January 22, 2008

• From Scriveling, a list of 100 books all kids should read, with those I've read in bold type.

  1. The Twits, by Roald Dahl
  2. Burglar Bill, by Janet and Allan Ahlberg
  3. The Tiger who came to tea, by Judith Kerr
  4. Where the wild things are, by Maurice Sendak
  5. The Tale of Samuel Whiskers, by Beatrix Potter
  6. Yertle the turtle, by Dr. Seuss
  7. Fungus the bogeyman, by Raymond Briggs
  8. The Story of the little mole who knew it was none of his business, by Werner Holzwarth and Wolf Erlbruch
  9. Room on the broom, by Julia Donaldson
  10. The Very hungry caterpillar, by Eric Carle
  11. The Cat in the hat, by Dr. Seuss
  12. Charlotte's web, by E.B. White
  13. The Story of Babar, by Jean de Brunhoff
  14. Winnie-the-Pooh, by A.A. Milne
  15. Stig of the dump, by Clive King
  16. Ballet shoes, by Noel Streatfeild
  17. Howl's moving castle, by Diana Wynne Jones
  18. Just so stories, by Rudyard Kipling
  19. The Borrowers, by Mary Norton
  20. Struwwelpeter, by Heinrich Hoffman
  21. The Magic faraway tree, by Enid Blyton
  22. Danny, the champion of the world, by Roald Dahl
  23. George's marvellous medicine, by Roald Dahl
  24. Underwater adventure, by Willard Price
  25. Tintin in Tibet, by Hergé
  26. The Complete Brothers Grimm fairy tales
  27. Erik the Viking, by Terry Jones
  28. When the wind blows, by Raymond Briggs
  29. Old Possum's book of practical cats, by T.S. Eliot
  30. The Iron man, by Ted Hughes
  31. The Owl and the pussycat, by Edward Lear
  32. The Wind in the willows, by Kenneth Grahame
  33. The Worst witch collection, by Jill Murphy
  34. Peter Pan, by J.M. Barrie
  35. Mr. Majeika, by Humphrey Carpenter
  36. The Water babies, by Charles Kingsley
  37. A Little princess, by Frances Hodgson Burnett
  38. I'm the king of the castle, by Susan Hill
  39. The Wave, by Morton Rhue
  40. Pippi Longstocking, by Astrid Lindgren
  41. Charlie and the chocolate factory, by Roald Dahl
  42. Bambert's book of missing stories, by Reinhardt Jung
  43. The Firework-maker's daughter, by Philip Pullman
  44. Tom's midnight garden, by Philippa Pearce
  45. The Phantom tollbooth, by Norman Juster
  46. The Silver sword, by Ian Serrallier
  47. Cue for treason, by Geoffrey Trease
  48. The Sword in the stone, by T.H. White
  49. A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula K. LeGuin
  50. Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban, by J.K. Rowling
  51. The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis
  52. His Dark Materials, by Philip Pullman
  53. The BFG, by Roald Dahl
  54. Swallows and Amazons, by Arthur Ransome
  55. Clarice Bean, don't look now, by Lauren Child
  56. The Railway children, by E. Nesbit
  57. The Selfish giant, by Oscar Wilde
  58. Black Beauty, by Anna Sewell
  59. Just William, by Richard Crompton
  60. Jennings goes to school, by Anthony Buckeridge
  61. Comet in Moominland, by Tove Jannson
  62. The Bad beginning, by Lemony Snicket
  63. Call of the wild, by Jack London
  64. Alice in Wonderland and Through the looking glass, by Lewis Carroll
  65. The Outsiders, by S.E. Hinton
  66. I capture the castle, by Dodie Smith
  67. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, by Joan Aiken
  68. To kill a mockingbird, by Harper Lee
  69. Great expectations, by Charles Dickens
  70. The Owl service, by Alan Garner
  71. The Hound of the Baskervilles, by Arthur Conan Doyle
  72. Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë
  73. The Diary of a young girl, by Anne Frank
  74. Roll of thunder, hear my cry, by Mildred D. Taylor
  75. A Kestrel for a knave, by Barry Hines
  76. The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien
  77. War horse, by Michael Morpurgo
  78. Beowulf, by Michael Morpurgo
  79. King Solomon's mines, by H. Rider Haggard
  80. Kim, by Rudyard Kipling
  81. The Road of bones, by Anne Fine
  82. Frenchman's Creek, by Daphne du Maurier
  83. Treasure Island, by R. L. Stevenson
  84. Little women, by Louisa May Alcott
  85. Anne of Green Gables, by L.M. Montgomery
  86. Junk, by Melvin Burgess
  87. Cider with Rosie, by Laurie Lee
  88. The Go-between, by L.P. Hartley
  89. The Rattle bag, edited by Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes
  90. The Song of Hiawatha, by H.W. Longfellow
  91. Watership Down, by Richard Adams
  92. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain
  93. True grit, by Charles Portis
  94. Holes, by Louis Sachar
  95. Lord of the flies, by William Golding
  96. My family and other animals, by Gerald Durrell
  97. Coraline, by Neil Gaiman
  98. Carrie's war, by Nina Bawden
  99. The Story of Tracy Beaker, by Jacqueline Wilson
  100. The Lantern bearers, by Rosemary Sutcliff

  I guess the question is: should adults go back and read the ones we've missed? With some of these, I'd say "Absolutely!" But I don't think you should bother reading Yertle the Turtle unless you have a kid available to read it to. I think some are not available in the U.S., except in the flat-world sense in which we can have all Raymond Briggs's books if we are willing to pay the shipping from the UK.

  If there are any here that I haven't read, but which you think I ought to go read for pleasure, let me know. I don't have to read things for my own good any more, and I have plenty of stuff that I read for class or work or study group or book club, so please do not recommend things that would be, say, the equivalent of reading Hiawatha (which you should read, kids, but grownups, just skim it so you can follow along in conversations on the subject).

  I've come back to say that I happened to see this post at Bloglines, and it was bolded all wrong. All the books that Scriveling and I both have read are not bolded. I am not sure why I couldn't bear to have people think I'd never read The Cat in the Hat, but I guess the whole point of this game is to discuss the books we've read and not read and whether we should read the others or disagree with the list and whatnot... Anyway, if you are reading on a feed and The Cat in the Hat is not bold, click on over and see the list accurately before telling me which of the non-bold ones I ought to read.

  • 7:51 am
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