Great Works of Children's Literature

[Jillyn'Toast]

I'm in the middle of studying Children's Literature right now, which happens to have been my favorite subject. You'll always find me sneaking off into the 811's or 398.2's... So, I thought I'd start a thread where I can see some of your favorite Children's Lit!

I'll start with telling you mine ^_^ Of course, my first love is Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, but here's a list of other authors and titles I love!

1. George MacDonald, particularly The Light Princess and The Princess and the Goblins.

2. Kate DiCamillo, particularly The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup and a Spool of Thread.

3. Beatrix Potter: Need I say more?

4. The Grimm Brothers. I like their anthropology skills :wink:

I'll add more when I can. :smile:

Your turn!

[TuckEverlasting]

A lot of the stuff I read when I was young was British. Did anyone else ever read Five Children and It? :nsm:

[Em7add11]

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie is always a good read.

[Spinyn00bman]

What age levels are we talking here Jill?

[Jillyn'Toast]

A lot of the stuff I read when I was young was British. Did anyone else ever read Five Children and It? :nsm:

I haven't read it, but I've seen it and wanted to read it :smile:

[Jillyn'Toast]

What age levels are we talking here Jill?

Anything that you might have read as a kid, you would read to kids now, or kids enjoy.

[Smokering]

Despereaux is great! I love George MacDonald too, especially The Lost Princess: A Double Story, which is hard to come across. It may even be out of print, I'm not sure; but I find it his most beautiful and delicate work.

Other favourites... well, AA Milne, of course. Not the ghastly Disneyised versions, which are worse than pathetic; just his quirky, English, whimsical prose that's childhood with a hint of sadness, all the way through.

Lois Lowry has written some great stuff from the sublime (A Summer to Die, Number the Stars) to the ridiculous (the spot-on Anastasia Krupnik series).

Janet and Allen Alhberg wrote some delightful books for *really* little children, back in the day. 'Peepo', which is a simple picture book for babies, has such a wealth of humorous detail in the drawings that it never gets tired. Sadly, Janet died, and Allen's later works are a bit nasty and bleak (mostly about divorced families, if I recall).

Hmm. Narnia, obviously. Ursula le Guin's Earthsea trilogy (there are 4 or 5 books now, actually, but the later ones aren't nearly as good). The Phantom Tollbooth. Haroun and the Sea of Stories. The Hobbit. My Family and Other Animals. Good Morning, Miss Dove. The Pushcart War. Harriet the Spy. The Jennings books. The Lucy Maud Montgomery novels, which should be thoroughly enjoyed before one gets too old and cynical... ditto for the Louisa May Alcotts, and the frightfully dippy Pollyanna books. I also enjoyed Janette Oke for a brief period, but I can't in conscience recommend her... nor Roald Dahl, who I used to love, but now find evil and disturbing after reading a book of his adult horror short stories. Come to think of it, I used to like Enid Blyton too. That's a horrifying prospect. I did draw the line at the Saddle Club, though, so I must have had some class. :)

I'm so jealous you get to study Children's Lit! The Uni close to me doesn't offer any papers like that (hardly any papers at all now, since they 'restructured' the department... grrr), but it's been my dream for a long time to do it, if I can. Which books/authors are you studying specifically? Tell me all! :)

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

- The Chronicles of Narnia (C.S. Lewis)
- The Hobbit (Tolkien)
- The Faraway Tree (Enid Blyton)
- The Seventh Tower (Garth Nix)
- The Prism Tree (Kate Andrew)
- The Adventures of Tintin (Herge) I would venture to call them graphical literature
- anything by Roald Dahl
- anything by Paul Jennings



There are many great novels for kids/adolescents, those were just some.

[Rubia Warren]

Judy Blume. :yes:

[Jillyn'Toast]

Thanks guys :smile:

more of mine...

+ Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events
+ EB White
+Maurice Sendak

[Meta Knight]

- The Seventh Tower (Garth Nix)


Ooh yeah, that was good.

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

I forgot Michael Ende's 'The NeverEnding Story.' Now that's a goody!

[Storico]

Ooooh. :teeth: A thread right up my alley.

Mr Popper's Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater

The Guests of War trilogy by Kit Pearson

The Tinderbox as well as Rebellion: a Novel of Upper Canada by Marianne Brandis

Paddington Bear (and the other stories) by Michael Bond

Yesterday's Doll by Cora Taylor

The Hollow Tree, The Root Cellar, and Shadow in Hawthorn Bay, all by Janet Lunn

Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren

The Betsy-Tacy series by Maud Hart-Lovelace

Swallows and Amazons (as well as its sequels) by Arthur Ransome

Five Little Peppers and How They Grew by Margaret Sidney

The Castle of Adventure by Enid Blyton

Time Windows by Kathryn Reiss

A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett

:runninghappy: I grew up loving all of these books. This was the best walk down memory lane I've had in a long time. :teeth: And I noticed something funny. Every single one of those books up there has either to do with animals, or history, and ALL of them are placed in history in one way or another. Apparently, I had a fascination with history growing up and it's simply continued into adulthood. :hehe:

[Storico]

More to add (my edit abilities just expired a couple mins ago):

The Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder

The Anne series by Lucy Maude Montgomery

:yes: (thanks for mentioning Anne, Smokering!)

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

Coraline by Neil Gaiman is a great read (read it last night).
It's incredibly clever and imaginately dark (as Gaiman is) and is deliciously creepy.

[ChosenOne66]

J.P. Wodehouse (for slightly older kids)

I can't believe no one here has mentioned Lloyd Alexander yet! His fantasy series The Chronicles of Prydain, written before or about the same time as Lord of the Rings, is one of the best classic works of children's fantasy. He also did the classic Time Cat series.

Who forgot the Redwall series?

Watership Down?

Wind in the Willows?

Harry Potter?

C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy?

A Wrinkle in Time?

Castle in the Attic?

Young boys will adore Beowulf. I loved Beowulf (in prose) on audio tape at age 10.

Winnie the Pooh (the original stories published by A.A. Milne in 1926)

The Phantom Tollbooth

The Search for Delicious

The Boxcar Children

Just So Stories, Kipling

Men of Iron, Pyle

The King's Shadow, Alder

[T-Shirt Ninja]

Hey! No one here has yet mentioned possibly one of the greatest works of children's lit of all time!

Oh! The places you'll go! - Dr. Seuss