Thursday 27 October 2016

Gretchen Rubin's 81 Favourite Childrens' and YA Books

Gretchen Rubin is a lawyer and author of several books, her first being The Happiness Project. She reads very widely and loves reading children's books, so much so that she has started three reading groups for reading kid lit and created a shrine to her books in her home. So it makes sense that she would put together a great list of her favourites. I love that there are 81 suggestions.

1. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase - Joan Aiken (see my review)


2. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott


3. Fairy Tales - Hans Christian Andersen


4. Ghosts and More Ghosts - Robert Arthur


5. Tuck Everlasting - Natalie Babbit (see my review)





6. Peter Pan - M. Barrie


7. The Wizard of Oz - L. Frank Baum


8. Are you there God? It's me, Margaret - Judy Blume (see my review)


9. What I Saw and How I Lied - Judy Blunder


10. Andy Buckram's Tin Men - Carol Ryrie Brink


11. The Shades - Betty Brock


12. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodson Burnett (see my review)


13. The Midnight Fox - Betsy Byars


14. Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You - Peter Cameron


15. Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card


16. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll


17. Graceling - Kristin Cashore


18. What the Witch Left - Ruth Chew


19. Jane-Emily - Patricia Clapp


20. Sister of the Bride - Beverly Cleary


21. The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins (see my review)


22. The Dark is Rising - Susan Cooper


23. James and the Giant Peach - Roald Dahl (see my review)


24. D'aulaire's Book of Greek Myths - Ingrid and Edgar Parin D'Aulaire


25. Half Magic - Edward Eager


26. Mandy - Julie Andrews Edwards


27. This Star Shall Abide - Sylvia Louise Engdahl


28. The Saturdays - Elizabeth Enright


29. The Witch Family - Eleanor Estes


30. Understood Betsy - Dorothy Canfield Fisher


31. The Greengage Summer - Rumer Godden


32. The Fault in Our Stars - John Green (see my review)


33. Up a Road Slowly - Irene Hunt


34. The Animal Family - Randall Jarrell


35. Fire and Hemlock - Diana Wynne Jones


36. The Phantom Tollbooth - Norton Juster


37. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler - E.L. Konigsburg (see my review)


38. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee


39. A Wizard of Earthsea - Ursula Le Guin


40. A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle (see my review)


41. Strawberry Girl - Lois Lenski


42. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis


43. The Golden Name Day - Jennie Lindquist


44. The Giver - Lois Lowry (see my review)


45. Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle - Betty McDonald


46. Beauty - Robin McKinely


47. Twilight - Stephanie Meyer


48. Anne of Green Gables - L.M. Montgomery


49. The Girl Who Owned a City - O.T. Nelson





50. The Railway Children - E. Nesbit


51. The Whirling Shapes - Joan North


52. His Majesty's Dragon - Naomi Novik


53. The Silver Crown - Robert O'Brien


54. Island of the Blue Dolphins - Scott O'Dell (see my review)


55. Time at the Top - Edward Ormondroyd


56. Wonder - R.J. Palacio (see my review)


57. The Twenty-One Balloons - William Pene du Bois


58. The Sherwood Ring - Elizabeth Marie Pope


59. The Golden Compass and His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman


60. The Westing Game - Ellen Raskin 


61. Where the Red Fern Grows - Wilson Rawls


62. The House Without a Christmas Tree - Gail Rock


63. Freaky Friday - Mary Rodgers


64. Eleanor & Park - Rainbow Rowell


65. Harry Potter and the Sorcer's/Philosopher's Stone - J.K. Rowling


66. The Good Master - Kate Seedy





67. House of Stairs - William Sleator


68. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith


69. Black and Blue Magic - Zilpha Keatley Snyder


70. Miracles on Maple Hill - Virginia Sorenson


71. Heidi - Johanna Spyri (see my review)


72. In a Mirror - Mary Stolz


73. Ballet Shoes - Noel Streatfield (see my review)


74. All-of-a-Kind Family - Sydney Taylor


75. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien (see my review)


76. Mary Poppins - P.L. Travers 


77.  The Boxcar Children - Gertrude Chandler Warner


78. Daddy-Long-Legs - Jean Webster


79. Charlotte's Web - E.B. White 


80. The Sword in the Stone - T.H. White


81. The Little House in the Big Woods - Laura Ingalls Wilder


28/81


A respectable effort I guess. Although so many more to go. I'm always astonished to come across so many books I've never even heard of before, and this list has quite a few. 


March 2017 29/81

June 2017 30/81

June 2018 31/81

1 comment:

Deb Nance at Readerbuzz said...

Fifty-one for me, but that makes sense as I am American. Boxcar Children was huge here, and, of course, all the Newbery winners. The Girl Who Owned a City was a big favorite of my sons when they were tweens but I read it a few years ago and thought, Mmmm...don't see the appeal. Lots and lots I have never heard of. I love that, especially.