Essential Children's Books

Although I have no children myself and (despite the assertion of many) I have not been a child for some time, I continue to read children’s literature with great enthusiasm. I often open the pages of Lewis, Grahame, Milne, Barrie, Carroll and Tolkien for the amusement it brings, particularly for night time reading.

Occasionally, I scan the shelves of the children’s section at Borders, Barnes & Noble, and Half Price, in order to see what is currently popular among contemporary children. Most of it is complete bollocks but there are a few goodies, both new and old, to be found at the local sellers.

Books are extremely important for children. By this I mean, 1) parents really need to read to their children as early as possible so that the children pick it up before they go to school. My parents read to me at an extremely early age and pointed to every word the read so that I knew what word was what. 2) Children need access to books in the homes. Every study shows that the intellectual curiosity of a child grows with the amount of books available in the home. Take a lesson from me: I found the availability of Cervantes, Tolstoy, Shakespeare and Twain highly edifying. 3) And, please, please, please, give your children some good books to read. Don’t buy them junk; they’ll acquire enough bad books from other friends, family and neighbors. God knows they will be reading it at school! Give them books that will be edifying. Do you think children are born Mozart, Shakespeare and Kierkegaard? Well, they are but its only good parents who are able to draw it out of them. How many great concertos, novels and theology books were never created because their parents never gave an inkling to their child’s talents. You wouldn’t allow your children to watch a Rated R movie because of the negative effect, right? Why then let them read bad books?

Allow me to give you a reasonable list of good children’s books that every child should have access to if they don’t want to end up as junkies. I’ll save you from having to read my lists of music (it includes Bach and Beck), movies (it includes Casablanca and 2001) and Bible stories (it includes the Greek as well as the English).


Aesop’s Fables (One of the foundations of Western ethics.)

American Tall Tales (Casey Jones, Johnny Apple-Seed, Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, etc.)

Hans Christian Anderson (These stories are staples of Western folk-lore.)

Arabian Nights (Here’s a touch of Islamic and Persian mythology. Quite good.)

J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan, philosophically wonderful and pure fantasy.)

L. Frank Baum (The Wizard of Oz, I recommend on the first book in the series.)

Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass, The Hunting of the Snark. If a child cannot recite “Jabberwocky” by age ten, then ground them.)

Miguel Cervantes (Any child who doesn’t learn of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza has no business entering the second grade. Of course, here is an example where I was given a children’s version of the book and later in life I read the original version due to my interest in the children’s book.)

Roald Dahl (James and the Giant Peach, and the 2 Charlie books)

Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes) (This’ll both entertain and teach children how to think.)

English Mythology (King Arthur, Robin Hood, Beowulf, Gawain and the Green Knight) (My family is both Welsh and English, so I recommend this old world English treats.)

Mother Goose (If you have to ask then you have no business claiming to be a part of Western civilization.)

Kenneth Grahame (The Wind and the Willows, I am ashamed to state that I only began reading these late in life. Learn from my mistakes.)

Greek Mythology (Read them these books as soon as possible. Greek mythology is one of the foundations of Western Culture and permeates all of contemporary life.)

Brothers Grimm (See Hans Christian Anderson)

Joel Chandler Harris (Uncle Remus, Good stories with African roots but perhaps a version without the vernacular.)

Washington Irving (The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Rip van Winkle)

Rudyard Kipling (The Jungle Books. Give them a little of India)

C.S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia. And for, crissakes, get the order right!)

A.A. Milne (Winnie the Pooh, The House on Pooh Corner. No, Disney bowdlerization until they are old enough to date.)

Norse Mythology (Perhaps this one is not necessary but this is still entertaining.)

Edgar Allen Poe (Both the poems and the short stories)

Richard Scarry (This is a pragmatic book more than anything.)

Maurice Sendak (Teach your children where the wild things are)

Dr. Seuss (Again, these are pragmatic books)

William Shakespeare (Hamlet, of course. Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Henry IV, part one and 2 and Henry V, A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, Othello, The Taming of the Shrew. Okay, children’s version are out there. I recommend the ones by Charles and Mary Lamb. Of course, if they are not reading the originals by Middle School then send them to therapy.)

Shel Silverstein (Where the Sidewalk Ends, A Light in the Attic, Falling Up, The Giving Tree) (I recommend the recordings along with the books)

Robert Lewis Stevenson (Treasure Island, the Disney movie with Robert Newton is good), Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hide)

Jonathan Swift (A children’s version would suffice here. The movie version with Ted Danson is recommended.)

J.R.R. Tolkien (All the middle earth stories: The Hobbit, LOTR, etc. Also, his translations of Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl and Sir Orfio are recommended.

Mark Twain (I grew up with his short stories. However, as with Uncle Remus, I suggest a version of Huckleberry Finn minus the dialect.)

Jules Verne (Duh!)

H.G. Wells (And, Duh, again)


In order to get most of these stories and many many more, I highly recommend Anthology of Children's Literature by Edna Johnson, Evelyn R Sickels, Frances Clarke Sayers. Third Revised Edition. This book has it all and should be essential to every adult library.