The BBC polled "book experts" to find the greatest children's books. They say "the list is not designed as a fait accompli, but rather as an inspiration for further discovery and debate". Let the debate begin.
#1 on their list is Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak.
Here are the top ten:
1 Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak, 1963)
2 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865)
3 Pippi Longstocking (Astrid Lindgren, 1945)
4 The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1943)
5 The Hobbit (JRR Tolkien, 1937)
6 Northern Lights (Philip Pullman, 1995)
7 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (CS Lewis, 1950)
8 Winnie-the-Pooh (AA Milne and EH Shepard, 1926)
9 Charlotte's Web (EB White and Garth Williams, 1952)
I would put Charolotte's Web and Winnie-the-Pooh in my top ten. And probably Alice and Pippi too. I don't actually have a problem with the others but I might not put them up at the top of my personal top ten.
Here are others that I would put in my top 10 and where they fell on the BBC list:
11 Anne of Green Gables (LM Montgomery, 1908)
17 Little Women (Louisa May Alcott, 1868)
25 The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1911)
28 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (JK Rowling, 1999)
71 From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler (EL Konigsburg, 1967)
87 Little House in the Big Woods (Laura Ingalls Wilder, 1932)
What is missing? I'm not sure what they actually mean by "children's" books. But since they included The Hobbit on the list (which surely could not be read by a child alone until at least middle school) I'll add two of my favorite books from childhood.
The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare - a Newberry Medal winning novel in which a girl faces accusations of witchcraft in colonial Connecticut. (Google tells me this is grade level 5).
The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder - (reading ages 8-11). A Newberry Honor winner. The story of a group of friends who create an ongoing imagination game based on ancient Egypt.
