First up, if you haven’t yet entered your funny scene in the Jacob Wonderbar Funny Writing Contest Spectacular Happening Event, please do so! You have until tomorrow! Do it do it!
Meanwhile, this question has not yet been asked on this blog:
Which book do you think is the best children’s book of all time?
I know what a difficult question this is. So many incredible books to choose from.
I’m going to close my eyes and choose…………….. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.
What about you?
Anonymous says
Silly Fred
kllamp says
I read To Kill a Mockingbird in highschool.
I have 2 picks, one a younger picture book, the other an older novel:
Possum Magic by Mem Fox, great australian children's author
Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery
But really there are so many amazing children's fiction to choose from, we really are spoilt for choice. I think I need to boost my kid's library with some more classics! Or at least get them to the library more!
Melissa
Marie R says
Anne of Green Gables
The Last Unicorn
Mrs. Piggle Wiggle (series)
It may not hold up to an adult reading, but one of my favorite books as a kid was The Forgotten Door by Alexander Key. About a boy with amnesia and the ability to read minds. I think I still have my original battered copy. I remember so clearly the images that flooded my mind as I read it.
To me, the best children's books are the ones you remember on a visceral level. The scenes and characters are all jumbled together with your memories of your mom making spaghetti and that time you first rode a bike.
Anne R. Allen says
No one has mentioned the Wizard of Oz. My favorite after the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.
John "Ol' Chumbucket" Baur says
"Maniac Magee"
"Holes"
and my daughters all loved "Star Girl" so I'll give it a vote for them.
Ken Williams says
More Pies!
by Robert Munsch
Tess Cox says
Charlotte's Web
Charlie & the Chocolate Factory
James and the Giant Peach
Melissa Adams says
OMG, I've read and loved them all, from Alice to Winnie, The Borrowers, Wrinkle in Time, Red Fern, Charlotte, Half Magic, Dr. Seuss & Wind in the Willows. My daughter wanted to hear Goodnight Moon for a solid year before bed when she was young. For my son it was Where the Wild Things Are. I studied Alice in Wonderland in college (Victorian lit). While it's a book many kids enjoy, there's ample fodder for adults that will go over most kids' heads. Great post…makes me want to stop writing and just READ!
JScott says
Star-Crossed Rascals by Patricia Puddle. I don't think I've ever heard my kids laugh so hard. A second one would be I Capture the Castle by Dodi Smith. I found the atmosphere in that one brilliant.
Natasha says
This Can Be Happening At McDonald Hall
-Gordon Korman
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret
-Judy Blume
PatG says
My top 3:
1:The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame.
2:Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome
3:Now We Are Six (children's verses) by A.A Milne
Tempest Wylde says
My vote is for Harriet the Spy (Louise Fitzhugh)
I was going prevaricate it with Judy Blume, but someone beat me to it.
it is showing my age, but I SO wanted to be Harriet when I was young (despite being a boy) and I had a crush on Sport (again despite being a boy)
Erica Naylor says
I'm too indecisive to have a favorite and of course as I read everyone else's vote, I want to change my answer.
Still, I would vote for the Nancy Drew Series, The Mixed-Up Files Basil E. Frankweiler and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which is the book I pull off the shelf year after year.
CJ Black says
Charlotte's Web
Not sure if this is considered a children's book but a close runner up would be Black Beauty.
Rebecca Burke says
The titles in these comments have brought back so many sweet memories–of my own fave books and my kids'. We all liked the Pooh books, with their magical drawings, and after that anything by Roald Dahl, especially The Phantom Tollbooth and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Then came the Harry Potter years…
I have always felt the book I was most fervent about as a young bookworm was Harriet the Spy. The humor, the characters, the predicaments Harriet got herself stuck in . . . just delicious reading. As yet another adolescent girl in love with horses, I also could not get enough of Misty of Chincoteague, The Black Stallion, or anything else with horses in it.
And of course Charlotte's Web and The Secret Garden. I could go on . . .
Nicole says
Oh, SO many great books in this comments thread! I'm feeling a sudden need to pull out all my old favorites (Boxcar Children! Island of the Blue Dolphins!). There are so many, but the ones that stuck with me most over the years are:
– Where the Red Fern Grows
– Bridge to Terabithia
– A Wrinkle in Time
Angela Brown says
Another vote for Narnia.
But I was also into Judy Blume…my favorite being Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret. Perhaps I got into it a little before I should have, but I loved it.
Nathan Oser says
Best of all time…?
I'm thinking Peter Pan or The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Favorite of all time…?
Chancy and the Grand Rascal by Sid Fleischman
Good question though! Reading through the comments brings back a lot of good memories
Heather G. Davis says
For a picture book, I vote for MILLIONS OF CATS by Wanda Gag. Happily, it's back in print. My teenaged son still brings up the refrain…"Hundreds of cats, thousands of cats, millions and billions and trillions of cats!"
This is a little off subject, but the best books I found for getting little boys to read are Calvin and Hobbes compilations and Tin Tin comics.
Others have covered most of my other candidates.
John "Ol' Chumbucket" Baur says
The 21 Elephant Restaurant is absolutely brilliant and – sadly – out of print last time I checked.
Lindsey says
Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
It was the first book that told me the truth about life: that it wasn't all sweetness and light and that cruelty, in fact, existed.
Bryan Russell says
The Hobbit
Watership Down
The Prydain Chronicles
Anonymous says
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD isn't classified as children's literature. It's classified as one of the first YA novels with mature themes.
Holly Vance says
Superfudge and Where the Red Fern Grows.
And remember when Are You There God, It's Me Margaret was like porn to us tweens?
Tammy says
My personal favorite is Shadow Castle by Marian Cockrell.
adam.purple says
Barbara Byfield's, "The Haunted Spy". Long out of print, but beautifully written and illustrated. Find it if you can.
Urban Scribe says
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD is on the 7th/8th summer reading list at my daughter's school (ages 11-14). It also is required summer reading for my other daughter's high school freshmen class. Many of the kids were excited to hear this because they already read it in junior high. Check out this website:https://www.commonsensemedia.org/book-reviews
See what they say about the age level. Go Nathan! You know your books.
My book picks = THE SECRET GARDEN
LITTLE WOMEN
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
Anonymous says
the Blue Sword by Robin McKinley
Reagan Philips says
Watership Down
Favorite children's book to hate every time I read it, but still read it because I love/hate it though:
Animal Farm
Sheila JG says
Wolf Story, by William McCleery.
I cannot believe that it's out of print.
John "Ol' Chumbucket" Baur says
"The Phantom Tollbooth" by Norton Juster (not Dahl, he did the illustrations but Juster wrote the book) is excellent.
And another out-of-print classic, "Prince Umbra," the best book I've ever seen in terms of taking the elements of fantasy and myth and putting them into everyday life. Really unparalleled, but sadly out of print.
Terri Lynn Coop says
When I was a kid we moved a lot and my family had it pretty hard. Someone gave us four books from one of the young readers classics sets and I read them all until the bindings cracked and wore thin. Still the best in my opinion because they took my reading to the next level:
1. Wonderful Wizard of Oz
2. The Peterkin Papers (taught me a ton about comedic timing)
3. Pinnochio
4. Grimm's Fairy Tales
And I just happen to have all four on my Kindle right now from a public domain collection!
Anonymous says
Some old faves: Horton Hatches the Egg; The Lorax
Some new (the kids and I both dig them): Bosch's Secret Series and Ardagh's Eddie Dickens and Unlikely Exploits series…dark and hilarious.
NickB
Gail Shepherd says
I don't know if it's the best of all times, but I have a soft spot for The Wolves of Willoughby Chase.
Just Another Day in Paradise says
Funny, that everyone should get so "hot about "Mockingbird". Whether you think it's a children's book or not; it should be. Read it to your children, discuss it with them. It's never to early for great literature and especially the lessons therein.
veela-valoom says
Somehow this feels terribly cliche BUT at the same time I feel like while we're so sentimental about older books maybe we don't recognize the greatness that is still growing.
So I'm going to say Harry Potter.
Maybe in 20 or 30 years I'll be proved wrong. But I think it's brilliant and it's gong to live on for years and years. It may not have been my childhood, but it's been a wonderful adulthood. I expect that it will define a lot of childhoods still yet to come.
chitrader says
Best children's book depends on the age. To me, in that middle ground, ages 10-14, has to be Treasure Island.
Other finalists: Johnny Tremain, Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Curious George (I can still remember the picture of his house alone on the top of the hill, or was it alone on planet earth?), Twas the Night Before Christmas (depending on how richly illustrated your copy was–it was a family tradition of ours on Christmas Eve. How can you top that for lasting memories?)
Chris
marion says
Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll.
Holes by Sachar comes close second.
Anonymous says
Superior post Nathan. I am going to print it out so I can read some of the ones I haven't yet… There is nothing like reading or re-reading these books in the summer time to remind you where your summers have gone…
I even came back a second night to peak at the last entries.
mbb
Diana says
When I was a kid, we didn't have the middle grade readers, young adult, and all the other categories of children's books that we have now. I went from reading The Bobbsey Twins and Nancy Drew to reading Gone With the Wind and James Michener. To Kill a Mockingbird and The Hobbit were shelved with the adult books, so it's kind of difficult to think of them as children's books.
My contribution of great children's not young adult books would be: The Dr. Seuss books, the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boy series, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and the Harry Potter series.
bcomet says
Bed-Knob and Broomstick (A Combined Edition of: "The Magic Bed-Knob" and "Bonfires and Broomsticks") by Mary Norton.
This, and not the Disney movie, read to us in two different grades of elementary school by teachers, was a book to take you to different lands.
(There are so many wonderful children's books. This one came immediately to mind upon hearing the question.)
Jan Morrill says
Picture book: I'll Love You Forever
Reader book: Charlotte's Web
Kim Miller says
Add my votes for
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
Howl's Moving Castle
Literature Gold, in my opinion.
Scott Stillwell says
I have the most personal attachment to "My Side of the Mountain," and the entire "Choose Your Own Adventure" series. I wonder if that's in any way a reflection on my secret nerd desire to be a rebellious free spirit.
Matt Phillips says
I agree with those not classifying TKAM as a "children's" book. To me, a children's book is one that's appropriate for children from a wide range of ages to read (or have read to them). A novel in which a black man is accused of raping a white woman doesn't fit that definition for me. Appropriate for high school, maybe middle, but not elementary.
My vote would go to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; the Prydain Chronicles; and/or The Hobbit.
Brittany says
I just thought, "Nobody's said My Side Of the Mountain yet!"and lo and behold, it was the next comment.
I side with the opinion that TKAM, as I fondly call it, is not a children's book.
I am a young adult. This book was my required reading for junior year. I am sure I can safely say that no one in my class has read it before, for more than one reason. One, it's a "classic." I have read a lot of classics and consider myself well-educated and well-read, more so than others my age, and I would not have picked up TKAM if it had not been required and I had not heard so many good things about it. No teenager or child reads "classics" because they think they're going to be just like Dickens (which, I confess, I haven't had the courage to pick up again.)
Secondly, this book has some adult themes-rape being among them. I don't know about you, but I don't want my seven year-old reading about rape. (Yeah, I know Scout's seven or eight.) It's good for kids to learn about prejudice and death and life, and if you'll excuse the mild languge that's going on, it's a great book for middle grade-age and YA. But there are some things I don't think are for kids, and besides, isn't one of the best points of the book that we're looking at this from a child's eyes but we understand the bigger things that are going on? A child looking through a child's eyes isn't the same.
I enjoyed TKAM but I don't think it's a children's book.
Ms. McClory says
The Giver- by far it will forever be my favorite!
chris says
I can't believe I got so far down the page until someone mentioned Where the Wild Things Are. Has there ever been so much said with so few words?! And the illustrations are unsurpassed! A true children's book.
N. Rudolph says
I'll have to go with THE LION THE WITCH AND THE WARDOBE.
Anonymous says
My new favorite children's book of all time is, "A LOVE DOODLE" by Jordi Solari (a modern-day Dr. Seuss!)