Top five children's books of all time

[RosaLuxembourg]

I want to get in first!
So what are your five items of children's literature?
Mine are:
Rosa wanders off to ponder...

and skip like a gurl
Ds was fuming when we told him that at two he moved and looked a lot like Fotherington-Thomas seeker

Don't go in there just now bink, a lot of people are rending their cardigans and snapping their pince-nez over the Pay and Grading Review outcomes. When librarians turn bad...

Mrina, does he pla fairy bells on skool piano?

Chiz chiz he doth not alas

Def Molesworth
Prof Branestawm (esp the early ones with the Heath Robinson illustrations)
Just William (I think the first one is still the best, tbut they're all good)
Ballet shoes
1 more - I loved Cherry Ames as well, but would prob plump for Little Women

bugger can't get Swallows and Amazons in

I do not give a fig about whether it was a goal nature alone is beautiful

I do not think he will catch the selector's eye

and that great section on horse racing BANG ON THE WINE GUMS

Bink - I bought Crown of Violet today! I was rummaging about in the bookstall in our local market and there it was. Looking forward to reading it now.

unquietdad - your list is sooo MALE!

Rosa - your lucky dd with Charlotte Sometimes!

oooh (not wanting to appear obsessional) Emil and the detectives

NotanOtter - if I don't calm myself down it will take her till 2012 to read all the books I want to buy her for Christmas. I have got her six already (all carefully stashed away) and similar for DD2 and DD3. Luckily they think it is absolutely normal to get secondhand books as presents - I got DD1 The Bell Family (Noel Streatfeild) for her birthday and she was delighted (she did also get a Nintendo DS however - we do not knit all our gifts out of muesli in the Luxembourg household).

I do the secondhand bookshop stash too - I have Nina Bawden's Peppermint Pig and one of the Borrowers sequence for dd, who is such a gratifyingly eager bookworm.

Please be tactful (if necessary) about Crown of Violet. It was quite a shaping book. When dh is being annoying my first thought is still usually "Sophist"

I saw the thread title and thought "Charlotte Sometimes" but you're there agead of me! I've reread it many times - read it as a child - but none of my kids seem to get it in the way that I did.
Carrie's War also made a lasting impression - but not so lasting that I can actually remember the author .

I don't think I could do individual books - too many to list really (and every time I see threads like this I remember more books that I don't actually have a copy of, but feel I should).

Top five authors where I have a complete collection, and whose books I buy unseen whenever they write a new book (except Joan Aitkin because she is dead):
Dianna Wynne Jones
Anne Fine
Joan Aiken
Margaret Mahy
Ursula Le Guin

New authors I have recently enjoyed:
Jonathon Stroud
Garth Nix
Charlotte Hapte

Individual books not mentioned already
The Thirteen Days of Christmas

I love children's books - great for switching off, or when you are feeling down.

hassled its Nina Bawden

i love books.

so here gos,
dick king smith is wonderful
michael morpurgo
laura ingalls wilder little house books
moomintroll books
dr seuss
little grey rabbit
janet and allaen ahlberg
anthony horowitz.

oh wait sorry those are authors not books.

hmmmmm i will have to try again,cant we do our 50 top favourites?

the cure did a song about charlotte sometimes.

blue fairy book
what katy did
a little princess
the cuckoo tree
a wrinkle in time

national velvet. i was not pony person, but oh meredith and the meat in teh paper when he shot himself.

The Secret Garden
A Little Princess
Ballet Shoes
What Katie Did
Little House on the Prairie

hurrah for this thread!

boo for the five only rule

going to cheat, and do five old and five contemporary

...but first...

Franny and Zoe - great list! excellent antonia forest choice (which one? so dif), same goes for your DJW and special commendation for going for White Boots above Ballet Shoes. Both are bliss, but Boots is better!

OK - five new:

1. Northern Lights (you KNOW it!)
2. How I Live Now (Rosof)
3. The Haunting of Alaizabel Clay (Wooding)
4. Bloodtide (Melvin Burgess)
5. Junk (Melvin Burgess)

AND 5 OLD (So Hard)

1. Dicey's Song (Cynthia Voight)
2. White Boots
3. Cricket Term (Antonia Forest)
4. Charmed Life (Dianna Wynne Jones)
5. oooh, Summer To Die or another Antonia Forest, seems a shame to only to one DJW, and surely Homecoming deserves a shout out too...?

love noel streatfield...so underrated really as an auther

Has anyone mentioned Marianne dreams- Catherine Storr (i think)

I read it very recently, and still cried...

ooh, ooh, and Bogwoppit...
which i had to buy at great cost on ebay along with

The last of the really great wangdoodle - julie edwards (a.ka julie andrews!!!!)

Still trying to find a copy of Rebeccas World...