Children literature recommendations!

[Yon Lee]

Hi all!

I'm new to this forum and I'm already excited to see how lively this forum is!

To start this post off, I should probably mention that I'm considerably new to the world of literature. I did grow up reading Enid Blyton's books though, and also some of The Narnia anthologies, and the Goosebumps books. As you can tell the genres that I grew up with are pretty jumbled up and inconsistent.

Recently I had the pleasure of reading about 80% of Roahl Dahl's children book and I was immediately transported back to being a little boy again! Never had I in a long time being so transfixed to a book for hours after hours! Working in the animation industry, I always try to find inspiration around me and I find myself always drawing from memories of my childhood. I feel gravitated towards children literature for the simplicity and the honesty of the approach in the writing style and I'm very excited to read more, but I honestly don't know where to start!

I'm 27 and while it may seem a little long overdue for me to just pick up on reading what most readers consider are the most important childrens' books, I'd still like to take on the challenge to read them all.

As I mentioned above, I recently read about 80% of Roahl Dahl's childrens' books, but I also read the following:

A Wrinkle in Time
Frog and Toad are Friends
Pinocchio
Alice in Wonderland
Anne of Green Gables
The Little Prince

It's not a lot, but I'd still like to read the books most readers consider to be the most important classical children literature written. I'd like to someday create stories that remind people of what it's like to be a kid again (very much like Mr.Dahl's children's books). What are some books any of you would recommend for a starter? Whatever you consider is a "must-read" would definitely help! I ordered these books off of Amazon today:

Pippi Longstocking
The Children of Noisy Village
The Borrowers
Charlotte's Web
The Wind in the Willows
The Secret Garden

I'm excited to see what books are any of your favorites!!!

-Yon

[tailor STATELY]

A guilty pleasure of mine recently was reading many of Frank Baum's Oz books: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Oz_books that I downloaded from Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=Baum&go=Go

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY

[Whifflingpin]

It looks, from your lists, as if you are aiming to read the classics of children's literature so the following might be considered "essential."

Coral Island by Ballantyne
Treasure Island by Stevenson
Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Little Women by Alcott
What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge
something by E. Nesbit, e.g. The Wouldbegoods or Five Children and It.

My shelves contain books by Rosemary Sutcliff, Peter Dickinson (Tulku, AK etc), Joan Aiken, Geoffrey Trease, Henry Treece, Alan Garner, Leon Garfield, William Mayne, Violet Needham (The Black Riders etc) - all of whom were "essentials" 30-50 years ago (some of those may still be writing.)

My granddaughter's shelves additionally include Jacqueline Wilson, Eva Ibbotson, Lemony Snicket, Michael Morpurgo.

You can't ignore Otfried Preussler (Robber Hotzenplotz, Krabat etc), Pullman, Rowling....

[Danik 2016]

Some more for your list:
Peter Pan
Treasure Island by Robert Stevenson
The adventurs of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain (A kind of sequel to Tom Sawyer, but I prefer it)
Classical Tales by Grimm and/or Andersen

[bounty]

tailor, ive got a good sampling of the oz books (heck I wonder if I have them all), but ive only read the first so far. maybe i'll pick the next one up soon and give it a shot.

yon, ive not read them, but I wonder about the laura ingalls wilder little house on the prairie series for you?

I'd add black beauty and Winnie the pooh to your library.

some other suggestions: alice in wonderland and the jungle book.

also, you mentioned charlotte's web---white has a bunch of others worth getting, so you can explore him as an author.

[Ecurb]

The first (and best) of Nesbit's Bastable books is "The Treasure Seekers". I second the recommendation, with that ammendment.

[Tyrion Cheddar]

Well, there's Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter.

[Iain Sparrow]

Well, there's Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter.

Actually, I was pleasantly surprised how well written that book was.
And I think it's the only time that the book was more badass than the movie.

[Calidore]

I will second the above mentions of Tom Sawyer, Joan Aiken, and especially Winnie the Pooh (which I reread years ago as an adult and discovered tons of humor that I missed as a kid). YMMV on the Oz books; I had the full set by Baum, and while young me loved them all and reread a few favorites many times, adult me didn't find them holding up so well. Definitely read the original, though.

I'll highly recommend The Hobbit by Tolkien, the Prydain series by Lloyd Alexander (can't really go wrong with any of his work, but this was his peak IMO), and John Bellairs' gothic mysteries for kids.

Edit: Oh, and Susan Cooper's Dark Is Rising series.

[Tyrion Cheddar]

Actually, I was pleasantly surprised how well written that book was.
And I think it's the only time that the book was more badass than the movie.

That, Iain, is the understatement of the year. The book simply blew me away. The quality and depth of the research. The gripping seriousness both of the tale of Lincoln's early life, which I'd known very little about, and of the years leading up to the Civil War, the artful way the author invoked vampires and the battle against them as a metaphor for the struggle between the two major forces at work back then--all quite astonishing. I was so excited for a movie adaptation, and then...<drum roll>...crap on a stick! That movie was an abomination. It had almost nothing to do with the book, and turned what was a very serious story for adults into a sensationalistic Hollywood abortion. <sigh> Oh well...

[Iain Sparrow]

That, Iain, is the understatement of the year. The book simply blew me away. The quality and depth of the research. The gripping seriousness both of the tale of Lincoln's early life, which I'd known very little about, and of the years leading up to the Civil War, the artful way the author invoked vampires and the battle against them as a metaphor for the struggle between the two major forces at work back then--all quite astonishing. I was so excited for a movie adaptation, and then...<drum roll>...crap on a stick! That movie was an abomination. It had almost nothing to do with the book, and turned what was a very serious story for adults into a sensationalistic Hollywood abortion. <sigh> Oh well...

The movie was just a dopey slasher flick.
The book intimately linked the Slave Trade to the Vampire's agenda, wonderfully thought out and executed. Besides that, the writing is just plain literate and personal. It had the feel of something written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, but with vampires!
I bought the audiobook thinking it would be 'light' listening, and ended up with a thought provoking horror story, with real horrors.

[Tyrion Cheddar]

The movie was just a dopey slasher flick.
The book intimately linked the Slave Trade to the Vampire's agenda, wonderfully thought out and executed. Besides that, the writing is just plain literate and personal. It had the feel of something written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, but with vampires!
I bought the audiobook thinking it would be 'light' listening, and ended up with a thought provoking horror story, with real horrors.

I did the same, as it happens, from Audible. The reader had a great voice for it, which is critical, as you know if you're into audiobooks. The scenes of unbelievable harshness from Lincoln's childhood were so intense, as were all the scenes involving the pro-slavery Confederates. Really something.

[Calidore]

Just thought of another favorite, which, like Pooh, is even better when read as an adult: The 13 Clocks by James Thurber.

[Yon Lee]

Wow! Thanks so much everyone!!! I'd definitely check out the recommendations!

Just ordered Winnie the Pooh off of Ebay! I've been wondering about the Frank Baum's OZ books and also The Adventures of Tom Sawyer! I know of many of these books but never had the chance to read them mostly because I have been afraid to pick up lengthy books out of the fear of not finishing them! I always feel beaten when i don't finish a book and that somewhat makes me lazy to pick up another book just because I know I won't finish it!

Now that I'm in a reading forum I won't feel like I'm doing it alone anymore since I'll have a lot of people to talk to!

The last week I've been going through Astrid Lingren's "The Children of Noisy Village" and also "Charlotte's Web"! Both were such a great read!

[Aylinn]

The Neverending Story – Micheal Ende
Momo – Micheal Ende
Diana Wynne Jones' books

Also, Night on the Galactic Railroad by Kenji Miyazawa is a popular book for children in Japan.
I have never read this book, but maybe you will find it interesting.

[Yon Lee]

Aylinn I've actually read Momo and i loved it!! I also just got myself a copy of Night on the Galactic Railroad and I can't wait to read it!

[qimissung]

Enchantress from the stars by Sylvia Engdahl, and Tom's Midnight Garden by Phillipa Pearce.

[ennison]

I would recommend anything by Geraldine MacCaughrean, anything byPhilip Reeve, Wiliam Nicolson, Eva Ibbotson, Gardam (She's also an "adult" novelist). Good quality writing is good quality writing.

[wordeater]

Anna Sewell - Black Beauty
Anthony Horowitz - The Sinister Secret of Frederick K. Bower
Astrid Lindgren - Emil of Lönneberga
Astrid Lindgren - Ronia the Robber's Daughter
Astrid Lindgren - The Brothers Lionheart
Beatrix Potter - The Tale of Peter Rabbit
Edith Nesbitt - The Railway Children
Enid Blyton - Five on a Treasure Island
Erich Kästner - The 35th of May
Erich Kästner - Lottie and Lisa
Hector Malot - Nobody's Boy
Karl May - Winnetou
L. Frank Baum - The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Mark Haddon - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Ouida - A Dog of Flanders
P. L. Travers - Mary Poppins
Richard Adams - Watership Down
Selma Lagerlöf - The Wonderful Adventures of Nils
Sue Townsend - The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4