My friend, Käthe, over at her blog, is compiling a list of her ten favorite children's books. A fair number of the ones on her list are books that I love, too. But it made me start thinking about my favorites. Off the top of my head, I can come up with the following list:
1. Finn Family Moomintroll - Tove Jannson
2. Marianne Dreams - Catherine Storr
3. Fair to Middling - Arthur Calder Marshall
4. The Five Children and It - E. Nesbit
5. The Diamond in the Window - Jane Langton
6. A Stranger at Green Knowe - L.M. Boston
7. Un Lun Dun - China Mieville
8. The Weirdstone of Brisingamen - Alan Garner
9. The Phantom Tollbooth - Norton Juster
10. The Thirteen Clocks - James Thurber
If allowed to add a few more, they'd be:
11. Eva - Peter Dickinson
12. The Various - Steve Augarde
13. Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne
14. The True Meaning of Smekday - Adam Rex
15. Walkabout - James Vance Marshall
16. I Am David - Ann Holm
17. Time at the Top - Edward Ormondroyd
18. Big World and the Little House - Ruth Krauss
19. Hob and the Goblins - William Mayne
20. The Little White Horse - Elizabeth Goudge
Mostly older books, mostly English. Two, alas, out of print and hard to find.
5 comments:
We agree about Smekday (and thank you for suggesting it to me in the first place!) We also agree about the Nesbit and the Juster, although I cut them both from my list to fit in newer writers, confident that others would pick them.
Eva I loved, but I think it's a little more YA. And as fond as I am of the Milne books, the kids have never liked them too much. For my list I tried to emphasize books that they had really enjoyed reading or having read to them.
thanks for giving me 13 more titles for my list. I was running low.
Yeah, I love Smekday. And I realize my list is particularly weighted toward older books since I haven't read aloud to my own kid for...oh, 12 years or so.
I am kicking myself for leaving out Toys Day Out and am thinking of redoing the list...I had actually thought of doing three...picture books, children's books and YA books.
Something for a slow day at work, perhaps.
Speaking of Toys, have you read any of her books for YA? Those are published under E. Lockhart, and if you haven't read The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks you must immediatly.
Oooh, going to check that out right now!
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