Exceptional Books for Children

I was leafing through my old homeschooling files and found a list of some of the most exceptional books to read to your children or have them read themselves. I had created this list years ago, and as you can tell, haven’t added to or updated the list. I have found, though, that books don’t grow out of fashion or style, except if they’re technical books. (I wouldn’t want anybody using an old 1910 anatomy book to operate anyone with, for example!)

This list of exceptional books for children could become the nucleus for your home-literature experiences. They need not be bought; use your public library.

For Preschool-age Children:

Marguerite de Angeli, Book of Nursery and Mother Goose Rhymes (Doubleday, 1954)

Randolph Caldecott, Caldecott Picture Books (Frederick Warne & Company, 1878)

Tasha Tudor, Mother Goose (Henry Walck, 1944)

Kathleen Lines, Lavender’s Blue(Oxford University Press, 1954)

C. B. Falls, A B C Book (Doubleday, 1923)

Wanda Gag, The A B C Bunny (Coward-McCann Company, 1933)

Bruno Munari, A B C (World Publishing Company, 1960)

H. A. Rey, Curious George Learns the Alphabet (Houghton-Mifflin Company, 1963)

Brian Wildsmith, A B C (Franklin Watts, 1963)

Francoise, Jeanne-Marie Counts Her Sheep (Scribner’s, 1951)

Helen Borten, You See What I See?(Abelard-Schuman, Ltd., 1959)

Sesyle Joslin, What Do You Say, Dear?(William R. Scott, 1958)

Leo Leonni, Little Blue and Little Yellow (Ivan Obolensky, Inc., 1959)

Leo Leonni, Swimmy (Pantheon Books, 1963)

Leo Leonni, Frederick (Pantheon Books, 1967)

Beatrix Potter, The Tale of Peter Rabbit (Warne & Co., 1901)

Marie Hall Ets, Gilberto and the Wind(Viking, 1963)

Ezra Jack Keats, The Snowy Day(Viking, 1962)

Janice May Udry, A Tree Is Nice(Harper & Row, 1956)

Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are (Harper, 1963)

Virginia Lee Burton, Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel (Houghton-Mifflin, 1939)

Watty Piper, The Little Engine That Could (Platt & Monk, 1954)

William Cole, Oh, What Nonsense!(Viking, 1966)

Walter de la Mare, Peacock Pie(Knopf, 1961)

Aileen Fisher, Listen, Rabbit (Crowell Co., 1964)

Laura E. Richards, Tirra Lirra (Little-Brown, 1932)

For Elementary School Children:

Augusta Baker, Talking Tree (Lippincott, 1955)

Richard Chase, The Jack Tales(Houghton-Mifflin, 1943)

Arthur Rackham, The Fairy Book(Lippincott, 1950)

Peter C. Asbjornsen, East of the Sun and West of the Moon (Macmillan, 1953)

Robert Lawson, Rabbit Hill (Viking, 1944)

Hugh Lofting, The Voyages of Dr. Dolittle (Lippincott, 1922)

George Selden, The Cricket in Times Square (Farrar-Straus-Giroux, 1960)

E. B. White, Charlotte’s Web (Harper, 1952)

A. A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh (Dutton, 1926)

C. Collodi, The Adventures of Pinocchio (Grosset & Dunlap, 1946)

Rachel Field, Hitty: Her First Hundred Years (Macmillan, 1929)

Carol Kendall, The Gammage Cup(Harcourt, 1959)

Mary Norton, The Borrowers (Harcourt, 1953)

Virginia Sorensen, Miracles on Maple Hill (Harcourt, 1956)

Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House in the Big Woods (Harper, 1953)

Meindert DeJong, The Wheel on the School (Harper, 1954)

Eleanor Estes, The Moffats (Harcourt, 1941)

For Older Children:

Antone de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince (Harcourt, 1943)

Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels (E. P. Dutton, 1952)

John R. R. Tolkein, The Hobbit: Or There and Back Again (Houghton-Mifflin, 1938)

L. Frank Baum, The Wizard of Oz(Macmillan, 1962)

Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Knopf, 1964)

James M. Barrie, Peter Pan (Scribner’s, 1950)

L. M. Boston, The Children of Green Knowe (Harcourt, 1955)

Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time(Farrar-Straus-Giroux, 1962)

C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Macmillan, 1950)

Scott O’Dell, The Black Pearl(Houghton-Mifflin, 1967)

Elizabeth Coatsworth, The Cave(Viking, 1958)

I told you this was an old list… but oh, so wonderful!

Shirley