His Dark Materials has been voted best children's book in 70 years: agree or disagree?

[compo]

I would have gone with The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe myself.

enid - I've just started the Owl Service. I remembered that I loved Alan Garner as a child but couldn't remember any books. Owl Service is seriously weird isn't it? And the dialogue is so dated. But fantastic even so.

I really must start to read some books meant for adults....

I bought HDM for my 75yr old father as a birthday present. He loved them.

HDM if for older children though isn't it?

Can't imagine my DS being able to read it and he's 8. He does do Harry Potter though.

Yes I liked the Magician's Nephew best too I am still captivated by Narnia at 35.

Last week I went to Ellbell's 40th birthday party and was so excited because she has a "Narnia lamp post" in the garden! But then her DH tried to switch it on and shorted out the entire house, plunging all herm any guests into semi darkness! So that wasn't all that magical to be honest! And very disappointing!

Couldn't get into HDM series but possibly because I started in the wrong place..

I thought they were wonderful books and the stage version of them at the National Theatre was fantastic. Patricia Hodge and Timothy Dalton were perfectly cast.

I re-read the Narnia books recently and found them very dated. I just didn't get the same enjoyment out of them that I got when I first read them as a child.

Yes the sexism really, really irritated me

And Peter's kingliness

I loved the Enid Blyton 'Adventure' series (Philip, Dinah, Lucy - Kiki the parrot) as a child but tried to read them to one of mine and had to keep stopping to explain out-dated words - also got extremely fed up with the way they say queer on every other line; I didn't notice this as a child but was very surprised to discover that she actually had so little imagination with adjectives!

Watership Down was great. I thought Dark Materials was pretty good, but it's not something I'm likely to read again (though maybe I should). I recently re-read the Narnia series and it wasn't as great as I remembered from ... long ago enough that it made me feel old.

However, as a children's book I think that the Narnia Series is better. I like Prince Caspian and Voyage of the Dawn Treader better than The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, myself.

So I guess that my vote would go to Watership Down, of the books mentioned so far. I also enjoyed the Enid Blyton books and Lloyd Alexander as a child, but when I look back at them they're not so inspiring.

LOL at "Heartbreaking Waste of Marina's Money." I got to about page 5 of that one on a borrowed copy and gave up.

I think that with all the older books you have to read it with retro filters on. When we went to see LWW at the cinema I asked DS#1 which character he wanted to be. He said Peter. I asked if that was because he was brave and considerate and took care of his siblings - he said that it was because he had a big sword

That's 'cos Kiki the parrot is very very funny! One of Ms Blyton's better moments; how many times have they said "How queer it is..."?

agree

Agree VSS - it was the kingliness in particular that irritated me. I wanted to punch him at the end of TLTWATW when they are riding through the forest and come to the lamp post.

Message withdrawn

hmmm, need to think about this

definately think that thwe trilogy nis fantastic

gripping reading and verty atmospheric

the best in 70 years???
not sure...

Yes but it hasn't actually been voted as the best children's book in 70 years - just as the best of the Carnegie prize-winners in the 70 years the prize has been offered.
DD1 and I were looking at the whole list and it is interesting that quite a few are on our 'alltime classic' list, some are a little more obscure but still around and some have sunk without a trace. I would love to collect the lot and see what made the difference.

I've only read Northern Lights and found it incredibly dull for about the first 3 quarters.

Then it livened up a bit towards the end and I do wonder what has happened but can't quite be arsed to go and get the next book (what is it btw, I'm off to the library soon?)

Agree, agree, agree!

Hmm, this reminds me of the Channel 4 poll which voted The Simpsons the best children's tv programme of all time. Because adults like it and it was adults who did most of the voting....

And it's the fact that it's recent - these votes just have no sense of historical perspective

Looking at the list of past winners I can think of about 10 who seem to me to deserve it more.

Just to start off with:
Family from One End Street
Borrowers
Machine Gunners....

interestingly it seems to be like the Booker Prize in that quite a lot go to an author who should have won it with a previous one, eg Ransome (though it wasn't around when Swallows & Amazons came out), Peyton, Boston....

A Wrinkle in Time has my vote.