmother's very strange ... and spooky ... house in the countryside ..
- Caddie Woodlawn : Carol Ryrie Brink ... the adventures of a 19 Century tom boy ...
- *Milly Molly Mandy : Joyce Lankester Brisley ... lovely short stories of every day village life
- The Secret Garden : Frances Hodgson Burnett ... orphaned Mary returns from India to her uncle's house in Yorkshire where she is sure she can hear a child crying ...
- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland : Lewis Carroll ... needs no introduction!
- The Cat Who Went to Heaven : Elizabeth Coatsworth ... a strugglingJapanese artist is finally repaid, after much tribulation, for the care he shows to a cat ...
- *James & the Giant Peach : Roald Dahl ... very hard to pick out just a few Roald Dahl but this is brilliantly written and will entertain everyone from littlies and up ...
- *Fantastic Mr Fox : Roald Dahl ... more brilliance from Roald Dahl, a master class in how to write a first chapter book for young children ...
- The Wheel on the School : Meindert DeJong ... the children of a small Dutch village get caught up in all sorts of escapades as they try to bring the storks back to their village by finding a wheel to put on their school roof ... I was given this when I was in hospital as a child and read it three times over whilst I was there :-) ...
- The Little Bookroom : Eleanor Farjean ... fairy stories turned on their heads ...
- Hitty - Her First Hundred Years: Rachel Field ... adventures across 19th Century America through the eyes of a magical doll ...
- Johnny Tremain : Esther Hoskins Forbes ... page turning adventure set during the American War of Independence ...
- *My Father's Dragon : Ruth Stiles Gannett ... the adventures of a small boy who has to rescue a baby dragon from Wild Island ...
- The Owl Service : Alan Garner ... a spooky story set in Wales that taps into Welsh myths
- Elidor : Alan Garner ... four children stumble into another world and have to fight the forces of evil who are trying to get into ours ...
- The Family From One End Street : Eve Garnett ... an early Carnegie winner of the humorous trials and tribulations of the working class Ruggles family ...
- The Little White Horse : Elizabeth Goudge ... J.K. Rowling's favourite book as a child is a story of orphan Maria who tries to uncover the secrets of the strange manor house in which she goes to live ..
- The Wool Pack : Cynthia Harnett ... set in 15th Century England during the wars of the roses
- Millions of Cats : Wanda Gag ... an old couple decide to get a cat but end up with trillions of them!
- Smoky the Cowhorse : Will James ... a horse's life on the open range is disrupted by the arrival of men ...
- *Emil & the Detectives : Erich Kastner ... we've just finished this and can't recommend enough ... it's a fabulously page turner of how Emil and his new found friends get his mother's hard earned money back from a thief ...
- The Trumpeter of Krakow : Eric Kelly ... medieval adventure in Poland ...
- Stig of the Dump : Clive King ... lonely Barney discovers and makes friends with a cave boy Stig ...
- From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler : E. L. Konigsburg ... Claudia runs away to the Met Museum in New York ... as you do! ... and stumbles head long into an adventure involving a mysterious statue that may not be quite what it seems ....
- A Wrinkle in Time : Madeleine L'Engle ... mystery and adventure through time and space ... what's not to love :-)
- *The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe : C.S. Lewis ... needs no introduction but because it is so short and well written it is surprisingly accessible even for 4 to 6 year olds who are progressing to chapter books ...
- The Magicians Nephew : C.S. Lewis ... so hard to pick a second favourite Narnia story but I think Magicians Nephew ... the images it evoked for me are still fresh in my mind today ...
- *Pippi Longstocking : Astrid Lindgren ... the irrepressible Pippi gets up to non-stop mischief
- The Wind on the Moon : Eric Linklater ... Dinah & Dorinda give Pippi a run for her money in the mischief stakes but even Pippi never has to escape from the zoo because she's been turned into a kangaroo ... fantastic fun :-)
- The Ghost of Thomas Kempe : Penelope Lively ... James, a little boy with a very big imagination, is haunted by the ghost of a 17th Century poltergeist who gets James into all sort of trouble ...
- The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle : Hugh Lofting ... Dr Dolittle and all his animal friends ...
- Call of the Wild : Jack London ... much debate about whether this is a kids' book or not but this story narrated by a dog surviving in the wild whilst other dogs, wolves and men is definitely a classic ...
- The Princess & the Goblin : George MacDonald ... so many of the great children's authors have paid tribute to this fabulously scary fairy story written by George MacDonald in 1872 ... I read it on holiday when I was little & was scared stiff but couldn't put it down ...
- Anne of Green Gables : L.M. Montgomery ... as a child I loved the irrepressible and chatterbox Anne who despite her best efforts is always getting herself into hot water ...
- The Railway Children : E Nesbit ... 3 children are forced to leave their house in London when their father is sent to prison for a house by the railway ... they initially struggle to come to terms with the change in their lives but eventually prove their worth by preventing a train crash ...
- 5 Children and It : E Nesbit ... 5 children come across a sand fairy who can grant wishes ... but the wishes have a horrible habit of going horribly wrong ...
- The Borrowers : Mary Norton ... the classic story of the little people who live behind the base boards and are responsible for all those things that go mysteriously missing ...
- Mrs Frisby & the Rats of Nimh : Robert C. O'Brien ... a mouse family and a breed of super rats might not seem a promising start ... but this is fantastic award winning adventure ..
- Island of the Blue Dolphins : Scott O'Dell ... beautifully written story of an Indian girl living alone on the island of the blue dolphins ...
- Tom's Midnight Garden : Philippa Pearce ... every night Tom escapes into the garden where he befriends a little girl from the past ...
- Pollyanna : Eleanor H Porter ... even stern Aunt Polly can't repress Pollyanna's joyfulness until an accident leaves Pollyanna unable to walk ... but good comes out of course ...
- *Mrs Pepperpot : Alf Poysen ... a completely crazy old lady who is for ever shrinking to pepperpot size ..
- Swallows & Amazons : Arthur Ransome ... two families of children are deadliest foes as they fight battles from their sailing boats one summer holiday until they join forces against the dreaded "Captain Flint" (their uncle) and then more seriously a gang of thieves ...
- Pigeon Post : Arthur Ransome ... no boats in this which is I think my fave Arthur Ransome ... the adventure this time is set in the old hill mines ...
- Where the Red Fern Grows : Wilson Rawls ... moving story of Billy and the two beloved dogs he trains
- The Little Prince : Antoine de Saint-Expury ... not just another soppy book about princes ... this prince is from another galaxy!
- The White Stag : Kate Seredy ... history and myth in the journey of the Magyars to Hungary ...
- Black Beauty : Anna Sewell ... the travails of the famous black horse are still moving kids 140 years after the book was first written ...
- Heidi : Joanne Spyri ... my big sister was meant to get her own story when I was very little but somehow I snuck in on this one when I was 3 or 4 and I was instantly entranced by the little girl growing up in the Alps with her friend Peter ...
- Treasure Island : Robert Louis Stevenson ... fantastic pirate adventure that needs little introduction ...
- Ballet Shoes : Noel Streatfeild ... 3 very different little girls are adopted by a professor who then goes missing and end up having to support the family through their dancing skills ... even little girls who aren't obsessed by ballet will love this ...
- The Eagle : Rosemary Sutcliff ... first in a series of 4 adventures of a Roman legion in Britain ... the third in the series The Lantern Bearers won the Carnegie Medal
- The Hobbitt : J. R. R. Tolkein ... the adventures of Bilbo Baggins ... orks, wolves, bears, eagles, elves & dragons ... rattle along at great speed in the Hobbit which unlike Lord of the Rings really is a children's book ...
- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn : Mark Twain ... needs no introduction ...
- Knight Crusader : Ronald Welch ... another historical novel that can provide great opening to history
- Charlotte's Web : E.B. White ... can Charlotte the spider save Wilbur the pig from becoming the Christmas bacon ... of course she can but can Charlotte herself make it too ... lovely stuff ...
- The Happy Prince : Oscar Wilde ... heart rending stuff about a little sparrow and the statue of a prince ...
- Little House in the Big Woodse : Laura Ingalls Wilder ... the first in the series about pioneer life on the prairie ...
- *The Velveteen Rabbit : Margery Williams ... heart warming story of little rabbit who fears he will never be loved because he is only made of velveteen ..
- *Gobbolino : Ursula Moray Williams ... poor little Gobbolino encounters all sorts of adventures as he tries to escape from a witch's cavern and become a kitchen cat ...
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