Children's classics to read to my 10 year old

[junipermarten]

DS shares my love of reading and devours books. He started off with books like Diary of Wimpy Kid, Tom Gates, etc, but has recently moved onto full novels.
I bought him The Boy at the Back of the Class, he loved it and finished it really quickly.

We were watching the original Matilda the other day, Moby Dick featured which started a conversation between DS and me about the classics. I thought it would be a good idea for us to read some children's classics together and suggested Moby Dick as I haven't read it. I've just gone to look at it and apparently it's not a suitable children's book 😂 Unless it's the illustrated and abridged version. I had no idea.

I've bought him the first Harry Potter book for Christmas, and I'm hoping he falls in love with the series. He's not been interested in it in the slightest but now he's reading more "grown-up" books I'm hoping he enjoys it.

Does anyone have any suggestions of some children's "classics" that I can read to him that would be enjoyable for us both?

The Wind in the Willows.

The Narnia series is excellent. We also enjoyed the Railway Children.

Have a look at this list: www.penguin.co.uk/series/PUFFCLA/puffin-classics

Grimms fairytales are also quite a good read for this age - a lot eh grimmer than the sanitised children version.

Frances Hodgson Burnett is a good shout generally. The Lost Prince would be great if you can get hold of a copy. I also recommend The Children's Crusade by Henry Treece - it's out of print but second hand copies are available.

A Christmas carol

The Hobbit

My 10 year old enjoyed:
Wind in the willows
Swallows and Amazons
The borrowers
The secret garden
The Hobbit
Lord of the Rings
The railway children

As an aside, a lot of classics are very of there time and have quite blatant racism/sexism/stereotypes in - we still read them but glad we waiting until DS was old CD enough to discuss such things.

Oh and the first half of Children of the New Forest by Captain Marryat is great (becomes pious drivel).

Oh and The Mennyms by Sylvia Waugh!

Sorry, I was an avid reader as a child and all my favourites are coming back to me.

I second Swallows and Amazons.

At that age DD enjoyed
Anne of Green Gables
Secret Garden
Toms Midnight Garden

Never really got into Harry Potter although we read the first one together. We did read the Wind in the Willows but the language was quite old fashioned

Little House in the Big Woods is lovely.

Emil and the Detectives.

not a classic but my kids loved Beetle Boy too.

Swallows and Amazons
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Borrowers
Five Children and It
Just William
Tom’s Midnight Garden
His Dark Materials
Oliver Twist
Stig of the Dump
Goodnight Mr Tom

Sherlock Holmes. We have the childrensversions, which are 90% the same but with references to drugs and prostitution removed.

My 11yo is currently reading Anne Frank's diary.

I was a bookworm too. Nothing gave me greater pleasure than curling up with a library book

Great suggestions here but some may be a bit young for ten. I was veering between Nancy Drew, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie at that age

Hobbit for sure. What about Watership Down or the Duncton Wood series. Also still in print are the Bagthorpe saga books by Helen Cresswell

Moonfleet
Treasure Island
The Iron Man

And not traditional classics but would also recommend War Horse and Kensukes Kingdom both by Michael Morpurgo.

Also Brother in the Land by Robert Swindells and The Giver by Lois Lowry.

Peter pan
Treasure Island
Abridged dickens great expectations, David copperhead try the cartoon version

My dc hated the railway children

Not a classic but we are loving nevermoor series

My Harry potter loving 8yo loves percy Jackson novels (Rick riordan)

Roald Dahl?

The Phantom Tollbooth (lots of word play and a lovely story / message about the value of friendship, learning and working hard) - just picked up a copy for a friend's child who is 9, after we read it aloud to 5-year-old ds recently (one chapter per night at bedtime).

Phantom Tollbooth is a 'modern classic' (late 60s I believe).

Heidi
Winnie the Pooh
The House at Pooh Corner
Oliver Twist
Little Dorrit
Silas Marner

Or some of Terry Pratchett's non-Discworld novels? Johnny and the Dead and Johnny and the Bomb, for example?

@jeannie46 are you taking the piss? Neither Winnie the Pooh nor Silas Marner is likely to interest a 10 year old, for totally opposite reason a!

The Hobbit for sure