The Best Children's Books: 9 Classics Worth Reading Together
This is a list of nine children's books that have held their place for decades, and in some cases for well over a century. Most were written before 1950. All of them are still in print, still adapted for screen and stage, and still handed from one generation to the next.
The order comes from our own readers. We track which book covers people spend time looking at in our shop, and the books near the top of this list are the ones that draw the most attention. Alongside that, we have noted sales figures, translation counts, survey placings such as the BBC's Big Read, and whether a title turns up on school reading lists.
Each entry explains what the book is about and what gives it standing, so you can judge whether it suits the reader you have in mind.
The Secret Garden
Frances Hodgson Burnett's novel appeared in book form in 1911, after being serialised in The American Magazine. Mary Lennox is a sour, neglected ten-year-old sent from India to her uncle's house on the Yorkshire moors, where she finds the key to a walled garden that has been locked for ten years. The story turns on what the garden does for Mary, for her bedridden cousin Colin and for the household around them. It is treated as a classic of English children's literature and has been adapted many times for stage and screen.
The Wind In The Willows
Kenneth Grahame built this 1908 novel out of bedtime stories he told his son Alastair. Mole, Ratty and Badger keep the riverbank running while the wealthy, reckless Mr Toad works his way through one obsession after another, ending with motorcars, a prison sentence and an escape dressed as a washerwoman. Early reviews were poor, but readers took to it and it was voted No. 16 in the BBC's Big Read. It remains a staple of school reading.
Heidi
Johanna Spyri published Heidi in two parts between 1880 and 1881, subtitling it a book for children and those who love children. Orphaned Heidi is left with her bitter, reclusive grandfather on a Swiss alp, wins him over, and is then taken away to Frankfurt as a companion to the invalid girl Klara. It is one of the best-selling books ever written and among the best-known works of Swiss literature.
Anne Of Green Gables
L. M. Montgomery's 1908 novel begins with a mistake: Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert ask an orphanage for a boy to help on their Prince Edward Island farm and are sent talkative, red-haired Anne Shirley instead. The book follows her through school, her friendship with Diana Barry, her rivalry with Gilbert Blythe and a long run of domestic scrapes. It has been translated into at least 36 languages and has sold more than 50 million copies, making it one of the best-selling books in any language.
The Little Prince
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's novella was first published in New York in 1943, in both English and French, and appeared in France only after liberation. A pilot stranded in the Sahara meets a young prince who has travelled from a tiny asteroid, and their conversations turn to loneliness, friendship, love and loss. It has sold an estimated 140 million copies and, by November 2024, had been translated into 600 languages and dialects, second only to the Bible.
Black Beauty
Anna Sewell wrote Black Beauty while bedridden and seriously ill, and died five months after its 1877 publication, having seen it become an immediate best-seller. The horse tells his own story, from a foal on an English farm through the hard years pulling London cabs to a quiet retirement. It argues for kindness to animals and to people, and is credited as a forerunner of the pony book. More than fifty million copies have sold, and it placed 58th in the BBC's Big Read.
The Halloween Tree
Ray Bradbury's 1972 fantasy sends eight boys chasing a missing ninth friend, Pipkin, across time and space on Halloween night. Guided by the strange Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud, they pass through ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, Celtic druidism, medieval Paris and the Mexican Day of the Dead, learning where the holiday came from. It was adapted as a film in 1993, and Disneyland in California has displayed an annual Halloween Tree since 2007.
The Rainbow Fish
Marcus Pfister's 1992 picture book is the youngest title here and the one most likely to be read aloud. A fish with shiny scales refuses to share one, loses the company of the other fish, and is advised by a wise octopus to give his scales away. The book is known for its message about selfishness and sharing and for the foil scales printed into the artwork. It was turned into an animated series that ran on HBO Family and Teletoon from 1999 to 2000.
Nutcracker And The Mouse King
E. T. A. Hoffmann's 1816 fairy tale was published in Berlin as part of a collection called Kinder-Mährchen. On Christmas Eve, Marie Stahlbaum's broken nutcracker comes to life, leads the toys against the seven-headed Mouse King and takes her to a kingdom of dolls, while her godfather Drosselmeier fills in the back story of Princess Pirlipat. In 1892 Tchaikovsky, Petipa and Ivanov turned Alexandre Dumas's version of the tale into the ballet The Nutcracker.
Between them these nine books cover a wide range of ages and moods, from a picture book about sharing to a Victorian novel narrated by a horse. If you are building a shelf for a young reader, or filling gaps in your own, any of them is a reasonable place to start.