30 Must Read Books for Kids

[Amy Z]

I don't remember too many of the picture books I read, though I did 
love The Snowy Day and everything else by Ezra Jack Keats--the art is 
so beautiful--and I'd put everything by Leo Lionni on the list.  I 
love collages.  

It's really odd how the lists are mostly U.S. authors, and how they 
are unknown in the U.K.  Why don't we read more of each other's 
children's books?  

Books I couldn't get enough of when I was a bit older:

Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Secret Garden, FH Burnett
The Great Brain books, JD Fitzgerald
the Mushroom Planet series, by Eleanor Cameron IIRC
everything by Eleanor Cameron
ditto Joan Aiken
ditto Madeleine L'Engle
the Earthsea Trilogy (now has 2 more books), Ursula LeGuin
The Lottery Rose, Irene Hunt
Sherlock Holmes
The Return of the Twelves--don't recall the author, but it's about a 
  boy who discovers the Brontes' toy soldiers (?) and/or the stories 
  they wrote about them?  Really imaginative and terrific
Mythology of all kinds, though I didn't discover the D'Aulaires `til I 
  was older: Edith Hamilton (Greece), Norse myths  
Bible Stories for Children retold by David Kossof--terrific, lively, 
  humorous retellings & illustrations
Sal Fisher at Girl Scout Camp--don't ask me the author or why I read 
  it so many times, but I loved it
The Moffats series by Eleanor Estes
Half Magic by Edward Eager--it put me onto E. Nesbit, a bit too late
Another series I didn't catch on to until it was too young for me was 
  Beverly Cleary.  I've read a few as an adult and would buy the lot 
  for any child I loved
Narnia
sea stories/mysteries by Howard Pease, which my dad loved as a kid and 
  recommended to me
Mistress Masham's Repose, T.H. White--didn't discover that one `til 
  college & loved it
Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander--I just reread half of The 
  Book of Three standing in the children's section of the library and 
  it was every bit as good as I remembered
Cricket magazine, still going strong!

Amy Z