Books every child should read

[meditrina]

Inspired by the Gove thread today.

If you were making a list of 50 books all children should read before they leave school, what would you put on it?

I'd start with:

The Narnia books
The Little White Horse
The Indian in the Cupboard

Not Narnia on my list (too quasi-religious)

Winnie The Pooh
Swallows and Amazons
Alice in Wonderland
All the Roald Dahl ones!

Anything by:
Diana Wynne Jones
Margaret Mahy
Anne Fine

the famous five

Roahl Dahl - all of them
Harry Potter - all of them
Paddington Bear
Wind in the Willows

Michael Murpurgo too.

Difficult to chose one or two.

the thing is about lists like this they would need to updated to reflect modern books coming out to appeal to all children.

I would put on it paddington bear, the wind in the willows - but this may be too white middleclass for some and put lots of children off. I mean about boys - they are not going to like some of these

Yes all these are very girly. This year DS1 has worked his way through:

42 Beast Quest books
All the Horrid Henrys
a couple of Dinosaur Cove
now starting on the complete works of Jeremy Strong

none of these would I have even looked at as a child, but he reads them avidly.

It's a good job there are still children's librarians about to advise on what a very boyish 7 year old boy would like!

All the ones I have suggested one or other of my boys have read. They have also read the Narnia books and the Famous Five. I don't personally think the list is particularly girl orientated although I have no idea who Diane Wyne Jones is or Margaret Mahy.

Jeremy Strong is for boys or girls imo. I would add another one - the Hiccup Books by Cressida Cowl. Some might say they are boy books but I think they are very funny and I reckon I would have read them as a child had they been available.

The problem with this list is going to be that it will be full up with all the books of half a dozen authors because it would be impossible to chose one book over another.

Can we expand outside the English language? If so I'd like to add the following:

Astrid Lindgren (Swedish)
Sans Famille (Without Family) - Hector Malot (French)
Thea Beckman (Dutch)
Evert Hartman (Dutch)

The Gove idea was for all UK children towards the top of primary and in secondary schools, but no reason not to expand either age or nationality criteria.

Few more from me:

Artemis Fowl
Lion Boy
Just William
Beowulf
The Edge Chronicles
Hitler's Canary

I would add something by Michelle Magorian and the Diary of Anne Frank

If they like horses the 'Jinny' series by Patricia Leitch. The are out of print now, but I cannot stress enough how fantastic they are. I have all of them. The last one (I can't remember its name, but I paid a bit more for it from eBay) is particularly difficult to get but totally worth it.

Also 'The Night of the Red Horse' by Patricia Leitch if they liked the Jinny series.

I love book lists, by age, and trawl (mostly private) school websites looking for inspiration. But I don't think it is a good idea to write a prescriptive list of books that every child should read - it sets children up for failure if they don't complete it. A list of suggestions, by genre, is more encouraging.

Anything by DR SEUSS. THey are hilarious, well illustrated and every one has an underlying positive message!

Both my lads read Private Peaceful at around the age of 10 or 11.Theyoungest has finished it about 3 weeks ago and it has had a huge impact on him. He founded it very sad but it has given us opportunity to talk about WW1 events, attitudes at the time and the sign of a good author eg one that can make you think and draw you into a story.

When we were out walking a week ago he was bimberling along with his mate and I could hear him talking about the book to him as well.

The eldedst has been a huge Alex Rider fan. ( DS is now 14 1/2) I have pre ordered the last on in the series for him.

Oooh I love this sort of thing - great to get some other suggestions to add to my list which is:

Narnia
The Hobbit (LOTR when they are older)
The Jungle Book
The Dark is Rising Series
Little House on the Prairie Series
Goodnight Mr Tom
Carrie's War
The Eagle of the Ninth and other Rosemary Sutcliffe's
Mrs Frisby and the Rats of Nimh
Treasure Island
The Woolpack
101 Dalmations
Sherlock Holmes

That is just for starters when they get a little older I would have a good structured list starting with some of the easier classics with some good high quality modern adult lit and move on from there. Of course all older kids should be reading non fiction to support their subject learning at school as well, how many do this independently at the moment I dread to think.

I can't wait to introduce my kids to the wonderful world they can explore through literature. Mine are still very young and not reading yet but they love to be read to and we discuss all books to improve their comprehension.

To Kill a Mocking Bird

Bonsoir, I don't know if you have seen this before, if you like lists you may like Lovereading4kids.co.uk. You can search by age and download extracts.

Oh thanks Niecie! Right up my street

I still love When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit and will buy it for my daughter when she gets older. (she's only 2)

She loves all the Katie Morag stories though and I don't think it will be long before she starts recognising words etc after tonight. She kept pointing at the word Island in Katie Morag (the one about the 2 grannies, when Grannie Island gets sick) and saying Island. :)

The Hobbit (I'd say LOTR too, tbh)
The Adventure series rather than the famous 5, but also the Magic Faraway Tree should be plenty of Blyton (although I loved all of it except Noddy, who irritated me even as a 5 yr old!)
The Twits, Matilda, BFG, Fantastic Mr Fox...
The Owl who was afraid of the Dark (this was part of a series too)
The Worst Witch
Moondial - probably my favourite book ever.
Secret Garden
A Little Princess (not the cartoon or the hideous American film)
The Tiffany Aching run of Discworld books - save the others till mid teens or so.
Redwall series
The Driftway
Tom's Midnight Garden
Dracula
A Christmas Carol
All the Jennings and Darbishire books - twice!
Harry Potter (at least the first 3)
His Dark Materials
Demon Headmaster/Prime minister's Brain (Again a load better than the tv version although that one wasn't too bad as adaptations go.
Solitare Mystery/Sophies world (well teenage!)

Of course everyone will always still read Carrie's War (We did this as a class reader 3 times (and I'd already read it the first time) - when I heard of the European xxx mountains I envisaged piles of that damn book! - sure I could still recite reasonable chunks too)

In addition to those above and in no particular order:
I am David
Little women
Little house on the prairie
Tom's midnight garden, Minnow on the Say
Children of Green knowe
Charlotte's web
When hitler stole pink rabbit
Eagle of the Ninth series
Cue for Treason
Charlotte sometimes
Five children and it
The box of delights
Swallows and amazons (actually Picts and Martyrs is my favourite of these)
The owl service
and probably many more

watership down
the little grey men

The ones I've kept from childhood are;

Anne of Green Gables series.
My Naughty Little Sister series
Ballet Shoes
Mallory Towers
Judy Blume books (except Forever, cos I wasnt allowed to read it)
Stig of the Dump
Goodnight Mister Tom

I'm really looking forward to sharing these with the DC when they get ig enough.

They must read 'Just William,' 'Swallows And Amazons' and 'Coral Island,' of course - the books that MG read at school in his idyllic childhood - probably in Ancient Greek.