Fantasy Series (and standalones) for kids/YA

I'm giving a talk later this morning to families here for Parents' Weekend, and as a takeaway I made a list of books I like to recommend. These are almost all fantasy, almost all for pre-teen and up, almost all series. They are all also books I've read and therefore can recommend with some confidence--which is why, for example, Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan isn't on the list even though Nick tells me it should be. I really want to read it, but just haven't yet. Also missing from the list are my "usual suspects": Philip Pullman and J.K. Rowling. That's because they're in the talk.

So here's the list:

Some Terrific (Mostly Fantasy) Books for Kids and Young Adults

A highly idiosyncratic and partial list of books you may have missed, for people who’ve exhausted the Harry Potter and Twilight series

Most of these books are appropriate for kids 10 and up; starred books might be better for 12 or 13 and up.

*Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games trilogy. Most book-loving teens have already discovered this devastating dystopian fantasy, starring a fierce teenaged hunter, Katniss Everdeen.

Sarah Beth Durst, Into the Wild and Out of the Wild: fairy tale characters enter our world with devastating, but often comic, results.

Cornelia Funke, the Inkheart series: in a world where stories can become real, readers and writers become dangerous and powerful. See also her unrelated The Thief Lord, in which a pair of orphans must make a new life for themselves in a magical Venice.

Neil Gaiman, Coraline, The Graveyard Book, *Stardust, Odd and the Frost Giants. Gaiman’s books are infused with a sense of the magical and the mythic; these standalone novels are all influenced by fairy tales and earlier literature, but bring new life to them. Coraline terrifies even my college students, but lots of younger kids adore it. The Graveyard Book has one of the scariest opening chapters I’ve ever read, but most readers are comforted by what follows

Frances Hardinge, Fly By Night: a book-loving girl teams up with a con man in a tightly controlled culture of folk deities and mysterious conspiracies. See also Hardinge’s The Lost Conspiracy, an unrelated tale of a magical realm where “the Lost” travel outside their bodies to keep the peace.

Diana Wynne Jones, The Chronicles of Chrestomanci: six novels all set in the same multiverse; not a sequential series but a loosely linked chronicle of the rules of magic in many different worlds. See also Howl’s Moving Castle, Fire and Ice, and other standalone fantasies.

*Justine Larbalestier, Magic or Madness trilogy: math may be magic and there is a mysterious portal between Sydney, Australia and New York City; Larbalestier’s Liar and How to Ditch Your Fairy are also terrific, and quite different—Liar is darker, for older kids, while How to Ditch Your Fairy is a fairly light-hearted exploration of a high school for athletes where some kids have personal fairies.

Kenneth Oppel, Airborn, Skybreaker, and Starclimber: adventures in the air and outer space in an alternate-history version of Victorian England.

James A. Owen, The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica: a five-book series about a map of imaginary places that turns out to be real; C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and other literary figures are characters in this adventure series.

Terry Pratchett, The Bromeliad Trilogy, The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents, the Tiffany Aching books. Pratchett’s books are always funny and often very literary in their references; the Tiffany Aching books include the always-hilarious Nac Mac Feegle, a band of tiny but immensely fierce warriors, while the Bromeliad trilogy deals with a race of people who live in the spaces between floors in a large department store. The Amazing Maurice retells the Pied Piper story, with a surprising twist. See also Nation, a novel of exploration and attempted conquest in an alternate version of Victorian England and the Pacific.

Philip Reeve, Larklight series: Victorians in space.

*Michael Scott, The Alchemyst series: a twin brother & sister team up with figures from history and myth to combat mythic evil staging a return to power.

Rebecca Stead, When You Reach Me: last year’s Newbery award winning book; time travel, A Wrinkle in Time, and New York City in the late 1970s.

Jonathan Stroud, The Bartimaeus Trilogy: alternate history and magic combined with a smart, snarky djinn; this series will get kids reading—and enjoying!—footnotes. A fourth book is apparently due out this fall.

Laini Taylor, Dreamdark series: so far there are only two of these novels set among fairy creatures who must reweave the fraying tapestry of the world; a third is anticipated.

*Megan Whalen Turner, Attolia series: theft, conspiracy, murder, romance, and intrigue in a Greek-inspired magical realm.

Keeping Score

So now that the list is out, it looks like folks are trying to see whether they've kept up with their reading. Like Tea Cozy's Liz B, then, I'll bold the ones I've read. How'd you do?

100. The Egypt Game - Snyder (1967) [honestly? This one I hadn't even heard of...]

99. The Indian in the Cupboard - Banks (1980)

98. Children of Green Knowe - Boston (1954)

97. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane - DiCamillo (2006)

96. The Witches - Dahl (1983)

95. Pippi Longstocking - Lindgren (1950

94. Swallows and Amazons - Ransome (1930)

93. Caddie Woodlawn - Brink (1935)

92. Ella Enchanted - Levine (1997)

91. Sideways Stories from Wayside School - Sachar (1978)

90. Sarah, Plain and Tall - MacLachlan (1985)

89. Ramona and Her Father - Cleary (1977)

88. The High King - Alexander (1968)

87. The View from Saturday - Konigsburg (1996)

86. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - Rowling (1999)

85. On the Banks of Plum Creek - Wilder (1937)

84. The Little White Horse - Goudge (1946)

83. The Thief - Turner (1997)

82. The Book of Three - Alexander (1964)

81. Where the Mountain Meets the Moon - Lin (2009)

80. The Graveyard Book - Gaiman (2008)

79. All-of-a-Kind-Family - Taylor (1951)

78. Johnny Tremain - Forbes (1943)

77. The City of Ember - DuPrau (2003)

76. Out of the Dust - Hesse (1997)

75. Love That Dog - Creech (2001)

74. The Borrowers - Norton (1953)

73. My Side of the Mountain - George (1959)

72. My Father's Dragon - Gannett (1948)

71. The Bad Beginning - Snicket (1999)

70. Betsy-Tacy - Lovelae (1940)

69. The Mysterious Benedict Society - Stewart ( 2007)

68. Walk Two Moons - Creech (1994)

67. Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher - Coville (1991)

66. Henry Huggins - Cleary (1950)

65. Ballet Shoes - Stratfeild (1936)

64. A Long Way from Chicago - Peck (1998)

63. Gone-Away Lake - Enright (1957)

62. The Secret of the Old Clock - Keene (1959) [I must have--I had a serious Nancy Drew habit at one point--though I really couldn't tell you anything about it now...]

61. Stargirl - Spinelli (2000)

60. The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle - Avi (1990)

59. Inkheart - Funke (2003)

58. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase - Aiken (1962)

57. Ramona Quimby, Age 8 - Cleary (1981)

56. Number the Stars - Lowry (1989)

55. The Great Gilly Hopkins - Paterson (1978)

54. The BFG - Dahl (1982)

53. Wind in the Willows - Grahame (1908)

52. The Invention of Hugo Cabret (2007)

51. The Saturdays - Enright (1941)

50. Island of the Blue Dolphins - O'Dell (1960)

49. Frindle - Clements (1996)

48. The Penderwicks - Birdsall (2005)

47. Bud, Not Buddy - Curtis (1999)

46. Where the Red Fern Grows - Rawls (1961)

45. The Golden Compass - Pullman (1995)

44. Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing - Blume (1972)

43. Ramona the Pest - Cleary (1968)

42. Little House on the Prairie - Wilder (1935)

41. The Witch of Blackbird Pond - Speare (1958)

40. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - Baum (1900)

39. When You Reach Me - Stead (2009)

38. HP and the Order of the Phoenix - Rowling (2003)

37. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry - Taylor (1976)

36. Are You there, God? It's Me, Margaret - Blume (1970)

35. HP and the Goblet of Fire - Rowling (2000)

34. The Watsons Go to Birmingham - Curtis (1995)

33. James and the Giant Peach - Dahl (1961)

32. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH - O'Brian (1971)

31. Half Magic - Eager (1954)

30. Winnie-the-Pooh - Milne (1926)

29. The Dark Is Rising - Cooper (1973)

28. A Little Princess - Burnett (1905)

27. Alice I and II - Carroll (1865/72)

26. Hatchet - Paulsen (1989)

25. Little Women - Alcott (1868/9)

24. HP and the Deathly Hallows - Rowling (2007)

23. Little House in the Big Woods - Wilder (1932)

22. The Tale of Despereaux - DiCamillo (2003)

21. The Lightening Thief - Riordan (2005)

20. Tuck Everlasting - Babbitt (1975)

19. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Dahl (1964)

18. Matilda - Dahl (1988)
17. Maniac Magee - Spinelli (1990)

16. Harriet the Spy - Fitzhugh (1964)

15. Because of Winn-Dixie - DiCamillo (2000)

14. HP and the Prisoner of Azkaban - Rowling (1999)

13. Bridge to Terabithia - Paterson (1977)

12. The Hobbit - Tolkien (1938)

11. The Westing Game - Raskin (1978)

10. The Phantom Tollbooth - Juster (1961)

9. Anne of Green Gables - Montgomery (1908)

8. The Secret Garden - Burnett (1911)

7. The Giver -Lowry (1993)

6. Holes - Sachar (1998)

5. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler - Koningsburg (1967)

4. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe - Lewis (1950)

3. Harry Potter #1 - Rowling (1997)

2. A Wrinkle in Time - L'Engle (1962)

1. Charlotte's Web - White (1952)


Looks like I've read 83--B-, but still that feels pretty reasonable. Maybe I'll work on the rest over the summer!

Almost an anti-climax

Our long season of waiting is over, and Betsy Bird's countdown of the Top 100 Children's Novels has finally made it to #1. Are you shocked? For some reason, it was #2 that surprised me most--it hadn't occurred to me that Madeleine L'Engle could beat out J.K. Rowling in this day and age.

Seven of my top ten made the final list, by the way, with my top three in the top ten. And, for what it's worth, four books (and five series) I taught this semester were all in there as well. Not so much of an iconoclast as I thought, I suppose--though, on the other hand, three books I nominated didn't make the list at all, somewhat to my surprise.

Congratulations to all who made it, all who played, and especially to Betsy for that amazing labor of love. You can also see the whole list, minus comments, at Six Boxes of Books, as I mentioned before. Enjoy!

Finally

Finally a book I chose has cracked Betsy Bird's Top 100 Children's Novels List, over at Fuse #8. She even used my comments--hurrah! (And if you read the comments, you can see that her initial post for April 1 was, yes, a joke. I was so mad I didn't even click through to read the comments...)

100 Best...

If, like me, you're having trouble remembering which books have already been mentioned in Betsy Bird's fabulous series of posts on the Top 100 Children's Novels, you can check out this wonderful resource--just the list, provided by Six Boxes of Books. It's about two days behind at the moment, but I'm sure it will catch up soon.

(Kicking myself that I forgot The Phantom Tollbooth; but what would I have dropped? Maybe The Painted Garden? Maybe?)

Top 100 Children's Novels ...

Can you believe Alice in Wonderland didn't even crack the top 10? Ah, well; at least one more of my choices made the list. But I'm thinking at least two of mine won't, now. Maybe more...

Top 100 Children's Novels (#35-31) - A Fuse #8 Production - Blog on School Library Journal

another one of my choices makes the list!


Top 100 Children's Novels (#35-31) - A Fuse #8 Production - Blog on School Library Journal

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Top 100 Children's Novels (#45-41) - still going strong

I'm pretty sure this is the first time one of my top ten has made it onto Betsy's list, so I'm excited to share this chunk of the list here. Scroll to the bottom to find the other installments--this is seriously a labor of love here, one that goes way above and beyond mere list-making--it's well worth checking them all out.

Top 100 Children's Novels (#45-41) - A Fuse #8 Production - Blog on School Library Journal

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and ten more...

Top 100 Children's Novels (#85-81) - A Fuse #8 Production - Blog on School Library Journal

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The Next Ten..

Top 100 Children's Novels (#90- 86) - A Fuse #8 Production - Blog on School Library Journal

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100 Best

So that ten best list I gave you last time was just a teaser for Betsy Bird's list of the 100 best children's novels, voted on by her readers. Here are numbers 91-100, with all kinds of great commentary and links. None of mine are on this list...let's see if any of them break in a little higher.

Ten Best

Betsy at Fuse8 is at it again. Last year she did a poll on the Top 100 Picture Books of all time--and I didn't participate, because--well, I didn't have a good reason. (Other than the whole not blogging thing, about which perhaps more another day.) Tomorrow is the deadline for her new poll, the Top 100 Chapter Books of all time--and this time I'm in. I just sent her my list, and since I don't expect all these books to make her top ten (though I'd be surprised if most of them don't turn up somewhere in the top 100) I thought I'd share my list here as well. It's a little idiosyncratic, as such things should be, and I'm sure it would look different if I did it tomorrow. I didn't go back and look at other lists I've seen over the years; I just went with what came to mind first. So here's my list:

1. Charlotte's Web, E.B. White
This one changes the landscape for chapter books in mid-century. It's a perfect read-aloud, but also a great book for a relatively new reader to take on. It's got humor and pathos, and the best retelling of the Easter story I've ever read in secular form. I can't read the end without crying, even after all these years.

2. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, Lewis Carroll
Another game-changer. Raises great questions about what it means to be a child and why we would want to think of children as different from adults, I think. Plus it's hilarious and deeply weird.

3. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
I know all the reasons not to like this--the shift in focus from Mary to Colin, the reassertion of the patriarchy at the end, the well-intentioned but nonetheless problematic depiction of India--but it's still one of those books I return to year after year. If, as Perry Nodelman says, children's books are all about teaching kids how to be kids, this one is the quintessential children's book. And yet its depiction of "appropriate childhood" is so appealing to me, even now, that I keep coming back to it.

4. The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963, Christopher Paul Curtis
One of the funniest books I've ever read, but also a great reworking of a historical shame. (And apparently a book I've never written about. Sigh.)

5. The Golden Compass/Northern Lights, Philip Pullman
Another game-changer, for me: this one is comfortable with ambiguity in a way that still feels radical to me in a children's book. By the end of the series good and evil get sorted out (a little too comfortably for my taste) but in this everything's still up in the air. Lyra is a work of genius--a worthy successor to Alice.

6. A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L'Engle
Is it possible to be a bookish girl and not love this one?

7. Skellig, David Almond
My list skews towards "classics," I think, but this one is a modern classic. Just the right blend of fantasy/realism. A brilliant reworking of The Secret Garden, in some ways.

8. The Wee Free Men, Terry Pratchett
Because who doesn't love little blue men?

9. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone, J. K. Rowling
OK, another game-changer in that it made fantasy cool again (and funny). I know Diana Wynne Jones was already writing funny fantasy, but I think the opening chapters of this novel really are brilliant. Roald Dahl meets Dickens meets Cinderella, or something.

10. The Painted Garden (also published as Movie Shoes), Noel Streatfeild
I loved this book when I was a kid because it was such a terrific reworking of The Secret Garden. I still think it's brilliantly intertextual and really smart about what it means to try to inhabit a book. I used to want to be "discovered" as the next, next Mary Lennox.

You've got about 25 hours left to play. Go ahead, you know you want to!

Children's Classics?

Apparently if you ask the former Children's laureates (British) to come up with a list of "greatest children's books of all time" you get a list that's heavily white and, um, old. (Was Ballet Shoes really from 1936? Shocked me...) I can't really complain about too many of the books on the list, but I could certainly come up with a few newer ones. How about you?

What are the ‘classics’ of children’s lit? | csmonitor.com

Books you can't live without: the top 100

I saw this on Mother Reader, and I'm such a sucker for a list, I had to play. The list is from a while ago (spring of 2007), but I doubt the rankings have changed much. As explained in The Guardian, 2000 people were asked to name ten books they couldn't live without; these are the top 100. I'll bold those I've read; I actually did a version of the survey myself, so while I'm at it I'll note any overlap. And, like Mother Reader, I'll mark those I really love with an asterisk. And by "really love," I mean, have read more than once and expect to read again, and look forward to reading again. I re-read so much, professionally, that I lose my love sometimes, or I start to flirt with other books. So the asterisks here are used relatively sparingly, for books that I cannot imagine never reading again, with pleasure. For example, to take one at almost random, I like The Woman in White a lot, but I think if I never got to read it again I'd be ok with that. Not so Alice in Wonderland. (This is why I switched from specializing in Victorian lit to specializing in children's lit, by the way.)

1 Pride and Prejudice* Jane Austen (I listed Persuasion instead, though if I could cheat and have all six of her novels bound as one, I'd choose them all)

2 The Lord of the Rings JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre* Charlotte Bronte (also on my list at #4)

4 Harry Potter series* JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee

6 The Bible (also on my list, though I can't claim to have read the whole thing)

7 Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte

=8 Nineteen Eighty-Four George Orwell

=8 His Dark Materials* Philip Pullman (also on my list at #8)

10 Great Expectations* Charles Dickens

11 Little Women* Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the d'Urbervilles Thomas Hardy

13 Catch-22 Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare William Shakespeare (I'm pretty sure there are one or two I've missed, but I'm close)

15 Rebecca Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong Sebastian Faulks (OK, so if you're counting, I got to #17 before there was one I hadn't read)

18 Catcher in the Rye JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveler's Wife Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch* George Eliot (on my list at #6)

21 Gone With The Wind* Margaret Mitchell (I know, it's embarrassing, but there it is...

22 The Great Gatsby F Scott Fitzgerald

23 Bleak House* Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams (is it possible that I've never read this? There was a period when everyone I know was reading it, so I probably at least opened it, but I have zero recollection of it, really.)

26 Brideshead Revisited Evelyn Waugh (I love funny Waugh, but never read got into the whole Brideshead thing...)

27 Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland* Lewis Carroll (on my list at #5)

30 The Wind in the Willows* Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia CS Lewis

34 Emma* Jane Austen

35 Persuasion* Jane Austen (on my list at #1, though now that I think about it I'm not sure my list was ranked...)

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe CS Lewis

37 The Kite Runner Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin Louis de Bernières

39 Memoirs of a Geisha Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh AA Milne

41 Animal Farm George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown (this is the first one on the list that I have no intention of ever reading; I may not get to the others, but I'm not ruling them out.)

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney John Irving

45 The Woman in White Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables* LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies William Golding

50 Atonement* Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi Yann Martel

52 Dune Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm* Stella Gibbons (and can I just say that Dune followed by Cold Comfort Farm is my favorite juxtaposition on this list?)

54 Sense and Sensibility* Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind Carlos Ruiz Zafon (this is the first one I haven't even heard of!)

57 A Tale Of Two Cities Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck

62 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road Jack Kerouac (another one that I've probably at least tried to read...)

67 Jude the Obscure Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones's Diary* Helen Fielding

69 Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist Charles Dickens

72 Dracula* Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden* Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses James Joyce

76 The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath

77 Swallows and Amazons Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession* AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol* Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte's Web* EB White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince Antoine de Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory Iain Banks

94 Watership Down Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Roald Dahl

100 Les Misérables Victor Hugo

OK, so I have read 75 out of the 100, a perfectly respectable percentage. I'm terrible on French literature, though, aren't I? Maybe that's what I'll remedy on my next sabbatical...

Favorite Kids' Books--UK edition

Do British newspapers cover book news--including, or perhaps especially, children's book news--better than American ones? I go to The Guardian for book news all the time; now The Daily Mail is getting in on the act. Here are the results of a recent poll about favorite children's books; I've bolded the ones I've read. I think an American list would look quite different. (Well, yes, it does--not quite the same thing, but I posted about an NEA list some time ago.)

1. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis
2. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle
3. Famous Five, Enid Blyton (The admin. asst. in our office--who is British-- is always asking me if I've read Blyton; she says her teachers sneered but the kids loved them.)
4. Winnie the Pooh, A.A. Milne
5. The BFG, Roald Dahl
6. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, J.K. Rowling (I wonder why just this one?)
7. The Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
8. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
9. Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
10. The Gruffalo, Julia Donaldson
11. The Tales of Peter Rabbit, Beatrix Potter
12. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
13. Matilda, Roald Dahl
14. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
15. The Cat in the Hat, Dr Seuss
16. The Twits, Roald Dahl
17. Mr Men, Roger Hargreaves (I know I've read at least one of these)
18. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
19. The Malory Towers series, Enid Blyton (I have heard talks on these books so often it feels as if I've read them, but I don't think I really have)
20. Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie
21. The Railway Children, E. Nesbit
22. Hans Christian Fairy Tales, H.C. Andersen
23. The Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum
24. The Witches, Roald Dahl
25. Stig of the Dump, Clive King
26. The Wishing Chair, Enid Blyton
27. Dear Zoo, Rod Campbell
28. The Tiger Who Came to Tea, Judith Kerr
29. Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Jan Brett
30. James and the Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
31. A Bear Called Paddington, Michael Bond
32. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell (Do kids really still read this?)
33. Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak
34. Aesop's Fables, Jerry Pinkney (I'm not sure I've read this version; same with the Goldilocks, above)
35. The Borrowers, Mary Norton
36. Just So Stories, Rudyard Kipling
37. Meg and Mog, Jan Pienkowski
38. Mrs Pepperpot, Alf Proysen
39. We're Going on a Bear Hunt, Michael Rosen
40. The Gruffalo's Child, Julia Donaldson
41. Room on a Broom, Julia Donaldson
42. The Worst Witch, Jill Murphy
43. Miffy, Dick Bruna
44. The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupery
45. Flat Stanley, Jeff Brown
46. The Snail and the Whale, Julia Donaldson
47. Ten Little Ladybirds, Melanie Gerth
48. Six Dinners Sid, Inga Moore
49. The St. Clare's series, Enid Blyton
50. Captain Underpants, Dav Pilkey

(seen first at the Kids Lit blog)