Classics of children’s literature?

The Anne of Green Gables and Emily of New Moon series by L. M. Montgomery. Really, any book by her. Good for the whole age range.

I can think of loads more but those were the first that sprang to mind.

The Little Prince

Lord of the Flies

Never Cry Wolf

The Secret Garden

The Witches or Matilda, Stuart Little, Shiloh, Where The Red Fern Grows.

The Phantom Tollbooth.

Little Women

Do NOT scar those poor little kids with Where the Red Fern Grows (though it's a good book.)

The Outsiders

Fifty Shades of Gray

Chronicles of Narnia (I know it is a Christian allegory, but if you don't point it out I feel like kids don't really see it - or at least I didn't).

Wrinkle in Time Series

White Fang

Charlotte’s Web

The Railway Children

A Wrinkle in Time (note, I hated it)

For older kids: Eva by Peter Dickinson. He wrote several YA books and all are worth reading.

Bambi

Kon-Tiki

Kidnapped

The Guns of Navarone is a surprisingly easy read

Some of these skew toward the older teens, some are more appropriate for the younger ones, but would still be enjoyable reads.

Harper Lee: To Kill a Mockingbird

Stephen Crane: The Red Badge of Courage

SE Hinton: The Outsiders

Lois Lowry: The Giver

Norton Juster: The Phantom Tollbooth

Ursula K LeGuin: The Earthsea Trilogy

Madeleine L'Engle: A Wrinkle in Time

Roald Dahl: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

JRR Tolkien: The Hobbit

JD Salinger: The Catcher in the Rye

Nicola Yoon: Everything, Everything

Markus Zusak: The Book Thief

Joan Aiken, The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, and then afterwards, the sequel Black Hearts in Battersea

I Once Had a Master, by John Preston

"The Diamond in the Window" by Jane Langton

True Grit, by Charles Portis, is a great book. (More people know the movie versions. I think it'ws better.) Not a kids' book but kids can enjoy it.

For readers who are around 12 or 13, an oldie but goodie, Johnny Tremain.

The Outsiders is great, but other S. E. Hinton books that are better in some ways: Tex, That was Then This is Now, Rumble Fish.

13 Reasons Why.

Second for "Diamond in the Window".

Bridge to Terrabithia by Katherine Paterson

Nine Stories by JD Salinger

I second The Phantom Tollbooth!

Spare

[quote] Nine Stories by JD Salinger

I'm sure the 10 year old will just love the endings of "A Perfect Day for Bananafish"!

I was a big fan of the Ramona Quimby series as a kid. It seemed especially close to home because I also grew up in the Portland area and was familiar with the neighborhood she lived in. I still think they are great books. Beverly Cleary managed to capture an emotional intelligence in them that you don't always find in children's literature. I plan on buying one of the complete sets to give to my niece.

NOT Nine Stories for god’s sake.

Encyclopedia Brown

I was a fan of The Boxcar Children

Wifey

Hatchet, the first book I bought just for the cover

Any book by Jason Reynolds.

I second Johnny Tremain. I had the same teacher in the fifth and sixth grade and we nagged her to read it again when we got to the 6th grade.

The Westing Game! Great murder mystery written for kids.

I don't know why, but as a kid growing up on the west coast, I was very taken with colonial-era children's literature. "The Witch of Blackbird Pond" and "Indian Captive: The Story of Mary Jemison" were obsessions of mine that I would check out from the school library again and again. Classics? I don't know. Perhaps only to me.

The Native American in the Cupboard Series

For the younger kids,

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of N.I.H.M.

A Cricket in Times Square

Island of the Blue Dolphins

Older kids:

Watership Down

The Last Unicorn

Flowers for Algernon

Damn, every book I thought of has already been mentioned.

I’m gonna add any horse books by Marguerite Henry with illustrations by Wesley Dennis. She’s best known for Misty of Chincoteague but wrote many other books.

There are bound to be some kids who love horses in that group.

Ahhh how could I forget Charlotte's Web?

Great choice r37

There was a French author of children's books, Hector Malot. He wrote a book entitled "en famille" which was translated into English as "the Adventures of Perrine". A very good book for perhaps 6th grade to 8th grade kids. There are adult themes - the death of a parent, rejection on account of mixed-race, etc, but the interesting settings in Paris of the 19th century and then in a factory town of Normandy are vivid and engaging and Perrine is a very intelligent heroine. It is sometimes titled "Nobody's girl", and it's available that way on project Gutenberg.

He wrote a companion book "sans famille" - nobody's boy - which apparently is very popular in France, but I've never read it.

we read trash novels and biographies in Junior HS and learned a lot.

In addition to the already stated Wrinkle in Time series and Chronicles of Narnia (which are both Christian allegories) I’d add the Great Brain series by John Dennis Fitzgerald.

Oh and how has no one mentioned Judy Blume?

Tales of a fourth grade nothing

My favorite book when I was in middle school.

I’m still pissed there wasn’t a sequel.

The Cat Ate My Gymsuit

I loved the Great Brain series.

The Little House series

Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle

The Borrowers

The Wind In The Willows

Sideways Stories From Wayside School

Paddington Bear

Le Guin is great for the older teens.

I read Nine Stories at 12 and enjoyed them. OP says some of his students are 18.

For the younger kids, The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel) by Ellen Raskin.

The lion the witch and the wardrobe.

The Bell Jar.

Rudyard Kipling’s Kim

The Witch of Blackbird Pond, a Newbery Award winner

A High Wind in Jamaica, children kidnapped by pirates might be too disturbing

Jane Eyre and The Diary of Anne Franke. I had to read them in English class in the 8th grade and subsequently read them both several times over the years.

The Baron in the Trees

Tide in the Attic

All Aboard for Freedom

Banner in the Sky

Across Five APrils (Irene Hunt)

I'm going back to the late 70s, but when I was 14 years old, we had a summer reading list in our high school before entering Freshman year and we had to read 4 books. (I went to a public school which was a college-prep school since the 1800s).

I recently came across my summer reading list last week (cleaning out some old stuff and came across my yearbook), and the four books we all had to read the summer of 1977 were:

To Kill A Mockingbird

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Life With Father

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

(At 14 years old, I remember I didn't finish 'Frankenstein' because I found it rather boring...but the other three I really enjoyed).

After watching Sam Claflin play Edmond Dantes in the 2024 The Count of Monte Cristo series, I bought a copy of the children's version of the book, which I probably read at age ten. It's a story about being done wrong in the worst possible way, then getting to take revenge on those who wronged you. I've read lots of different versions, from Classics Illustrated comic books to a 1,000+ page translation, and smaller books in between. I'm enjoying it again.

When I worked at the local library a few years ago, the Harry Potter Series was hugely popular for children and teens for summer reading. Believe it or not, that series started over 25 years ago.

R55 is from Boston or Cambridge.

Just a guess…

"The Man Who Planted Trees," by Jean Giono. A lovely, gentle book suitable for children, to teach them what ingenuity and perseverance is capable of accomplishing.

The series of "Twins" books, by Lucy Fitch Perkins. These stories were a favorite of my husband, who grew up reading them in the 40's and 50's(they were originally published in the teens and 20's) They ARE rather dated now, and very much of their time, but still worthy of being read. Each story concerns a different set of twins, always a boy and girl, who grew up in different eras and various countries and situations. I find them very relaxing reading. Lovely pen and ink illustrations accompany the text.

We passed around a scandalous paperbacks, such as Going Down with Janis - a biography of Janis Joplin that was chock full of muff diving, drugs, parties, rock and roll. Everything. The 70s. We loved that book. Jacqueline Susann trash novels. That sort of thing.

E Nesbit'snovels, especially the more fantastic ones (The Phoenix and the Carpet, Five Children and It). Gore Vidal wrote a wonderful appreciative essay about them

The original Pippi Longstockings books

Oh, my GOD! Please don't go down the Pete the Cat or Captain Underpants rathole. That's ALL they will want to fixate on -at least the younger ones, who probably need the most instruction. Literacy teacher here. EXHAUSTED from students wanting to read Captain Underpants. (They get to choose a book to be read aloud for about 10 minutes before each lesson begins. I've been over-riding them and telling them those two are not options right now. They need a rest.)

R25 The Beverly Cleary books made me love to read and sparked my interest in writing. When I was in the 4th grade, I wrote a fan letter to Beverly Cleary. She wrote back to me, and for the next nine years, we had an ongoing pen pal friendship.

I still have all the handwritten letters she sent me.

A ten year old would read a book with Underpants in the title? Have we devolved to that level?

read this when I was ten…

R64 There’s a dorm at Berkeley named for her. She had a hardscrabble life…rough road to make it to college and succeed as a writer

That is so cool, R64. I loved her books as a child.

R67 And when I was 12, she came to my town for a speaking engagement. My mom took me to it, and when Beverly Cleary got up to start her lecture, she first said she wanted to say hello to a "very special friend" and called out my name and asked me to stand up.

It was one of my best childhood memories.

🤙🏼

Aww, I like Pete the Cat and his groovy buttons but then I’m reading it to a 3 year old.

R36, I too love A Cricket in Times Square. Several years ago I re-read the last few chapters of the book (was curious if it was as good as I remembered) and it STILL made me smile and get teary-eyed... incredible. My paperback is very old and yellowed... don't think it's long for this world unfortunately.

I really should try A Tree Grows in Brooklyn...

Who remembers Cricket magazine, for literary-minded children of the 70s? It was required reading for “high readers” and “gifted children” in my school district.

I remember thinking that “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” had more adult themes than I expected it to when I read it.

My dad was the living -SoCal suburban- version of Johnny Nolan. I can’t watch the film version without crying.

I think the same author wrote, "The Genie of Sutton Place" which was a good read as well. I should read Cricket again- glad to hear that it didn't lose its magic.

[quote]Literacy teacher here. EXHAUSTED from students wanting to read Captain Underpants.

By Max Emerson?

That was for r21

A Tree…

I Am the Cheese - that will fuck up any kid.

Island of the Blue Dolphins. A beautifully written book that really touched and inspired me when I was young. I have never forgotten it.

Also the Wrinkle in Time trilogy, by Madeleine L’Engle.

I wonder if many of the "hard hitting" ones from my teenage years would seem impossibly dated now to middle school and high school students: I am the Cheese, the Chocolate War, A Separate Peace...

…you left out A Hard Man is Good to Find.

It was very illuminating in 6th grade.

For the older kids: The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. I read the trilogy when I was 12 and it got me hooked on reading from then on...

No love for Babar?

We are talking about 10 year olds, not 4 year olds…

Are you there, Sara Lee? It's Me, Chrissy.

Evert—

Closet bulemic

A Wrinkle in Time

The Diary of Anne Frank

Cheaper by the Dozen

Portnoy's Complaint

Fun fact: mother Gilbreth-Cheaper by the Dozen- went to Berkeley a few years ahead of Beverly Cleary.

[quote]The series of "Twins" books, by Lucy Fitch Perkins.

Ohmygawd, yes! My sister and I are in our early sixties and we read them all!

You mean lesbian… I hope?!

Grammarian

Transport-7-41-R

I am certain this is out of print and would NEVER be recommended for a sixth-grader these days, but I devoured it when my elementary school librarian handed it to me at age twelve. The characters and images have stayed with me for nearly fifty years!

Here's the summary:

It is 1946. Alone on a crowded transport train, a 13-year-old girl must travel from her childhood in now-defeated Nazi Germany toward an uncertain future in Cologne. Her main companions are an elderly couple. The wife is wheelchair bound and during the trip, she dies and they transport her corpse into the American zone pretending she is still alive!

Hardly "Make Way for Ducklings", huh?

Sounds too European.

R72 I loved it! The cover and illustrations were wonderful.

I second A Cricket in Times Square.

Also, for those kids who like a little magic and terror, The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellair. Still freaks me out to this day!

Also, After the First Death by Robert Cormier. It’s very dark but good.

Bambi

Holes by Louis Sachar

The Bobbsey Twins

The author of Cricket (and the others) wrote a great very adult gay novel, “The Story of Harold,” under the name Terry Andrews—it features a writer who gets into SM with a much younger man. Difficult to find, but worth interlibrary loan!

I’d add Noel Streatfeild’s Shoes books, Elizabeth Enright’s Melendez family books, Lloyd Alexander’s Persian Chronucles, Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising series, anything by Eleanor Estes (the Mondays books and The Witch Family are my favorites), E.L. Konigsberg, and Zilpha Keatley Snyder.

Robert Cormier was incapable of positive endings. The bad guys always won.

Too real for right now.

For the 10 year olds Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising series (vaguely magical but not Harry Potter level). For the 18 year olds Colette's Sido and My Mother's House (which has been published in one volume). Colette writes so well of how she physically experienced her world that anyone can join her in it.

The original Laura Ingalls Wilder books. Not the dumb show or that quack Roger Lea Macbride’s sequels. I liked the classic Hans Christian Anderson stories although some like The Snow Queen are a little scary. In the 60s I was still reading old books they still carried a lot of in school libraries. The Beany Malone series by Lenore Mattingly Weber that started in WWll, horse books by Elisa Bialk, C.W. Anderson, old teen romance authors like Betty Cavana, Rosamund Du Jardin, Anne Emory, mysteries by Phyllis A. Whitney, kid collections from Alfred Hitchcock…I remember when Harriet The Spy, Henry 3, and Up A Road Slowly came out and I was asked to read them. I’m old.

For older teens, Lev Grossman’s Magicians Trilogy.

The Cat Ate My Gymsuit by Paula Danziger.

[quote][R55] is from Boston or Cambridge. Just a guess…

Guessed wrong. I'm from Providence, RI.

Close enough—NE “classical” public school and all.

My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George

Meet Me in St. Louis by Sally Benson

A Ring of Endess Light by Madeleine L'Engle

Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCmillo

Old Yeller by Fred Gipson

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor

Dont expect anyone under 25 to appreciate Salinger R22.

From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

Freddy the Pig books

The Trumpeter of Krakow

ELizabeth Enright's Melendey Family books

Is Harry Potter considered a classic now? Lord of the rings series. Call of the wild.

Trans kids love it! So I’ve heard

When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit- Judith Kerr.

Rudyard Kipling's "The Jungle Book" and, for younger children, his "Just So" stories.

John Ruskin's "The King of the Golden River," which is a short story, but still good.

Ernest Thompson Seton's animal and nature stories. Technically, they are for adults, but I loved them when I was a kid. They don't often end happily, so take that into account.

:"A Little Princess" although it ends much differently than in the movies .

:

Five on a Treasure Island

The Magic Faraway Tree

Adventures of the Wishing-Chair

[quote]When I worked at the local library a few years ago, the Harry Potter Series was hugely popular for children and teens for summer reading

[quote]Is Harry Potter considered a classic now?

I don't know that I would consider them classics. Not only are they not old enough, but they range from a 5 to maybe 8 on a 1-10 scale. They aren't bad (the later ones can be quite good), but they aren't comparable to many of the books being listed.

Plus, I would bet 80% of kids have already read them.

Alice in Wonderland

[quote]Alice in Wonderland

Really, r116?

Flowers in the Attic

R96, I read Bambi several times as a child. Every child should read it. Every adult for that matter.

R119. I agree. I was assigned to write about it for a reference book on children’s literature and had only seen the movie as a child. It really is a wonderful novel—the author also wrote “Perri” about a squirrel which Disney made into a live action film. The Disney cartoon of “Bambi” has its pleasures (and terrors), but the novel is really a serious piece of nature writing.

“Strange Sisters”

Same here r102, Betty Cavana, Rosamund Du Jardin, Anne Emory. A few years ago I was seeking them out to reread. I think Emory held up the best.

OP: Sherlock Holmes

You can find them free on Open Library^^

The Ghost Belonged to Me, Danny, Champion of the World, The Mouse and his child.

In the 8th grade I did a comparison and contrast essay on Charlotte’s Web and Bambi. My teacher thought I was “slow” after that. I didn’t know what to think after that. She was the ugliest woman I’d ever seen and she was stuck on sci fi and Buckminster Fuller. I still think about that.

r125, I hope you pissed on her grave.

Richard Peck had some good books. I really liked the Blossom Culp books.

Damn she was ugly. Huge JimmyDurante nose flecked with blackheads. Black straggly hair. I didn’t know whether to feel sorry for her or resentful because I didn’t dig Stranger In A Strange Land.

She was expecting a lot from an 8th grader.

R128 Who are you referencing?

His teacher