What are the Top Three children's books?

[Judith Crabb]

I noted a 'Top Three' for Enid Blyton. What about a 'top three' children's books of all time - either including Blyton or leaving her out? I'm still thinking about it.

[Anita Bensoussane]

This is almost impossible, but maybe:


1. The Valley of Adventure by Enid Blyton - A thrilling, sweeping adventure with a haunting, wistful note, set in a stunning location.


2. Tom's Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce - Exquisitely written and truly magical with an ending that brings a tear to the eye.


3. The Story of the Amulet by E. Nesbit - Lively, realistic characters caught up in a stirring tale of time-travel which gives glimpses of different places and eras. Again, the ending is extremely moving.


It feels terrible to ignore Frances Hodgson Burnett, Noel Streatfeild, Laura Ingalls Wilder, C. S. Lewis, Antonia Forest, Julia Golding, Eva Ibbotson, Sally Gardner, Alex Scarrow, Lucy Strange, Emma Carroll and a number of others!

[Barnard]

This is my list of favourites.

We Didn’t Mean To Go To Sea by Arthur Ransome.
This book is part of the Swallows and Amazon’s series although it only features the Swallows.

The Phoenix and the Carpet by E Nesbit.
This book plus Five Children and It and the Story of the Amulet are pretty well equally good but the Phoenix and the Carpet is just my favourite.

I, of course, agree totally with Anita about The Valley of Adventure.

[Boodi 2]

What a difficult question...almost as difficult as trying to pick the winner of the Grand National.

My three favourites (i.e. those that made a lasting impression on me and that I still read) are:
Six Cousins at Mistletoe Farm
Black Beauty
Le Petit Prince

The above are closely followed by the FFO, the R mysteries and the Adventure series and I am not ashamed to admit that I am a 'fan of Peter Rabbit and Brer Rabbit!!!

[Anita Bensoussane]

If I had more than three choices, Dr. Seuss would be another contender. The best of his books are so clever and thought-provoking and I've always admired his zany illustrations.

It's fun reading everyone's posts. I'm not surprised to see We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea and Black Beauty on people's lists. They're both extremely engaging in very different ways. I didn't read any of the Swallows and Amazons books until I was in my thirties but We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea was the first one I read and I found it nail-bitingly exciting despite being rather older than the intended readership!

[GloomyGraham]

Any list wouldn't be complete without 'The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe' even though it isn't even my favourite Narnia book.

Three is probably too short - probably needs to be a top ten. Doctor Dolittle, Harry Potter, LOTR, Lone Pine, Oz are just some of the series that might deserve a top ten rating let alone all the one-off stories. And some classics - eg Robin Hood - have been written by many authors over the years.

And 'children's book' covers a lot. Should a Noddy or Thomas the Tank Engine book be compared with a work of (say) Jules Verne?

I probably sound like a real whinger now lol - so I'll quit while I'm behind

[Boodi 2]

Three is probably too short - probably needs to be a top ten. Doctor Dolittle, Harry Potter, LOTR, Lone Pine, Oz are just some of the series that might deserve a top ten rating let alone all the one-off stories. And some classics - eg Robin Hood - have been written by many authors over the years.

And 'children's book' covers a lot. Should a Noddy or Thomas the Tank Engine book be compared with a work of (say) Jules Verne?

I agree...a top ten would allow a bit more scope, but even then it would be difficult to know what to include and leave out!

However, based on my criterion of what continues to appeal to me I have no problem with comparing books intended for younger children with works of, for example, Jules Verne (in my case Beatrix Potter and Antoine de Saint-Exupery).

In the 1990s my cousin in England sent me the first Harry Potter book with a note informing me that it was very popular and that I might enjoy reading it to our son. I started reading it myself that very night and was so taken with it that I could not put it down and continued reading until about 2h30 in the morning, despite having to get up before 8h00 the next day for the school run and preparing a packed lunch! However, I did not include Harry Potter on my list because while I enjoyed the early books in the series (possibly because the boarding school scenario reminded me of St. Clare's etc) I found the later ones "too dark" and negative and oddly enough I have never experienced any desire to re-read them, although my son later became addicted to them and we have the full collection here, along with LOTR.

[Katharine]

Oh dear, I'd say it is almost an impossible question to answer.

I suppose it would be cheating if I had a 7-in-1 Harry Potter book, and a volume of all 400+ stories by Enid Blyton?

However there is one book I would easily include - White Holiday by Viola Bayley. I bought it for literally a few pennies when my primary school was selling off some of its stock. I've read it many times, and never tire of it. Even though I knew the story well, I still remember staying up until about 2.00am one night as I couldn't put it down. The pages are of that brittle brown paper and are starting to flake off at the edges, so I need to make sure I have a back up copy so that i can still read it in the future.

[jrw]

These are probably the books which I've found the most haunting (in a good way):

1. Tom's Midnight Garden by Phillipa Pearce

2. Grandpa's Great Escape by David Walliams - I'm not overkeen on Walliams' unsubtle toilet humour, but he's written some great stories, and although some would feel that the subject of dementia is probably not handled in the most sensitive way in this book, for me it would have to be his most memorable.

3. The Life and Time of Lonnie Quick by Kirsty Applebaum.

[Debbie]

Impossible.

Give me a top 100 and I'll consider trying.

[Fiona1986]

I could barely choose a top 30, I've got no chance picking 3.

[dsr]

On principle, Antonia Forest has to be represented, and "The Marlows and the Traitor" gets the vote. It surely has the most complex villain in children's literature. It takes genius to make a man at least semi-sympathetic even while he is planning the murder of the child protagonists. Coincidentally, like the next one, half the book has just 4 characters trapped together in a boat (and then in a lighthouse).

"We didn't mean to go to Sea" by Arthur Ransome has already been mentioned. Probably it's having just 4 characters on one little boat for half the book means the plotting has to be really taut and the characterisation so perfect.

The other one is a personal favourite and I've just looked through my children's bookshelf to pick the one I perhaps re-read more than any. It's called "Ballet for Laura" by Linda Blake, but I love the characters.

[Judith Crabb]

As I half expected, some books will be included in a 'top three' because they have been read at a particularly receptive time in a child's life and never forgotten whereas another child may have read the same book and quickly forgotten it. Perhaps the world is so full of wonderful books that I should have emailed about 'a' top three.
Here is 'a top three' chosen because I could not explain my intense reaction to them when I read them as a child. They haunted me.
Knight's Fee by Rosemary Sutcliff
The Emerald Crown by Violet Needham
The Valley of Adventure by Enid Blyton
Yes, Katharine, I too loved 'White Holiday' but it was another by Viola Bayley which was my favourite, 'The Dark Lantern'.

[Anita Bensoussane]

On principle, Antonia Forest has to be represented, and "The Marlows and the Traitor" gets the vote. It surely has the most complex villain in children's literature. It takes genius to make a man at least semi-sympathetic even while he is planning the murder of the child protagonists. Coincidentally, like the next one, half the book has just 4 characters trapped together in a boat (and then in a lighthouse).

I'm a great fan of Antonia Forest's Marlow series too, Dsr. It's so wide-ranging and touches on all sorts of fascinating topics, and the characters are real individuals whose quirks, interests, ambitions, struggles and relationships are explored in depth. If I had to pick out a single favourite it might well be either End of Term, The Cricket Term or The Attic Term (it's a while since I last read them so they've merged together a little in my mind and I'd have to re-read them in order to judge properly).

Any list wouldn't be complete without 'The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe' even though it isn't even my favourite Narnia book

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe doesn't capture my imagination as much as some of the other titles. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is probably the outstanding Narnia book in my eyes. It's dreamy, alluring and utterly beautiful, laced with a delicious poignancy.


Difficult though it is to pick only three books, it's an interesting exercise as it focuses the mind. Reading other people's choices is fun and highlights treasures that I might otherwise have missed. I'm not familiar with The Life and Time of Lonnie Quick by Kirsty Applebaum but Jrw's recommendation has prompted me to look it up and I'll certainly buy a copy if I come across it (I tend to pick up books from charity shops and secondhand shops as I see them, rather than actively looking for particular titles).

[timv]

Difficult to select a Top Three as opposed to a Top Ten, as different books have different appeal. I'm another who would
definitely put at least one of Antonia Forest's books in to a Top Three. But tentatively:

Enid's 'Sea of Adventure' - to me her top adventure thriller, with the added emotion of rescuing Bill from the dangerous villains at the risk of the children's lives and his reaction afterwards. Who says that Enid doesn't do real danger or emotion?

Arthur Ransome's 'The Big Six' - intricate detective thriller set in atmospheric 1930s East Anglia.

Antonia Forest's 'End of Term' - the wonderful and realistic Marlow family, who are nicely contrasted and do not all like each other, and a rare school story with unfair and incompetent teachers and a devious and unreliable prefect (the horribly realistic Lois Sanger) seen by the put-upon junior twins Nicola and Lawrie. EOT is just ahead of Autumn Term and The Ready-Made Family for me, but all have different strengths - I would put Falconer's Lure and Marlows and the Traitor lower as I didn't read them until later so the books were less of a revelation to me then, and Cricket Term is also very strong but I prefer the leading dramatics plotlines to the sporty ones.

Behind these three I would put in a Top Ten:

Enid's 'Six Cousins at Mistletoe Farm' - her top family/ farm book, just ahead of 'House At The Corner'.

A Ransome's 'We Didnt Mean To Go To Sea' and 'Coot Club' - East Anglia. I prefer his non-Lake District books and the mix of classes in them to the Swallows and Amazons adventures, and WDMTGTS has the usually bland 'Swallows' battling the tide and fog in the North Sea in danger of their yacht being run down.

Monica Edwards' 'Dolphin Summer' - Romney Marsh, wonderful atmosphere and conservationist plot.

Malcolm Saville's 'Gay Dolphin Adventure' (Rye thriller) and 'Wings Over Witchend' (atmospheric Shropshire winter detective drama).

Antonia Forest's 'Ready-Made Family' - a dysfunctional family drama , rare for when I first read it, plus lots of Dorothy L Sayers' Oxford settings reused with references to her books - and a gripping finale with a menacing 'uncle', really a paedophile, grooming a disturbed runaway girl who Nicola has to rescue (again, rare for this period).