classic children's books

Hi! I just received an invite to the group, so I'm new here. Small group, that's good.

Anyways, I am starting to think about my reading goals for next year - trying to come up with a different goal, as I've met my goals for the last two years (the only years I formally wrote down, and kept track, of any book/reading related goal). One of my ideas is to read 52 book classics & 52 books by new-too-me authors next year. In order to do that, realistically I'd need to read mainly children's classics.

So, what are your favorites?

Definitely The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. They're lovely, and very short. The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander are also good, as are:

~ just about anything by E. Nesbit. (I especially liked the trilogy that begins with Five Children and It).
~ Andrew Lang's Fairy Books,. (The Blue Fairy Book, etc.)
~ The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. There are also tons of other books in the series. They get a little silly as it progresses, but they're particularly good if you're interested in what children's lit is trying to communicate to children.
~ the Silverwing books by Kenneth Oppel aren't exactly classics yet, but they're incredibly good. I recommend them to anyone who likes children's lit.

xicanti, it is exciting to know that the "color" fairy tale books are still around. I LOVED them as a child, but that was many, many years ago, and I read them in my school library. Now I'm going to have to look for them. i oved the E. Nesbit books too.

Also, speaking of books I loved as a child, I remember a series of "biographies" of famous people focusing on their childhoods. (I would have read them in the early 1960s.) I have doubts (now) about the historical accuracy of some of these, but they were a lot of fun. Does anyone know what this series was called, so I could look for them?

rebeccanyc, that wouldn't have been the Childhood of Famous Americans series, would it? I can't find any of them on LT, and the dates listed on Amazon are in the '80s, but those may have been reprints. I've got some of these floating around somewhere...

Here are ten
Brendon Chase
the Wind in the Willows
A Wizard Of Earthsea
The Book of Dragons
anything by Joan Aiken but why not try her short stories say, A Harp Of Fishbones
The Mouse and His Child
Some Paddington bear
The Phantom TollBooth
The Weirdstone of Brisingamen
Swallows and Amazons

ellen w., I took a quick look and they might be -- I will have to look more closely later when I have more time. Thanks!

Some of my favorites that haven't been listed yet are:

Little Women (and the rest of the series)
Black Beauty
Heidi
The Little House on the Prairie series
Peter Pan
Mary Poppins
Tom Sawyer
A Little Princess
Alice in Wonderland
Swiss Family Robinson
Robin Hood
Kidnapped
Treasure Island

A little more recent (20th century), but still classics:

Matilda (and many other Roald Dahl books)
The Saturdays (and the rest of the series)
The Hundred Dresses
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
The LIttle Prince
The Red Pony

Still not mentioned that I would add:

A Wrinkle in Time
Anne of Green Gables
Five Little Peppers and How They Grew
The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Little Britches
Charlotte's Web
Tucker's Countryside which I liked more than its better known predecessor A Cricket in Times Square

"Slake's Limbo" by Felice Holman and "Tulku" by Peter Dickinson aren't yet classics, but they are wondrous to read! Esta1923

I loved The All-of-a-Kind Family and the others in the series about a family of 5? girls on New York's Lower East Side in the early 20th century. I believe they're back in print.

Also, did anyone mention Harriet the Spy, another great NYC children's book? Its sequel (I've forgotten the title) was nowhere near as good.

Also not sure if anyone mentioned the Pippi Longstocking books.

All-of-A-Kind Family! One of my favorites. I can't believe I forgot to mention that one.

I've got to second The Little Prince, too. For years, people told me that I needed to read it. I finally got my hands on a copy this past Augustand was blown away. It's so much more than just a simple children's book.

rebeccanyc, someone else who's read the coloured fairy books! I took them all out of the library when I was little and would love to own copies, but they seem very difficult to find. I've only managed to get my hands on The Pink Fairy Book and The Brown Fairy Book.

xicanti,
the coloured fairy books are all published by Dover Books. They also have a website, but of course right now I cannot remember the address.
I only own one original edition, and that is the Pink Fairy Book, but a few years ago I had bought them all (the Dover edition, I mean) for my daughter. Well, the result was that she did not read them but I did!! So, perhaps, I should put them in my catalogue....what do you think?

I absolutely loved everything by Enid Blyton who I think is not well known in the states. I especially loved the Famous Five books.
I haven't read them as an adult though so I don't know if I'd still like them.

Oh yes, Enid Blyton, I read her too (even here in the US) and loved her books. I admit to having a little queasiness about how some of the older ones books would hold up today given changes in what's considered socially acceptable. Although it probably all went by me as a child, I have a feeling some of the older books would seem sexist and racist today. On the other hand, there were plenty of books with adventurous girls too.

As for the colored fairy books and the childhoods of young Americans books, I found new editions on Amazon, but I think I imprinted on the old hardback library copies I devoured as a child. A quick search on www.abebooks.com showed some used copies of the older editions, but pretty pricy!

edited to correct the web site address

Three more:
The Princess and the Goblin
Winnie the Pooh
Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle

And what about the Betsy-Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace?

And, of course, anything by Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss).

While some of his books are incredibly simple and short (Hop on Pop, etc.), many are classic tales. I'm thinking of:

The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins
The Cat in the Hat (I'm partial to the French/English edition "Le Chat au Chapeau" - my daughter loved it!)
Horton Hears a Who
Horton Hatches the Egg, which is my personal favorite.
The Lorax, an environmental parable.
How the Grinch Stole Christmas
And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street

Make sure you take the time to really look at the illustrations. The man could draw a compelling cartoon image.

You have to read Enid Blytons Magic Faraway Tree series...they are classics!! I have found it wonderful to read them all again with mydaughter and to see that she enjoys them as much as I did. I am still a little disturbed though that the books seem to have been subjected to some kind of modern political correctness...the character Fanny has been renamed as Frannie! My daughter was given a new copy of the books for Christmas and I couldn't believe it...even had to dig out my childhood copy to prove to myself that my mind wasn't wrong...come on, surely we shouldn't have to change our classics!!

Don't forget The Princess Bride and Neverending Story. Also Angie Sage has started a new series starring hero Septimus Heap. The first two books are Magyk and Flyte. Love That Dog by Sharon Creech and A Girl Named Disaster by Nancy Farmer are also good. An oldie but goodie is the historical adventure drama Captain from Castile by Shellabarger.

I have 16 of the older titles from the Childhood of Famous Americans series listed on LT -- but I put its initials, CoFA, in the tags, rather than make sure it was part of every title. Mine are from the 1950s and have the wonderful silhouette illustrations you may remember (but were dropped from the more recent editions). As a second grader I read every single one I could get my hands on, on the long bus ride home from school.

Perhaps if you search the LT tags for CoFA, COFA, cofa, Childhood of Famous Americans, etc., you'll find them all!

The Rescuers' series by Margery Sharp are very enjoyable with a droll wit that parents will enjoy. She also wrote enjoyable books for adults (like Cluny Brown and. The Stone of Chastity.

I'm really enjoying this list -- finding out about books I'd NEVER heard of (The Weirdstone of Brisingamen), even though I have lots of older English children's fiction.

Not mentioned yet Susan Coolidge's What Katy Did and What Katy Did Next. Also, Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book. And what about Noel Streatfield, for example, Party Frock and many of her others.

Which of these would be good for kids in 1st grade? They read very well.

Excuse my ignorance morphidae (#24) but I'm in the UK. What age group are 1st grade - 5-6?

Kids in grade one are usually either already six or will turn six before the end of the calendar year, at least in Canada. I think that in the US they may have to be at least six before the school year begins.

Ah, that was a bit Ameri-centric wasn't it?

My niece and nephew are 6 and 7.

I'm glad someone mentioned Harriet the Spy! And how about the Susan Cooper Dark is Rising series? The Adventures of Robin Hood? How about the Marguerite Henry horse books? Nancy Drew or The Hardy Boys?

What about A A Milne's Winnie the Pooh but not in some revamped Disney-type format?

SaintSunniva (#21) thanks. I'm sure these are the Childhood of Famous Americans I remember since I would have read them in the early 1960s. As I recall, some (all?) of them had orange covers; these would possibly have been library editions, since I took them out of the school library.

One of the ones I remember most vividly is Benjamin Franklin, who was sent to bed without supper one night, possibly (although I don't remember clearly), because he was so absorbed in what he was doing that he didn't come to supper when called.

Did you keep these books all these years, or were you able to buy them used?

Even firsts who are reading well are often still in early chapter books. But they seem to like The Magic Tree House series by Mary Pope Osborne (which are time-travel and contain a lot of history). Also Flat Stanley and its sequels. A lot of girls like Junie B. Jones.

What books have your niece and nephew been reading in the last couple of months? Many of the authors mentioned above write more for nine to ten year olds. Of course some of these books would be good read-alouds.