Children's Books to Inspire Reading and Foster Imagination
Classic children’s books written prior to 1975, particularly those which appear timeless, and not outdated due to language and culture.
Published: 1942
Theme: Country Life
Best for: 9 to 12
“Wasn’t it a miracle to live in the country in spring? And to have a wonderful family that she was crazy about, and a house with a secrect room and a cupola…?” The second of four books about the Melendys, these four very street-savvy children are now quite at home roaming the forest…
Published: 1957
Theme: Imagination
Best for: 8 to 10
“After a while, when he saw that nothing was going to pounce on him and that he probably wasn’t going to be struck by lightning, he allowed his sobs to die down and turn into hiccups.” The first of several books about three children and their summer adventures, is an unusual children’s book, delighting in flights of fancy…
by E. Nesbit, first published 1906. “Very wonderful and beautiful things do happen, don’t they? And we live most of our lives in the hope of them.” While the brilliant author Edith Nesbit may be best known for her liberal use of magic and fantasy, not all her books include magic. In this very likeable book, The Railway Children, we discover something even more important than magic…We discover that even in difficult situations, there is magic to be found right in daily life, if we only have eyes to see it…
Published: 1941
Theme: Growing Up in the City
Best for: 6 to 12
“The room in which they were sitting might have been called a playroom, schoolroom or nursery to most people. But to the Melendys, it was known as the Office.” In The Saturdays, the first children’s book in the series known as The Melendy Quartet, we are introduced to the four Melendy children, ranging in ages from six to thirteen…
by E. Nesbit, first published 1907 “There is a curtain, thin as gossamer, clear as glass, strong as iron, that hangs forever between the world of magic and the world that seems to us to be real.” The quote for …
Published: 1973
Theme: The Value of Time
Best for: ages 10 to adult
“There’s a place like the one you visited in every living soul, but only those who let me take them there can see it, nor can it be seen with ordinary eyes.” If there was only one children’s book I could put on the list of must-read, yet hardly known, children’s books, it would have to be Momo. I fell in love with the book, despite the fact that when I first went to read it…
by A. A. Milne, first published 1927 “I found a little beetle, so that Beetle was his name, And I called him Alexander and he answered just the same” This second children’s book of poetry by Milne is actually my …
by A. A. Milne, first published 1924 “A bear, however hard he tries, Grows tubby without exercise…” At first glance, one might think that this, the very first children’s book by A. A. Milne, would be more appropriate for much …
by Padraic Colum, first published 1920 Here’s a children’s book that not every young child will read, but having read it, I feel compelled to give it a place in the list of great children’s books. For sure, it is …
by A. A. Milne, First published 1926. “Sing Ho! for the life of a Bear! Sing Ho! for the life of a Bear”Who among us doesn’t know the world of Winnie-the-Pooh? To read it is to be a child again, seeing the world with utter innocence and simplicity.
by P.L. Travers, first published 1935 “It was one of those mornings when everything looks neat and bright and shiny, as though the world had been tidied up over night.” If the way that your children know about Mary Poppins …