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

STig of the Dump
Tom's MIdnight GArden
A Dog So Small

42 Beast Quest books. And eight others.

Of course! I forgot the little house series but they were fab!
Charlotte's web
The Sheep Pig (No, watching "Babe" isn't the same)
The Anne books I'd put as classics rather than children's books (or add things like Jane Eyre and most of Jane Austen)
Railway Children

I did do other things as well as reading as I grew up - honest!

Some interesting suggestions.

i think lists like these are books we would like our children to read because they are 'good' books and make us feel good remembering our own childhoods........my girls have very different ideas and opinions about what they enjoy and are drawn to - I don't mind what they are reading (to an extent!) as long as they are reading. I can't get too snobby about it

I cannot believe no-one's said Black Beauty. My copy was sellotaped together I read it so many times!

I loved anything by Rosemary Sutcliffe and Geoffrey Trease when I was 10, and I loved the Biggles books as well. Ds also has the Biggles books and was really into them at 10; now it's Warhammer books!

Second the Dark is Rising series; didn't find that until I was about 30, but would have loved it when younger. Also the Woolpack and the books after it. Fascinating if into history.

The Alex Riders and the Power of Five series as well
The Rangers Apprentice series
The Edge Chronicles
Boggart and Fen?
Ds also loves the Skulduggery Pleasant series

I'm with Bluerodeo though, as long as he is reading I don't care much if it's Star Wars, Bernard Cornwell or Dickens. I've tried him on books I loved when younger, but he hasn't liked them.

James Herriot books
Lord of the flies
The Mosquito Coast
Jock of the Bushveld
all Roald Dahl books
Harry Potter
What about George Orwells books - I loved those

The Little House on the Praire series
The Chronicles of Narnia
The Dark is Rising sequence
Black Beauty
The Secret Garden
All the Roald Dahl books.
The Anne of Green Gables series
Little Women, and it's sequels
The Children of Green Knowe
The Worst Witch
Just William
Stig of the Dump
The Chalet School books
The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, and the Moon of Gomrath
THe Chrionicles of Prydain
The Redwall Series

Fencingpost - that is a really interesting list and I will be getting some of those for my DSs.

It strikes me now though, a list of 50 books that all children must read could actually be quite off-putting. There are some books on those lists that I have looked at but never been interested in at all - Greek mythologies leap out as I remember having to read those as the last level of the reading scheme I did back then. I didn't like them at all.

I also never liked books like Alice in Wonderland or Winnie the Pooh either. If those books were on the list I doubt I would ever finish it, despite getting through piles of books every week as a child.

I suppose I am saying that in reality I don't think we should be so prescriptive as to say that all children should read the same books.

Narnia books (religious or not they are nice stories - I didn't twig about the Christian overtones until years after I first read them)
Redwall books
Anne of Green Gables (and sequels)
The Artemis Fowl books
Tamora Pierce's books (great for girls who want strong female leads)
Harry Potter (I critique it a lot now, but these books turned my sister into a bookworm)
The Mennyms
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase series
Swallows and Amazons (and sequels)
A Series of Unfortunate Events
The Hobbit + (later) The Lord of the Rings
Roverandom (Tolkien book for younger children, really lovely story)
Anything by Garth Nix
The Tiffany Aching/Johnny and the Bomb series by Sir Terry Pratchett
Inkheart
Larklight (and sequels)
The Wind on Fire Trilogy
The Children of the New Forest
Heidi
Anything by Diana Wynne-Jones
Around the World in 80 Days
The Stravaganza Books
Robin Jarvis' Books (for children into somewhat more...horror-esque books)
Anything by Eva Ibbotson...

Oh, god I could go on forever. I have a 6ft bookcase which I could fill with my children's books and still have books left.

The Phantom Tollbooth.

The Twits.

I loved:

Number the Stars

The Little House Books

All of Anne as well as the Emily books and one also by L.M. Montgomery called Magic for Marigold...did anyone read that? :)

The Roald Dahl book yes yes

Narnia, love those...

Catherine, Called Birdy

Sea of Trolls and its sequels

Hilary McKay's books about the Casson family

Wind in the Willows
Treasure Island
Swallows and Amazons

Cheerful yank, I did!

Also the LM montomery Pat of Silver Bush books! And the Emily of New Moon series too.

The What Katy did series, as well as the ones about Clover!

All the Heidi books.

I loved Pat Manky ! Also Jane of Lantern Hill and the Blue Castle. I keep telling DS we need to take a vacation to L.M Montgomery's museum in Canada.

Anything by Joan Aitken
Anything by Ursula Le Guin

I suspect you could probably have a close to 50 book long list with LMM's single handed output. My daughter loved anne, pat, Emily, marigold and others - I just order them - the wonders of amazon - for my part I never got further than Anne of green gables - in our house we used to tease my daughter when she was in her LMM phase, wondering if there was an "Anne of the zimmer frame "

My own list would include:
Skellig - David almond
The various - Steve auguarde
Bridge to terebithia by Katherine Patterson
Something (perhaps one short fairy tale) by Alison uttley - maybe a traveller in time
Something by Penelope lively - diary of thomas kempe probably
Toms midnight garden

All the Willard Price '(something) Adventure' books - Amazon Adventure, Lion Adventure, etc - which are wonderful for boys and girls interested in pacy adventures about natural history, geography and animals.

They follow the adventures of two brothers and their father, who travel to different places around the world collecting animals alive, for zoos and collections. Desperately un-pc, and deeply, deeply informative - decades later I still find myself trotting out a 'how on earth do I know that?' fact about how to eat sausages underwater, harpoon a whale or deal with a snake bite.

Missed off my 1st list:
My family and other animals and all the other gerald durell books
Curtain up by noel streatfield
The black riders (violet needham)
Wishing water gate (elinor lyon; found my old copy at mum's house several years ago and love it still)
When slightly older, riddle of the sands, thirty nine steps, kim

I wouldn't put the Narnia books on any list, I'd come over all absent-minded if they turned up in our house tbh.
HATE CS Lewis and his nasty mind-softening children's literature.

CS Lewis?! Mind softening?! GASP!

Not read thead but off top of head

Eagle of the ninth Rosemary Sutcliffe

Stig of the dump

Dark Materials trilogy

All Roald Dahl

Narnia stuff

Younger:Donaldson/Scheffler books

Eric Carle

Shirley Hughes

Enid Blyton,somewhat controversial but ignore the implied racism

Winnie the pooh

many more,wil post back

He said he wrote those books so children would accept Christianity more easily, to 'soften young minds'.
Highly disingenuous in my view.

ANYWAY
sorry for kneejerk reaction!
Nice thread

Prunnhilda - thanks for the explanation, I'd been wondering about the "mind-softening" bit too (though I can see why some people might want to keep away from the Christian allegory).

Also:

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Noughts and Crosses