Top Ten Favorite Children's Books

Tuesday, March 11, 2014


This week's Top Ten from The Broke and the Bookish asks for our Top Ten All Time Favorite Books in Specific Genre. I tend to highlight classic books or nonfiction books all the time and YA books get plenty of attention, so I took a different route. I'm listing ten of my absolute favorite children's books. I don't have kids so this is a category I rarely talk about, but there are dozens of kids books that I have hung on to from my childhood. I love to read them with my nieces and nephews and if I have kids one day I know I'll love introducing them to my favorites.
I decided to pick a few of my favorites that aren't as well known. Obviously Charlotte's Web, Winnie-the-Pooh, everything by Roald Dahl, Madeline and the Berenstain Bear Books would all be at the top of the list, but those are books that people already know about. Here's a list of some of my lesser-known favorites.

What are your childhood favorites?


1) Caroline and Her Kettle Named Maud by Miriam E. Mason
2) Five Little Foxes and the Snow by Tony Johnson
3) The Tall Book of Make-Believe by Jane Werner
4) Gregory the Terrible Eater by Mitchell Sharmat
5) William Shakespeare and the Globe by Aliki
6) The Stinky Cheese Man and other Fairly Stupid Tales by Jon Scieszka
7) Adventures in the Big Thicket by Ken Gire
8) Bread and Jam for Frances by Russell Hoban
9) A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
10) The Secret Staircase by Jill Barklem

7 comments:

Sandy Nawrot said...

Yeah, Charlotte's Web was really popular with me, to the point where I named my first pet cat Charlotte. I also loved anything by Judy Blume, but that is actually creeping into middle grade. My son had the Stinky Cheese Man book, and I think I liked it more than he did!

Anonymous said...

Wow, I read tons of children's books, and I've only heard of 3 on your list! I'll have to check the others out. I did a post of my kids' current favorite books today. :D
http://abibliophilesstyle.wordpress.com/2014/03/11/top-five-tuesday-my-kids-current-faves/

Anonymous said...

Have you checked out the selling price of The Tall Book of Make-Believe? Wow! I bet the Garth Williams illustrations are gorgeous!
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=The+Tall+Book+of+Make-Believe

Kat @ NoPageLeftBehind said...

A lot of these are new to me (1-5, 7 & 10)! I guess it's time for me to brush up on some children's books :)

Melissa (Avid Reader) said...

Sandy - Charlotte is a fantastic cat name! I've always loved that as a girl's name too.

abibliophilesstyle - Oh my gosh! Mine is an old copy I grew up with. I had no idea it was such a valuable book! I loved your kids books post.

Kat - There are so many well-known ones I love, but I thought it would be more fun to feature some unique ones.

Anonymous said...

I wanted to let you know how much my kids and I are enjoying these books! I couldn't find all of them, but I got quite a few from the library. We happened to be reading the Magic Tree House book about Shakespeare, so William Shakespeare and the Globe was the perfect companion book! The kids also got a kick out of Gregory the Terrible Eater (I'm pretty sure I remember it from Reading Rainbow!). Thanks for all the great recommendations!

Melissa (Avid Reader) said...

abibliophilesstyle - I'm so glad you shared that! I love that I might have gotten to introduce a few more kids to some of my favorites. That made my day!