# List of children's classic books

This is a list of classic children's books published no later than 2008 and still available in the English language.
Books specifically for children existed by the 17th century. Before that, books were written mainly for adults – although some later became popular with children. In Europe, Gutenberg's invention of the printing press around 1440 made possible mass production of books, though the first printed books were quite expensive and remained so for a long time. Gradually, however, improvements in printing technology lowered the costs of publishing and made books more affordable to the working classes, who were also likely to buy smaller and cheaper broadsides, chapbooks, pamphlets, tracts, and early newspapers, all of which were widely available before 1800. In the 19th century, improvements in paper production, as well as the invention of cast-iron, steam-powered printing presses, enabled book publishing on a very large scale, and made books of all kinds affordable by all.
Scholarship on children's literature includes professional organizations, dedicated publications, and university courses.

## Before 18th century

| Title | Author | Year published | References and Brief Introduction |
| Panchatantra | Vishnu Sharma | c. 800 BC | Ancient Indian inter-related collection of animal fables in verse and prose, in a frame story format. Similar stories are found in later works including Aesop's Fables and the Sindbad tales in Arabian Nights. |
| Aesop's Fables | Aesop | c. 600 BC | |
| Kathasaritsagara | Somadeva | 11th Century AD | Collection of Indian legends, fairy tales and folk tales as retold by a Saivite Brahmin named Somadeva. Generally believed to derive from Gunadhya's Brhat-katha, written in Paisachi dialect from the south of India. |
| Arabian Nights | Unknown | before 8th century AD | |
| Orbis Pictus | John Amos Comenius | 1658 | Earliest picture book specifically for children. |
| A Token for Children. Being An Exact Account of the Conversion, Holy and Exemplary Lives, and Joyful Deaths of several Young Children | James Janeway | 1672 | One of the first books specifically written for children which shaped much eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century writing for children. |

## 18th century

| Title | Author | Year published | References |
| Tales of Mother Goose | Charles Perrault | 1729 (English) | |
| Little Pretty Pocket-book | John Newbery | 1744 | |
| Little Goody Two Shoes | Oliver Goldsmith | 1765 | |
| Lessons for Children | Anna Laetitia Barbauld | 1778-9 | The first series of age-adapted reading primers for children printed with large text and wide margins; in print for over a century. |
| The History of Sandford and Merton | Thomas Day | 1783-9 | A bestseller for over a century, it embodied Rousseau's educational ideals. |

## 19th century

| Title | Author | Year published |
| The Swiss Family Robinson | Johann David Wyss | 1812-3 |
| Grimm's Fairy Tales | Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm | 1823 (English) |
| A Visit From St. Nicholas | Clement Clarke Moore | 1823 |
| Tales of Peter Parley About America | Peter Parley (pseudonym) | 1827 |
| Fairy Tales | Hans Christian Andersen | 1846 (English) |
| The Children of the New Forest | Frederick Marryat | 1847 |
| Slovenly Peter | Heinrich Hoffmann | 1848 (English) |
| The Wide, Wide World | Elizabeth Wetherell (pseudonym) | 1850 |
| The King of the Golden River | John Ruskin | 1851 |
| The Coral Island | R. M. Ballantyne | 1857 |
| Tom Brown's Schooldays | Thomas Hughes | 1857 |
| The Water Babies | Charles Kingsley | 1863 |
| A Journey to the Center of the Earth | Jules Verne | 1864 |
| Little Prudy | Rebecca Sophia Clarke | 1864 |
| Alice's Adventures in Wonderland | Lewis Carroll | 1865 |
| Max and Moritz | Wilhelm Busch | 1865 |
| Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates | Mary Mapes Dodge | 1865 |
| Little Women | Louisa May Alcott | 1868 |
| Ragged Dick | Horatio Alger, Jr. | 1868 |
| Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances | Juliana Horatia Ewing | 1869 |
| Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas | Jules Verne | 1870 |
| At the Back of the North Wind | George MacDonald | 1871 |
| The Brownies and other Tales | Juliana Horatia Ewing | 1871 |
| The Princess and the Goblin | George MacDonald | 1871 |
| Through the Looking-Glass | Lewis Carroll | 1871 |
| Around the World in Eighty Days | Jules Verne | 1872 |
| A Dog of Flanders | Ouida | 1872 |
| What Katy Did | Susan Coolidge | 1873 |
| Black Beauty | Anna Sewell | 1877 |
| Five Little Peppers and How They Grew | Margaret Sidney | 1881 |
| The Prince and the Pauper | Mark Twain | 1881 |
| The Adventures of Pinocchio | Carlo Collodi | 1883 |
| The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood | Howard Pyle | 1883 |
| Nights with Uncle Remus | Joel Chandler Harris | 1883 |
| Heidi | Johanna Spyri | 1884 (English) |
| King Solomon's Mines | H. Rider Haggard | 1885 |
| Kidnapped | Robert Louis Stevenson | 1886 |
| Little Lord Fauntleroy | Frances Hodgson Burnett | 1886 |
| The Happy Prince and Other Tales | Oscar Wilde | 1888 |
| A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 1889 |
| The Blue Fairy Book | Andrew Lang | 1889 |
| The Jungle Book | Rudyard Kipling | 1894 |
| Seven Little Australians | Ethel Turner | 1894 |
| Tom Sawyer Abroad | Mark Twain | 1894 |
| The Second Jungle Book | Rudyard Kipling | 1895 |
| Moonfleet | J. Meade Falkner | 1898 |
| The Black Corsair | Emilio Salgari | 1898 |
| The Reluctant Dragon | Kenneth Grahame | 1898 |
| The Story of the Treasure Seekers | E. Nesbit | 1899 |
| The Wonderful Wizard of Oz | L. Frank Baum | 1900 |
| The Tigers of Mompracem | Emilio Salgari | 1900 |

## 20th century

| Title | Author | Year published | References |
| Five Children and It | E. Nesbit | 1902 | |
| Just So Stories | Rudyard Kipling | 1902 | |
| The Tale of Peter Rabbit | Beatrix Potter | 1902 | |
| King Arthur and His Knights | Howard Pyle | 1902-3 | |
| The Call of the Wild | Jack London | 1903 | |
| Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm | Kate Douglas Wiggin | 1903 | |
| A Little Princess | Frances Hodgson Burnett | 1905 | |
| The Railway Children | E. Nesbit | 1906 | |
| White Fang | Jack London | 1906 | |
| Queen Silver-Bell | Frances Hodgson Burnett | 1906 | |
| The Wonderful Adventures of Nils | Selma Lagerlöf | 1906 | |
| Anne of Green Gables | Lucy Maud Montgomery | 1908 | |
| The Wind in the Willows | Kenneth Grahame | 1908 | |
| The Secret Garden | Frances Hodgson Burnett | 1909/1911 | |
| Peter and Wendy | J. M. Barrie | 1911 | Based on the author's play Peter Pan (1904) |
| Tarzan | Edgar Rice Burroughs | 1912 | |
| The Lost World | Sir Arthur Conan Doyle | 1912 | |
| Pollyanna | Eleanor H. Porter | 1913 | |
| The Magic Pudding | Norman Lindsay | 1918 | |
| Raggedy Ann | Johnny Gruelle | 1918 | |
| Lad: A Dog | Albert Payson Terhune | 1919 | |
| The Story of Doctor Dolittle | Hugh Lofting | 1920 | |
| Juan Bobo | Puerto Rican school children | 1921 | |
| The Velveteen Rabbit | Margery Williams | 1922 | |
| The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle | Hugh Lofting | 1922 | |
| The Dark Frigate | Charles Boardman Hawes | 1923 | |
| When We Were Very Young | A.A. Milne | 1924 | |
| Smoky the Cowhorse | Will James | 1926 | |
| Winnie-the-Pooh | A. A. Milne | 1926 | |
| Now We Are Six | A. A. Milne | 1927 | |
| The House at Pooh Corner | A. A. Milne | 1928 | |
| Bambi | Felix Salten | 1928 | |
| The Trumpeter of Krakow | Eric P. Kelly | 1928 | |
| Milly-Molly-Mandy Stories | Joyce Lankester Brisley | 1928 | |
| Emil and the Detectives | Erich Kästner | 1929 | |
| Swallows and Amazons | Arthur Ransome | 1930–1931 | |
| Babar | Jean de Brunhoff | 1931 | |
| Little House in the Big Woods | Laura Ingalls Wilder | 1932 | |
| Mary Poppins | P. L. Travers | 1934 | |
| Ballet Shoes | Noel Streatfeild | 1936 | |
| The Story of Ferdinand | Munro Leaf | 1936 | |
| The Hobbit | J. R. R. Tolkien | 1937 | |
| And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street | Dr. Seuss | 1937 | |
| The Sword in the Stone | T. H. White | 1938 | |
| Madeline | Ludwig Bemelmans | 1939 | |
| My Name Is Aram | William Saroyan | 1940 | Children's immigrant experience in the US |
| Curious George | H. A. Rey | 1941 | |
| Five on a Treasure Island | Enid Blyton | 1942 | |
| Johnny Tremain | Esther Forbes | 1943 | |
| The Little Prince | Antoine de Saint-Exupéry | 1943 | |
| Pippi Longstocking | Astrid Lindgren | 1945 | |
| Stuart Little | E. B. White | 1945 | |
| The Little White Horse | Elizabeth Goudge | 1946 | |
| Mistress Masham's Repose | T. H. White | 1946 | |
| Thomas the Tank Engine | Wilbert Awdry | 1946 | |
| Goodnight Moon | Margaret Wise Brown | 1947 | |
| I Capture the Castle | Dodie Smith | 1948 | |
| Space Cadet | Robert Anson Heinlein | 1948 | One of the first modern SF novels written expressly for young people |
| Finn Family Moomintroll | Tove Jansson | 1949 | |
| Noddy Goes to Toyland | Enid Blyton | 1949 | The first of the Noddy books |
| The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe | C.S. Lewis | 1950 | |
| Charlotte's Web | E. B. White | 1952 | |
| The Borrowers | Mary Norton | 1952 | |
| The Children of Green Knowe | Lucy M. Boston | 1954 | |
| Horton Hears a Who! | Dr. Seuss | 1954 | |
| Beezus and Ramona | Beverly Cleary | 1955 |
| Tunnel in the Sky | Robert Anson Heinlein | 1955 | One of the first instances of mainstream SF for young people featuring a black protagonist |
| Eloise | Kay Thompson | 1955 | First published in 1955, it was aimed at adults. When re-published in 1969, it was marketed to children. |
| The Hundred and One Dalmatians | Dodie Smith | 1956 | |
| Harry the Dirty Dog | Gene Zion | 1956 | |
| The Silver Sword | Ian Serraillier | 1956 | Known in the US as Escape from Warsaw. |
| The Cat in the Hat | Dr. Seuss | 1957 | First high quality limited-vocabulary book, written for early readers |
| Little Bear | Else Holmelund Minarik | 1957 | |
| How the Grinch Stole Christmas | Dr. Seuss | 1957 | |
| Tom's Midnight Garden | Philippa Pearce | 1958 | |
| A Bear Called Paddington | Michael Bond | 1958 | |
| The Rescuers | Margery Sharp | 1959 | |
| The Weirdstone of Brisingamen | Alan Garner | 1960 | |
| James and the Giant Peach | Roald Dahl | 1961 | |
| The Phantom Tollbooth | Norton Juster | 1961 | |
| The Big Honey Hunt | Stan and Jan Berenstain | 1962 | |
| A Wrinkle in Time | Madeleine L'Engle | 1962 | |
| The Wolves of Willoughby Chase | Joan Aiken | 1962 | |
| Stig of the Dump | Clive King | 1963 | |
| Where the Wild Things Are | Maurice Sendak | 1963 | |
| Clifford the Big Red Dog | Norman Bridwell | 1963 | |
| Amelia Bedelia | Peggy Parish | 1963 | |
| Charlie and the Chocolate Factory | Roald Dahl | 1964 | |
| Flat Stanley | Jeff Brown | 1964 | |
| The Giving Tree | Shel Silverstein | 1964 | |
| Harriet the Spy | Louise Fitzhugh | 1964 | |
| Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang: The Magical Car | Ian Fleming | 1964 | |
| The Fox and the Hound | Daniel P. Mannix and John Schoenherr | 1967 | |
| The Owl Service | Alan Garner | 1967 | |
| A Wizard of Earthsea | Ursula K. Le Guin | 1968 | With its sequels, it broke ground for epic fantasy in several ways: the first book had a non-white hero, the later books explored the role of gender in fantasy and power, and the quest structure is not good vs. evil but balance. |
| The Iron Man | Ted Hughes | 1968 | |
| The Tiger Who Came to Tea | Judith Kerr | 1968 | |
| The Very Hungry Caterpillar | Eric Carle | 1969 | |
| Charlotte Sometimes | Penelope Farmer | 1969 | |
| Summer of the Swans | Betsy Byars | 1971 | |
| Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret | Judy Blume | 1970 | Approached puberty more openly than children's books had in the past. |
| When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit | Judith Kerr | 1971 | |
| Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH | Robert C. O'Brien | 1971 | |
| Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing | Judy Blume | 1972 | |
| Watership Down | Richard Adams | 1972 | |
| A Taste of Blackberries | Doris Buchanan Smith | 1973 | Taboo-breaking children's book concerning a child's first grief experience. |
| The Worst Witch | Jill Murphy | 1974 | |
| Bridge to Terabithia | Katherine Paterson | 1977 | |
| Each Peach Pear Plum | Janet and Allan Ahlberg | 1978 | |
| The Snowman | Raymond Briggs | 1978 | |
| The Neverending Story | Michael Ende | 1979 | |
| The Indian in the Cupboard | Lynne Reid Banks | 1980 | |
| The Paper Bag Princess | Robert Munsch | 1980 | |
| Nothing's Fair in Fifth Grade | Barthe DeClements | 1981 | |
| Jumanji | Chris Van Allsburg | 1981 | Film adaptation released in 1997 |
| Goodnight Mister Tom | Michelle Magorian | 1981 | |
| The BFG | Roald Dahl | 1982 | |
| Dear Zoo | Rod Campbell | 1982 | |
| The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾ | Sue Townsend | 1982 | |
| War Horse | Michael Morpurgo | 1982 | |
| The Sheep-Pig | Dick King-Smith | 1983 | Published as Babe, the Gallant Pig in the US. Filmed as Babe in 1995. |
| Angelina Ballerina | Katharine Holabird | 1983 | |
| Sarah Plain and Tall | Patricia MacLachlan | 1985 | |
| The Castle in the Attic | Elizabeth Winthrop | 1985 | |
| Howl's Moving Castle | Diana Wynne Jones | 1986 | Animated film adaptation by Studio Ghibli |
| Love You Forever | Robert Munsch | 1986 | |
| Franklin | Paulette Bourgeois and Brenda Clark | 1986 | |
| The Little Polar Bear | Hans de Beer | 1987 | |
| Madame Doubtfire | Anne Fine | 1987 | Published as Alias Madame Doubtfire in the US. Filmed as Mrs. Doubtfire starring Robin Williams. |
| We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story | Hudson Talbott | 1987 | |
| Matilda | Roald Dahl | 1988 | |
| We're Going on a Bear Hunt | Michael Rosen | 1989 | |
| Shrek! | William Steig | 1990 | |
| The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle | Avi | 1990 | |
| Owl Babies | Martin Waddell | 1992 | |
| Guess How Much I Love You | Sam McBratney | 1994 | |
| The Golden Compass | Philip Pullman | 1995 | |
| Tales from Watership Down | Richard Adams | 1996 | |
| The Subtle Knife | Philip Pullman | 1997 | |
| Harry Potter series | J.K. Rowling | 1997-2007 | |
| Skellig | David Almond | 1998 | |
| Holes | Louis Sachar | 1998 | |
| The Gruffalo | Julia Donaldson | 1999 | |
| The Amber Spyglass | Philip Pullman | 2000 | |

## 21st century

| Title | Author | Year published | References |
| Artemis Fowl | Eoin Colfer | 2001 | |
| Room on the Broom | Julia Donaldson | 2002 | |
| Coraline | Neil Gaiman | 2002 | |
| The Gruffalo's Child | Julia Donaldson | 2004 | |
| Al Capone Does My Shirts | Gennifer Choldenko | 2004 | |
| The Lightning Thief | Rick Riordan | 2005 | First of the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series |
| Fancy Nancy | Jane O'Connor | 2005 | |
| The True Meaning of Smekday | Adam Rex | 2007 | |
| Stick Man | Julia Donaldson | 2008 | |
| The Graveyard Book | Neil Gaiman | 2008 | The first book to win both the Newbery Medal and the Carnegie Medal |
| The Boy in the Dress | David Walliams | 2008 | |