10 Favorite Children's Books (Plus 10)
Preliminary note: My experience as a parent with four children and my experience teaching children’s literature at San Diego State University have together brought me into contact with a great many remarkably good children’s books. The only way I could persuade myself to narrow my favorites down to ten was to plan on including an additional list of ten, each of which could easily have been on the first list. I’ve included novels as well as children’s picture books in both lists (which, incidentally, are in alphabetical rather than ranked order), but decided after some thought to exclude fairy tales. That would be still another list and it would be a long one. And at the top of that list would probably be Madame de Beaumont’s version of “Beauty and the Beast” and Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Nightingale”—a tale that with each passing year becomes a more appropriate commentary on the world in which we live.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Ages: 8 & Up
By Lewis Carroll
A standard academic thing to say about this book is that it represents a clear break with the moralizing tradition in children’s literature. That’s quite true, I think; in fact, Alice goes farther still and actually mocks that tradition—in its poems, for example, which parody earlier, more earnest ones, and in the character of the Duchess who, like some readers of literature today, insists on finding a moral in everything. Still, this approach to the book will only take us so far. What else is there in it? Well, for one thing, like so many readers old and young, I love the wordplay in this book and, more generally, the humor that runs throughout it. For another, I think Alice herself is an admirable character. Certainly too, I appreciate Carroll’s complete imaginative commitment to this world he’s creating. But beyond all of this, a very important part of what I love about Alice is the way it lets the fresh wholesome air of strangeness and freedom into our weary, stale, constrained, all too sensible minds. Still, the book isn’t just randomly weird or off the wall. The world it presents is not merely strange but also strangely familiar. Wonderland—this magical, scary, unstable, unpredictable place, with its abrupt changes, sudden transformations and bizarre characters—does remarkably well at representing, in large scale, what a child’s world is like. But it is also, I would add, far more representative of the world of human experience in general than we might like to think about. (What Carroll’s book is not, incidentally, is a “drug book.” That notion emerged in the 1960s; this book is the product of quite another 60s.)
Dr. Seuss’s Sleep Book
Ages: 4 - 8 yrs.
By Dr. Seuss
Do you know who’s asleep
Out in Foona-Lagoona . . ?
Two very nice
Foona-Lagoona Baboona.
The two picture books that my children most wanted read to them, and that we were most eager to read to them, were this book and The Scroobious Pip (see below). Has anyone ever created words and illustrations together with more extravagant humor, more imagination, more charm than Ted Geisel did? Or with a better sense of what will delight young children? He had a maniacal delight in language and an indelible, authentic visual style that you can recognize in an instant across two rooms. With Seuss, you just about never sense that he’s trying to be funny or captivating or imaginative. As hard as he may have worked on them, the finished books have a dorky spontaneity; they seem to have bubbled up irrepressibly. In all of his work, there’s this very obvious sense of play that children can immediately recognize. Incidentally, a close Seuss runner-up to this book in our family was the somewhat less known There’s a Wocket in My Pocket.
Finn Family Moomintroll (Original Title: Trollkarlens Hatt)
Ages: 9 - 12 yrs.
By Tove Jansson
I’m only half joking when I say that this is the most subversive book I know. It’s all about love, sharing, and the acceptance of others, however odd they may be, as well as about openness to the present moment and what it will bring. Acquisitiveness and possessiveness may help to drive the plot, but they are emphatically not where this book’s heart is. Snufkin, one of the most admirable characters in the story, can never understand why people like to own things. And the only use that Moominmamma can think of for the huge pile of gold that they’ve found is to edge her flower beds. “But only the big bits, of course,” she says, “because the little ones look so rubbishy.” Still, nothing could be farther than Finn Family Moomintroll is from all those tiresome, heavy-handed books that are out to teach children “values.” In fact, I’ve noticed that even adult readers almost never see this as a didactic work.
Jansson, a Finnish author writing in Swedish, was one of the great fantasy writers—and one who pretty much created her own genre with her series of Moomin books. This isn’t epic fantasy or animal fantasy or fantasy about kids encountering some kind of magic (though, in fact, that does happen). The central figures are trolls, technically, though they tend to be chubbier and less menacing. But let me sum up: If you’re weary of shallow, all-too-familiar, assembly-line children’s fiction (not to mention movies and TV), this book should be very welcome. Tove Jansson, incidentally, did her own wonderful illustrations for the Moomin books.
The Harry Potter Series
Ages: 9 - 12 yrs.
By: J. K. Rowling
As more than a few readers have observed, Rowling’s range in this series is extraordinary. She does high adventure alongside slapstick comedy—and a more subtle sort of comedy of manners as well. She does over-the-top caricatures in the grand Roald Dahl style (I’m thinking of the Dursleys in particular), alongside a very appealing everyday realism. Hogwarts and the Weasleys' home may be magical settings, but still Rowling is perfectly capable of giving them that engaging, realistic texture that we find in the long tradition of children’s family fiction and school fiction. She brings in strong mystery elements, intense action sequences, romance, sharp social satire (a million teachers thank you, dear Joanne, for the character of Dolores Umbridge), and of course the overarching framework of epic fantasy: the high struggle between good and evil. What makes this mélange work so well? Let me mention three things in particular. (1) On the page-by-page level she’s a very good writer—and one who doesn’t waste any energy trying to demonstrate that she’s a good writer; she just does it; (2) She’s created a terrific, impressively varied array of characters; (3) She so clearly believes in this world she’s created. Like other great fantasy writers, she’s inhabited this world, immersed herself in it, taken it with the utmost seriousness, worked it out with loving care and in extraordinary detail (much more detail, as Rowling has made clear, than she needs for the books themselves). As for the much-analyzed “Harry Potter phenomenon”—the extraordinary success of these books—ultimately what’s behind it, I think, is the power of literature itself. What Rowling did was to come up with the “spell” that would enable an extraordinarily wide audience to experience that power.
Heidi (Original Title: Heidis Lehr- und Wanderjahre)
Ages: 9 - 12 yrs.
By Johanna Spyri
[A fairly good, readable translation is Eileen Hall’s in the Puffin Classics edition]
Not only is this 125-year-old book about a mountain, it’s built like one: solid, towering, indestructible. The book is very rich: full of humor, suspense, tearful sentiment, memorable characters, and vividly rendered settings. Spyri is very good at anchoring her narrative in a series of highly evocative recurring elements that young readers can take imaginative hold of: the wind in the fir trees; the hay bed; the meals of goat milk, cheese, and bread; and so on. And this character that she’s created, Heidi, is such an extraordinarily good child that you might not expect her to be a believable one, but she is. She really is. Finally, there’s one thing in particular that fascinates me about this novel: the way in which Spyri is able to take a complex issue, the issue of civilization vs. nature that had been of central importance in European culture since at least the time of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and deal with it concretely in a way that works remarkably well for children. She establishes these two locales—the pastoral mountain setting on one hand and the urban flatland setting on the other—and explores their relationship, through the plot itself, in a complex, and, in fact, philosophical way. The more closely you look at the book, the more amazed you will be at how artfully and intelligently she has done this.
The Hobbit, Or There and Back Again
Ages: 9 - 12 yrs.
By J.R.R. Tolkien
When Tolkien is describing a battle and wants to echo the diction and the rhythms of the old sagas, he can do it. When he’s staging Bilbo’s first encounter with the dwarfs and wants utterly goofy comedy, he can do that too. Like Homer in The Odyssey, he can play truly scary adventure, pushed repeatedly to the point of terror and apparent hopelessness, off against the warmest, most restorative scenes of hospitable welcome. He’s fashioned one of the most vivid, empathy-drawing heroes in children’s literature, created one of the greatest of literary wizards, laid out a rich and entirely convincing geography, and fashioned, out of the literary and folkloric elements that had been handed down to him, his own array of creatures—an array that he in turn handed down to the epic fantasy writers who succeeded him and are so much in his debt. His gift for inventing names for characters and places is marvelous—no surprise, of course, in someone who invented languages for fun. He can do everything in this book, except, of course, create female characters. We have to wait for Lord of the Rings for them, and even there they’re hardly abundant. Lord of the Rings, by the way, was not intended by Tolkien as children’s fiction, but this one most definitely was; in fact, it began as stories that he told to his own children.
Pippi Longstocking (Original Title: Pippi Långstrump)
Ages: 9 - 12 yrs.
By Astrid Lindgren
Pippi is one of the great superheroes in children’s literature. I’ve discovered that adult readers not infrequently find her to be a real pain. She’s messy, disrespectful, tells spectacular lies, is a show-off, doesn’t go to school, and—on the one day when she does give school a try—is the kind of student who drives teachers right up the wall. She is, in fact, a sort of anthology of childhood faults. In this respect she’s very much like Pinocchio, but while Pinocchio has his faults properly wrung out of him by one horrifying, almost sadistic “learning experience” after another, Pippilotta revels in hers. But even the frowning adults have to recognize that she’s a wonderful friend, has a good heart, and is a free spirit if there ever was one. Like The Hobbit, like Alice, and like so many of the great works of children’s literature, Lindgren’s book developed in the most authentic possible way. Each of these books emerged out of stories told to delight a particular child or children (in this case, Lindgren’s daughter who was convalescing from an illness). Since then, it’s been translated into a zillion languages, and children all over the world have delighted in it. Who would not want to live in Villa Villekulla with a horse and a monkey, and parents who are far enough away (one in the South Seas, the other in heaven) to stay out of your (fire-red) hair? And if that should seem a little scary, you can always, as a fallback position, have the fun of identifying with Tommy and Annika, who are lucky enough to have Pippi for a neighbor and friend.
The Scroobious Pip
Ages: All Ages
By Edward Lear, Completed by Ogden Nash. Illustrations by Nancy Ekholm Burkert
Edward Lear was the Victorian poet and visual artist who wrote “The Owl and the Pussycat” and no end of limericks. This particular poem was found after his death on the back of a page of travel notes. (There were just two lines and two additional words missing, which Ogden Nash filled in expertly for this book.) The poem is about the animal kingdom—beasts and insects, birds and fish—and centers on a mysterious creature, the Scroobious Pip, who defies categorization and who in fact cheerfully frustrates the animals’ attempts to pin him down, to decide what kind of creature he is: “Chippetty flip! Flippety chip!/ My only name is the Scroobious Pip!”
Burkert’s illustrations couldn’t be less like the wry lively little caricatures Lear drew, on occasion, to illustrate stories. Still, they work perfectly with the poem. What she’s done is delicate, loving, detailed, and realistic—and amounts to something like a hymn to the abundant diversity and beauty of the animal kingdom. Each of her full-page paintings is a world that a child can disappear into, and her rendition of the Scroobious Pip himself is something that I think would have to have delighted Lear.
Sing-Song
Ages: 4 - 8 yrs.
By Christina Rossetti. Illustrations by Arthur Hughes.
One of the world’s great poets wrote this book of verses for children. The cultural distance may be too great for some of these poems to work well for small children today, but since this is to be a list of my own favorite children’s books, Sing-Song needs to be on it. Rossetti’s poems might seem sentimental if you just glance over them quickly, but they’re not. Her eyes are wide open and she knows all too well the way things are. She is intensely given over in these poems to the world of small children, and her use of language is something to marvel at: sometimes very simple and plain, sometimes whimsical, often very rich in imagery and sound. Sometimes she echoes familiar nursery rhymes; sometimes she strikes off in her own direction. Here’s a poem I’m particularly fond of, in which she does wonderful, subtle things with sound:
Dead in the cold, a song-singing thrush,
Dead at the foot of a snowberry bush,—
Weave him a coffin of rush,
Dig him a grave where the soft mosses grow,
Raise him a tombstone of snow.
Rossetti’s contemporary, Arthur Hughes, did the illustrations for this book, and these have been seen by some as one of high points of children’s illustration in the nineteenth century. The illustrated book is in libraries, of course, and—at least as of the time I’m writing this—Dover still has their own edition of it in print.
Swallows and Amazons
Ages: 9 - 12 yrs.
By Arthur Ransome
This is a broadly realistic novel about children on summer vacation playing imaginative adventure games in England’s Lake Country three-quarters of a century ago. Ransome clearly loves immersing himself in the details of these children’s lives: how you shinny up a tree, how you boil potatoes, how you set up a tent. The adventures happen, but he’s in no hurry to speed them along; actually, on that island in the lake, daily life itself is an adventure: waking up in a tent, fixing your own meals over a fire. In time the four central characters, the Walker children, who have the use of a sailboat for the summer, meet two sisters who have their own boat, and the six children play out games that are themselves based on children’s literature—especially on Treasure Island, but also on Robinson Crusoe and on other books as well. But of course they don’t think of what they’re doing as a game or as “play.” They give themselves over to these imaginative constructions with an awesome dedication and intensity. And you could say that Ransome himself does the same. There’s a gentle humor that plays over the entire book, but it’s an empathic humor. Ransome has the most enormous respect for his characters and, of course, for childhood itself.
Another Ten Favorite Children’s Books
Caps for Sale: A Tale of a Peddler, Some Monkeys and Their Monkey Business
Ages: 4 - 8 yrs.
By Esphyr Slobodkina
Fattypuffs and Thinifers (Original Title: Patapoufs et Filifers)
Ages: 9 - 12 yrs.
By André Maurois
Harriet the Spy
Ages: 9 - 12 yrs.
By Louise Fitzhugh
The Patchwork Cat
Ages: Infant - 5 yrs.
By William Mayne, Illustrated by Nicola Bayley
Mary Poppins
Ages: 9 - 12 yrs.
By P.L. Travers
Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry
Ages: 12 & Up
By Mildred Taylor
The Satanic Mill (Original Title: Krabat)
Ages: 9 - 12 yrs.
By Otfried Preussler
Tom’s Midnight Garden
Ages: 9 - 12 yrs.
By Philippa Pearce
When Shlemiel Went to Warsaw and Other Stories
Ages: 9 - 12 yrs.
By Isaac Bashevis Singer
A Wizard of Earthsea
Ages: 12 & Up
By Ursula K. Le Guin
Contributor note:
Jerry Farber is a professor of English and comparative literature at San Diego State University. His areas of specialization include comedy, aesthetics, poetry, European children's literature, Marcel Proust, and eighteenth-century literature. His books include A Field Guide to the Aesthetic Experience. He has published articles on literature, aesthetics, teaching, and educational theory.
Best 25 Books of 25 Years
The Parents’ Choice “Best 25 of 25” Book Committee, comprised of parents, teachers, librarians and critics, reviewed and reevaluated the past 25 years of Parents' Choice award-winning books and came up with what we believe is a list of the best of the best.
