List of children's classic books

See also: Children's literature

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.

This is a list of classic children's books published no later than 2008 and still available in the English language. ^{[1] [2] [3]}

Books specifically for children existed by the 17th century. Before that, books were written mainly for adults – although some later became popular with children. In Europe, Gutenberg's invention of the printing press around 1440 made possible mass production of books, though the first printed books were quite expensive and remained so for a long time. Gradually, however, improvements in printing technology lowered the costs of publishing and made books more affordable to the working classes, who were also likely to buy smaller and cheaper broadsides, chapbooks, pamphlets, tracts, and early newspapers, all of which were widely available before 1800. In the 19th century, improvements in paper production, as well as the invention of cast-iron, steam-powered printing presses, enabled book publishing on a very large scale, and made books of all kinds affordable by all.

Scholarship on children's literature includes professional organizations, dedicated publications, and university courses.

Before 18th century

Title	Author	Year published	References and Brief Introduction
Panchatantra	Vishnu Sharma	c. 800 BC	Ancient Indian inter-related collection of animal fables in verse and prose, in a frame story format. Similar stories are found in later works including Aesop's Fables and the Sindbad tales in Arabian Nights . [4]
Aesop's Fables	Aesop	c. 600 BC	[5] [6]
Kathasaritsagara	Somadeva	11th Century AD	Collection of Indian legends, fairy tales and folk tales as retold by a Saivite Brahmin named Somadeva. Generally believed to derive from Gunadhya's Brhat-katha, written in Paisachi dialect from the south of India.[ citation needed ]
Arabian Nights	Unknown	before 8th century AD	[7] [8]
Orbis Pictus	John Amos Comenius	1658	Earliest picture book specifically for children. [9] [10]
A Token for Children. Being An Exact Account of the Conversion, Holy and Exemplary Lives, and Joyful Deaths of several Young Children	James Janeway	1672	One of the first books specifically written for children which shaped much eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century writing for children.[ citation needed ] [11]

18th century

Title	Author	Year published	References
Tales of Mother Goose	Charles Perrault	1729 (English)	[3] [2] [12]
Little Pretty Pocket-book	John Newbery	1744	[13]
Little Goody Two Shoes	Oliver Goldsmith	1765	[14]
Lessons for Children	Anna Laetitia Barbauld	1778-9	The first series of age-adapted reading primers for children printed with large text and wide margins; in print for over a century. [15]
The History of Sandford and Merton	Thomas Day	1783-9	A bestseller for over a century, it embodied Rousseau's educational ideals. [16]

19th century

Title	Author	Year published	References
The Swiss Family Robinson	Johann David Wyss	1812-3	[1]
Grimm's Fairy Tales	Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm	1823 (English)	[3] [17]
A Visit From St. Nicholas	Clement Clarke Moore	1823	[3]
Tales of Peter Parley About America	Peter Parley (pseudonym)	1827	[3]
Fairy Tales	Hans Christian Andersen	1846 (English)	[3]
The Children of the New Forest	Frederick Marryat	1847
Slovenly Peter	Heinrich Hoffmann	1848 (English)
The Wide, Wide World	Elizabeth Wetherell (pseudonym)	1850	[3]
The King of the Golden River	John Ruskin	1851	[3]
The Coral Island	R. M. Ballantyne	1857
Tom Brown's Schooldays	Thomas Hughes	1857	[3]
The Water Babies	Charles Kingsley	1863	[3]
A Journey to the Center of the Earth	Jules Verne	1864	[1]
Little Prudy	Rebecca Sophia Clarke	1864	[18]
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland	Lewis Carroll	1865	[1] [2]
Max and Moritz	Wilhelm Busch	1865
Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates	Mary Mapes Dodge	1865	[1]
Little Women	Louisa May Alcott	1868	[1] [3] [2]
Ragged Dick	Horatio Alger, Jr.	1868	[3]
Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances	Juliana Horatia Ewing	1869	[19]
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas	Jules Verne	1870	[1]
At the Back of the North Wind	George MacDonald	1871	[1]
The Brownies and other Tales	Juliana Horatia Ewing	1871
The Princess and the Goblin	George MacDonald	1871	[3]
Through the Looking-Glass	Lewis Carroll	1871	[1] [3]
Around the World in Eighty Days	Jules Verne	1872	[1]
A Dog of Flanders	Ouida	1872
What Katy Did	Susan Coolidge	1873	[3]
Black Beauty	Anna Sewell	1877	[1] [3]
Five Little Peppers and How They Grew	Margaret Sidney	1881
The Prince and the Pauper	Mark Twain	1881
The Adventures of Pinocchio	Carlo Collodi	1883	[1] [3] [2] [20]
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood	Howard Pyle	1883	[2] [20]
Nights with Uncle Remus	Joel Chandler Harris	1883
Heidi	Johanna Spyri	1884 (English)	[3]
King Solomon's Mines	H. Rider Haggard	1885
Kidnapped	Robert Louis Stevenson	1886	[1] [2]
Little Lord Fauntleroy	Frances Hodgson Burnett	1886	[1] [3]
The Happy Prince and Other Tales	Oscar Wilde	1888
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court	Mark Twain	1889
The Blue Fairy Book	Andrew Lang	1889
The Jungle Book	Rudyard Kipling	1894	[1] [3] [2] [20]
Seven Little Australians	Ethel Turner	1894	[3]
Tom Sawyer Abroad	Mark Twain	1894
The Second Jungle Book	Rudyard Kipling	1895	[1]
Moonfleet	J. Meade Falkner	1898
The Black Corsair	Emilio Salgari	1898
The Reluctant Dragon	Kenneth Grahame	1898
The Story of the Treasure Seekers	E. Nesbit	1899
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz	L. Frank Baum	1900	[1] [3] [2] [20]
The Tigers of Mompracem	Emilio Salgari	1900

20th century

Title	Author	Year published	References
Five Children and It	E. Nesbit	1902	[3]
Just So Stories	Rudyard Kipling	1902	[1] [3] [2]
The Tale of Peter Rabbit	Beatrix Potter	1902	[3] [2]
King Arthur and His Knights	Howard Pyle	1902-3
The Call of the Wild	Jack London	1903	[1]
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm	Kate Douglas Wiggin	1903	[1]
A Little Princess	Frances Hodgson Burnett	1905	[1] [3]
The Railway Children	E. Nesbit	1906
White Fang	Jack London	1906
Queen Silver-Bell	Frances Hodgson Burnett	1906
The Wonderful Adventures of Nils	Selma Lagerlöf	1906
Anne of Green Gables	Lucy Maud Montgomery	1908	[1] [3]
The Wind in the Willows	Kenneth Grahame	1908	[1] [3] [20]
The Secret Garden	Frances Hodgson Burnett	1909/1911	[1] [3] [2]
Peter and Wendy	J. M. Barrie	1911	[2] Based on the author's play Peter Pan (1904)
Tarzan	Edgar Rice Burroughs	1912
The Lost World	Sir Arthur Conan Doyle	1912
Pollyanna	Eleanor H. Porter	1913	[3]
The Magic Pudding	Norman Lindsay	1918	[21]
Raggedy Ann	Johnny Gruelle	1918
Lad: A Dog	Albert Payson Terhune	1919	[1]
The Story of Doctor Dolittle	Hugh Lofting	1920	[1] [3] [2]
Juan Bobo	Puerto Rican school children	1921	[22]
The Velveteen Rabbit	Margery Williams	1922	[1]
The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle	Hugh Lofting	1922	[1]
The Dark Frigate	Charles Boardman Hawes	1923	[1]
When We Were Very Young	A.A. Milne	1924
Smoky the Cowhorse	Will James	1926	[1]
Winnie-the-Pooh	A. A. Milne	1926	[1] [3] [2]
Now We Are Six	A. A. Milne	1927
The House at Pooh Corner	A. A. Milne	1928	[1] [3]
Bambi	Felix Salten	1928	[1]
The Trumpeter of Krakow	Eric P. Kelly	1928	[1]
Milly-Molly-Mandy Stories	Joyce Lankester Brisley	1928
Emil and the Detectives	Erich Kästner	1929	[23]
Swallows and Amazons	Arthur Ransome	1930–1931	[3]
Babar	Jean de Brunhoff	1931
Little House in the Big Woods	Laura Ingalls Wilder	1932	[1]
Mary Poppins	P. L. Travers	1934
Ballet Shoes	Noel Streatfeild	1936
The Story of Ferdinand	Munro Leaf	1936
The Hobbit	J. R. R. Tolkien	1937	[1] [3] [2] [20]
And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street	Dr. Seuss	1937
The Sword in the Stone	T. H. White	1938
Madeline	Ludwig Bemelmans	1939
My Name Is Aram	William Saroyan	1940	Children's immigrant experience in the US
Curious George	H. A. Rey	1941
Five on a Treasure Island	Enid Blyton	1942
Johnny Tremain	Esther Forbes	1943	[1] [2]
The Little Prince	Antoine de Saint-Exupéry	1943	[1] [24]
Pippi Longstocking	Astrid Lindgren	1945	[1] [25]
Stuart Little	E. B. White	1945
The Little White Horse	Elizabeth Goudge	1946
Mistress Masham's Repose	T. H. White	1946
Thomas the Tank Engine	Wilbert Awdry	1946
Goodnight Moon	Margaret Wise Brown	1947	[2] [26]
I Capture the Castle	Dodie Smith	1948
Space Cadet	Robert Anson Heinlein	1948	One of the first modern SF novels written expressly for young people
Finn Family Moomintroll	Tove Jansson	1949	[27]
Noddy Goes to Toyland	Enid Blyton	1949	The first of the Noddy books
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe	C.S. Lewis	1950	[1] [3] [2] [20]
Charlotte's Web	E. B. White	1952	[1] [28] [29]
The Borrowers	Mary Norton	1952
The Children of Green Knowe	Lucy M. Boston	1954
Horton Hears a Who!	Dr. Seuss	1954
Beezus and Ramona	Beverly Cleary	1955
Tunnel in the Sky	Robert Anson Heinlein	1955	One of the first instances of mainstream SF for young people featuring a black protagonist
Eloise	Kay Thompson	1955	First published in 1955, it was aimed at adults. When re-published in 1969, it was marketed to children.
The Hundred and One Dalmatians	Dodie Smith	1956
Harry the Dirty Dog	Gene Zion	1956
The Silver Sword	Ian Serraillier	1956	Known in the US as Escape from Warsaw.
The Cat in the Hat	Dr. Seuss	1957	First high quality limited-vocabulary book, written for early readers [ citation needed ]
Little Bear	Else Holmelund Minarik	1957
How the Grinch Stole Christmas	Dr. Seuss	1957
Tom's Midnight Garden	Philippa Pearce	1958
A Bear Called Paddington	Michael Bond	1958
The Rescuers	Margery Sharp	1959
The Weirdstone of Brisingamen	Alan Garner	1960
James and the Giant Peach	Roald Dahl	1961	[1]
The Phantom Tollbooth	Norton Juster	1961	[1]
The Big Honey Hunt	Stan and Jan Berenstain	1962
A Wrinkle in Time	Madeleine L'Engle	1962
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase	Joan Aiken	1962
Stig of the Dump	Clive King	1963
Where the Wild Things Are	Maurice Sendak	1963
Clifford the Big Red Dog	Norman Bridwell	1963
Amelia Bedelia	Peggy Parish	1963
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory	Roald Dahl	1964	[1]
Flat Stanley	Jeff Brown	1964
The Giving Tree	Shel Silverstein	1964
Harriet the Spy	Louise Fitzhugh	1964
Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang: The Magical Car	Ian Fleming	1964
The Fox and the Hound	Daniel P. Mannix and John Schoenherr	1967
The Owl Service	Alan Garner	1967
A Wizard of Earthsea	Ursula K. Le Guin	1968	With its sequels, it broke ground for epic fantasy in several ways: the first book had a non-white hero, the later books explored the role of gender in fantasy and power, and the quest structure is not good vs. evil but balance. [ citation needed ]
The Iron Man	Ted Hughes	1968
The Tiger Who Came to Tea	Judith Kerr	1968
The Very Hungry Caterpillar	Eric Carle	1969
Charlotte Sometimes	Penelope Farmer	1969
Summer of the Swans	Betsy Byars	1971
Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret	Judy Blume	1970	Approached puberty more openly than children's books had in the past. [ citation needed ]
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit	Judith Kerr	1971
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH	Robert C. O'Brien	1971
Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing	Judy Blume	1972
Watership Down	Richard Adams	1972
A Taste of Blackberries	Doris Buchanan Smith	1973	Taboo-breaking children's book concerning a child's first grief experience. [30] [31]
The Worst Witch	Jill Murphy	1974
Bridge to Terabithia	Katherine Paterson	1977
Each Peach Pear Plum	Janet and Allan Ahlberg	1978
The Snowman	Raymond Briggs	1978
The Neverending Story	Michael Ende	1979
The Indian in the Cupboard	Lynne Reid Banks	1980
The Paper Bag Princess	Robert Munsch	1980
Nothing's Fair in Fifth Grade	Barthe DeClements	1981
Jumanji	Chris Van Allsburg	1981	Film adaptation released in 1997
Goodnight Mister Tom	Michelle Magorian	1981
The BFG	Roald Dahl	1982
Dear Zoo	Rod Campbell	1982
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾	Sue Townsend	1982
War Horse	Michael Morpurgo	1982
The Sheep-Pig	Dick King-Smith	1983	Published as Babe, the Gallant Pig in the US. Filmed as Babe in 1995.
Angelina Ballerina	Katharine Holabird	1983
Sarah Plain and Tall	Patricia MacLachlan	1985
The Castle in the Attic	Elizabeth Winthrop	1985
Howl's Moving Castle	Diana Wynne Jones	1986	Animated film adaptation by Studio Ghibli
Love You Forever	Robert Munsch	1986
Franklin	Paulette Bourgeois and Brenda Clark	1986
The Little Polar Bear	Hans de Beer	1987
Madame Doubtfire	Anne Fine	1987	Published as Alias Madame Doubtfire in the US. Filmed as Mrs. Doubtfire starring Robin Williams.
We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story	Hudson Talbott	1987
Matilda	Roald Dahl	1988
We're Going on a Bear Hunt	Michael Rosen	1989
Shrek!	William Steig	1990
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle	Avi	1990
Owl Babies	Martin Waddell	1992
Guess How Much I Love You	Sam McBratney	1994
The Golden Compass	Philip Pullman	1995
Tales from Watership Down	Richard Adams	1996
The Subtle Knife	Philip Pullman	1997
Harry Potter series	J.K. Rowling	1997-2007
Skellig	David Almond	1998
Holes	Louis Sachar	1998
The Gruffalo	Julia Donaldson	1999
The Amber Spyglass	Philip Pullman	2000

21st century

Title	Author	Year published	References
Artemis Fowl	Eoin Colfer	2001
Room on the Broom	Julia Donaldson	2002
Coraline	Neil Gaiman	2002
The Gruffalo's Child	Julia Donaldson	2004
Al Capone Does My Shirts	Gennifer Choldenko	2004
The Lightning Thief	Rick Riordan	2005	First of the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series
Fancy Nancy	Jane O'Connor	2005
The True Meaning of Smekday	Adam Rex	2007
Stick Man	Julia Donaldson	2008
The Graveyard Book	Neil Gaiman	2008	The first book to win both the Newbery Medal and the Carnegie Medal
The Boy in the Dress	David Walliams	2008

See also

• Children's literature portal

• List of children's literature authors
• List of fairy tales

References

1. Nesbit, Eva Marie. "Classic novels". Cullinan & Person 2003 . pp. 171–175.
2. Silvey 1995 , pp. xi–xvi
3. Hunt 2001 , p. xvi–xxii
4. Vijay Bedekar (27 December 2008). "Seminar on 'Suhbashita, Panchatantra & Gnomic Literature in Ancient & Medieval India'". Institute for Oriental Study, Thane. Retrieved 24 July 2012.
5. Silvey 1995 , p. 3
6. Aesop, The Complete Fables. Translated by Olivia Temple and Robert K. G. Temple. New York: Penguin Classics. 1998. ISBN   0-14-044649-4.
7. Silvey 1995 , p. 25,86
8. Lyons (2008). Three tales from the Arabian nights. translated by Malcolm C. Lyons, Robert Irwin, and Ursula Lyons; with an introduction by Robert Irwin. London: Penguin. ISBN   978-1-84614-158-4.
9. Epstein, Connie C. (1991). The Art of Writing for Children. Archon Books. p.  2. ISBN   0-208-02297-X.
10. Comenius, John Amos (1999). Orbis Pictus : [Orbis Sensualium Pictus. A world of things obvious to the scenes drawn in pictures] ([Faks.Repr.] ed.). Kessinger. ISBN   978-0-7661-0825-7.
11. Janeway, James (1994). A token for children : being an exact account of the conversion, holy and exemplary lives and joyful deaths of several young children in two parts. To which is added, A token for the children of New England / by Cotton Mather. Pittsburgh, PA: Soli Deo Gloria Publications. ISBN   978-1-877611-76-6.
12. Perrault, Charles (1963). The complete fairy tales of Charles Perrault. Illustrated by Sally Holmes; newly translated by Neil Philip and Nicoletta Simborowski; with an introduction and notes on the story by Neil Philip. New York: Clarion Books. ISBN   978-0-395-57002-9.
13. Newbery, John, ed. (2009). A Little pretty pocket-book. Dodo Press. ISBN   978-1-4099-4974-9.
14. Welsh, Charles (2010). Goody Two Shoes (reprint ed.). Kessinger Publishing. ISBN   978-1-162-75622-6.
15. Pickering, Samuel F., Jr. John Locke and Children's Books in Eighteenth-Century England. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1981. ISBN   0-87049-290-X.
16. Darton, F. J. Harvey. Children's Books in England: Five Centuries of Social Life. 3rd ed. Rev. Brian Alderson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1982), 146.
17. Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (2006). Owens, Lily (ed.). The complete Brothers Grimm fairy tales (Deluxe ed.). New York: Gramercy Books. ISBN   978-0-517-22925-5.
18. "Little Prudy". Library of Congress. Retrieved 29 August 2019.
19. Secret Gardens: A Study of the Golden Age of Children's Literature by Humphrey Carpenter, 1985, Part II, Chapter 1: "It seemed to open the door to a new way of writing for, and about, children"
20. Baskin, Barbara H.; Harris, Karen. "Classics". Silvey 1995, pp. 140–142.
21. Hunt 2001 , p. 36
22. Journal of American Folklore, Vol.34, p. 143; by J. Alden Mason & Aurelio M. Espinosa, ed.; 1921 Retrieved 2013-05-31.
23. Hunt 2001 , p. 361
24. Hunt 2001 , pp. 569–570
25. Hunt 2001 , pp. 406–407
26. Hunt 2001 , p. 97
27. Silvey 1995 , p. 350
28. Introducing Children's Literature: From Romanticism to Postmodernism by Deborah Cogan Thacker, Routledge, 2002, page 123
29. 100 Best Books for Children by Anita Silvey, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2004, page 131
30. "Doris Buchanan Smith". St. James Guide to Young Adult Writers. Gale Biography In Contex. Retrieved 29 April 2011.
31. Trelease, Jim (2006). The Read-Aloud Handbook. New York: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated. p. 236. ISBN   978-0-14-303739-2.

Further reading

• Kay E. Vandergrift. "Traditional Classics in Children's Literature". Rutgers University. Retrieved 2 December 2011.
• Baker, Franklin Thomas; Abbot, Allan (2008) [1908]. A bibliography of children's reading (digitized ed.). Teachers College.
• Cullinan, Bernice E.; Person, Diane G., eds. (2003). The Continuum encyclopedia of children's literature (Reprinted ed.). New York, NY: Continuum. ISBN   978-0-8264-1516-5.
• Hunt, Peter (2001). Children's literature (1st ed.). Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN   978-0-631-21141-9.
• Hunt, Peter, ed. (1996). International companion encyclopedia of children's literature. London: Routledge. ISBN   9780203168127.
• Lundin, Anne (2004). Constructing the canon of children's literature : beyond library walls and ivory towers. New York: Routledge. ISBN   0-8153-3841-4. A scholarly examination of canons of children's literature.
• Silvey, Anita, ed. (1995). Children's books and their creators . Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN   978-0-395-65380-7. Includes a basic reading list on pp. xi–xvi.
• Spitz, Ellen Handler (2000). Inside picture books. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN   9780300084764.
• Thwaite, Mary F. (1972). From primer to pleasure in reading : an introduction to the history of children's books in England from the invention of printing to 1914 with an outline of some developments in other countries (1st American ed.). Boston: The Horn book. ISBN   978-0-87675-275-3.
• Zipes, Jack, ed. (2006). The Oxford encyclopedia of children's literature . Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press. ISBN   0195146565.