Everyone has a list of classic children’s books they think a child ought to read. Not all of them still get picked up, though.
So this is every classic we stock, sorted by age from 5 to 11. For each one I’ve said whether it’s a book a child can take off and read alone or one that works better out loud with a grown-up (with the old ones, that’s usually what you need to know).
Whilst I was teaching, the term ‘classic’ often took on a different form. Some felt that it was a canonical text like a Steinbeck or Angelou and others would say that Harry Potter was a classic. I mean considering it’s nearly 30 years old now I suppose we could start putting it as a classic.
But I think that a classic text has more of an emotional connection than we think. For me, I’d put classics down as Roald Dahl’s Matilda or even The Tiger Who Came to Tea. But these are all books I distinctly remember from my own childhood. Laughing at my dad’s feigned shock at a tiger who could potentially drink his beer and being totally in awe of Matilda’s magical powers.
And I have to say I did still see children reach for Roald Dahl and the silliness still got a laugh. And I know that The Tiger Who Came to Tea was also a popular book with some of our early years classes. I loved reading The Twits aloud to my students during my time at the SEND school. All of them would be in fits of laughter at their horrible tricks and disgusting appearances.
So, a classic children’s book doesn’t have to have been critically acclaimed or won a tonne of awards. I think a classic children’s book is simply something that has aged kinda well (e.g. not too much in it that makes you wince today) and draws in a child.
The classic children’s books we stock, by age
The age is the one on our shelf, so a few might surprise you (Alice is at 11, and The Wind in the Willows is at 8).
| Book | Age on our shelf | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| Now We Are Six (A. A. Milne) | 5 | Poems made for reading out loud |
| Paddington (Michael Bond) | 5 | The film’s version of his story |
| Finn Family Moomintroll (Tove Jansson) | 6 | Odd and funny, better shared |
| Charlotte’s Web (E. B. White) | 6 | A read-together one, with sad bits |
| Pippi Longstocking (Astrid Lindgren) | 6 | No parents and a horse on the porch |
| The Worst Witch (Jill Murphy) | 7 | A wonky broomstick and a tabby kitten |
| The Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Grahame) | 8 | Slow river chapters, then Toad |
| Stig of the Dump (Clive King) | 8 | A caveman at the bottom of a chalk pit |
| The Battle of Bubble and Squeak (Philippa Pearce) | 8 | A family row about two gerbils |
| The Little Gentleman (Philippa Pearce) | 8 | A talking mole in a meadow |
| The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis) | 8 | Brilliant read together at bedtime |
| Seacrow Island (Astrid Lindgren) | 8 | A slow, sunny island summer |
| The Box of Delights (John Masefield) | 9 | Best out loud at Christmas |
| A Little Princess (Frances Hodgson Burnett) | 9 | One hard chapter a third of the way in |
| Elidor (Alan Garner) | 10 | Cold, strange and unsettling |
| Watership Down (Richard Adams) | 10 | Not a cosy bunny book |
| Just So Stories (Rudyard Kipling) | 10 | Short, and very much of its time |
| The Hobbit (J. R. R. Tolkien) | 11 | Start it together |
| Five Children and It (E. Nesbit) | 11 | Wishes that go wrong by bedtime |
| Alice in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll) | 11 | The wordplay suits an older reader |
| The Weirdstone of Brisingamen (Alan Garner) | 11 | For a confident reader who likes a scare |
Each age has a page of its own too, from books for 5 year olds up to books for 11 year olds, if you’d like to see the whole shelf and not just the old ones.
Classic books for 5 and 6 year olds
Almost everything at this end is a read-aloud.
Now We Are Six is thirty-five poems. Sneezles is the one that gets asked for often (Christopher Robin has wheezles and sneezles, and famous physicians come hurrying round to argue about which came first). Binker, the friend nobody else can see, is best for bedtime.
Charlotte’s Web opens with Fern grabbing hold of her father’s axe to save a runt piglet, and there are sad bits later on you might want to talk through together. Pippi Longstocking has red pigtails, no parents to tell her what to do and a pet monkey called Mr Nilsson.
Our Paddington is the film’s version of his story (Peru, the Browns at the station, and an evil taxidermist who’d love to come between him and the Browns). And if it’s the reading-together bit you’re after, my family read aloud books list has plenty more.
Finn Family Moomintroll by Tove Jansson
Finn Family Moomintroll
In the nicest possible way, this is a bit of an odd one.
Moomins are small, fat and shy, and they have the most amazing adventures. This one starts when Moominpappa tries on a magic hat that makes exciting and funny things happen, and one poor little chap ends up turned into a very strange animal indeed.
It’s the second Moomin book. Some children fall head over heels for Moominvalley and some find it all a bit peculiar, so it’s a good one to share at 6.
Classic books for 7 and 8 year olds
8 is where most of our classics sit, and where more of them start to work as something a child reads alone. You’ll find the rest of that age on books for 8 year olds.
Stig of the Dump by Clive King
Stig of the Dump
For the child who’d rather be outside.
Barney spends a lot of time by himself. One day he’s exploring the edge of an old chalk pit when it gives way, and he lands in some sort of cave. Living down there is a somebody with a lot of shaggy hair and two bright black eyes, wearing a rabbit skin and speaking in grunts.
Barney’s first thought is that it’s a funny way to dress (rabbit skins round the middle and no shoes or socks), which tells you exactly the kind of boy he is.
The Battle of Bubble and Squeak by Philippa Pearce
The Battle of Bubble and Squeak
For the child who will not stop asking for a pet.
It’s three in the morning and something in the house goes creak. Bill Sparrow heads downstairs armed with a heavy pot of cold cream (there’s no poker upstairs) and finds his stepson Sid on the larder floor, whispering please hush at a cage. Inside are two gerbils. Mrs Sparrow will not have animals in her house.
What I like is that nobody’s the villain. Mrs Sparrow has a job to get to, and she’s the one who’ll be sweeping up the bedding that comes through the bars.
Just a heads up that there’s a horrible morning when the cage goes out with the dustbins, and little Amy has a nightmare about it. Nobody gets hurt, but the fear hangs around for a couple of chapters.
The Wind in the Willows is at 8 too. Mole and Rat are happy pottering about in a rowing boat, but Toad has already wrecked seven motor cars and ends up in the remotest dungeon of the best-guarded castle in the land. The river chapters are slow, and the Toad ones are what they’ll ask for again.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe sits here as well. If they get through all seven, my books like Narnia list picks up where Lewis stops.
Pearce has a second one at this age. In The Little Gentleman, Bet is asked to read aloud in a meadow to nobody at all, and her audience turns out to be a mole who can talk and is over three hundred years old.
Seacrow Island is Astrid Lindgren again, a long summer on an island where the rain comes in through the cottage roof and nobody needs saving. The Worst Witch is a year younger at 7 (Mildred Hubble, a broomstick mended with sticky-tape and a tabby kitten that keeps falling off the end of it).
Roald Dahl and Enid Blyton both have pages of their own, so I haven’t squeezed them in here. My best Roald Dahl books and best Enid Blyton books lists go through them by age and series.
Classic books for 9, 10 and 11 year olds
From 9 up, the classics get longer and the language gets older. A few of them are genuinely frightening too.
The Box of Delights by John Masefield
The Box of Delights
A snowy Christmas story with a sinister streak.
Kay Harker is changing trains at a freezing junction. He’s lost his ticket, and the two men on the bench beside him are clearly detectives. Then a small, worn old man with a case in green baize on his back finds the ticket for him without appearing to look. He knows Kay’s name. Kay has never met him.
He asks Kay to carry a message to the woman in the muffin shop. Tell her the Wolves are Running.
Worth knowing that within a few pages a railway porter spins Kay a gruesome tall tale about a murderer and a mincer, and a young reader might get a little freaked out. The sentences are long and old-fashioned as well, so it’s wonderful read aloud at Christmas and heavy going alone. 9 on our shelf.
The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
The Hobbit
A long adventure about somebody who really doesn’t want one.
Bilbo Baggins lives in a hobbit-hole (round green door, brass knob in the exact middle, pantries plural), and Bagginses do not have adventures. Then a wizard turns up at the door and won’t go away. The next day thirteen dwarves arrive, eat his seed-cakes and send him running to the pantry.
What finally gets him out of the door is overhearing a dwarf say he looks more like a grocer than a burglar.
The first chapter is basically one very long tea party, and the narrator chats away and wanders off into side stories. It’s one to start together and hand over once they’re hooked. 11 on our shelf.
Elidor (10) and The Weirdstone of Brisingamen (11) are both Alan Garner, and both are for the child who wants to be unsettled. In Elidor, four bored children in Manchester spin the wheel on a street map and pick Thursday Street. Roland’s brothers and sister go one at a time into a black church on waste ground… and don’t come out. Weirdstone starts with a legend on Alderley Edge (a real hill you could visit) and gets scary in a cold, matter-of-fact way.
Watership Down is at 10. Fiver, the smallest rabbit in the warren, gets a terrible feeling about a new board by the gate, and a handful of rabbits slip away one moonlit night. It isn’t a cosy bunny book. The rabbits fight with teeth and claws, there’s blood, and there’s one old phrase about race that really jars today.
Just So Stories (10) is how the Leopard got his spots and how the Elephant’s Child got his trunk, told the way Kipling told them to his own children. The language is very much of its time.
In Five Children and It (11) a sand-fairy in a gravel pit grants wishes that go wrong and wear off at the end of the day. A Little Princess sits at 9, and Sara Crewe goes from the best room in the school to the attic in a single chapter (a hard one).
Alice in Wonderland is at 11 on our shelf, which surprises people. The Mad Hatter and the Cheshire Cat are fine at any age, but the wordplay lands better with an older reader.
And Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone sits at 11 here (I taught it every autumn term, it’s so wonderfully festive).
The classics we don’t have (yet)
A few big names are missing. The Secret Garden, Peter Pan, Black Beauty, Heidi, The Railway Children, The Borrowers and Tom’s Midnight Garden aren’t in Little Reads yet, and they’re the ones I’d most like to add.
Just so you know…
Every classic on this page is in Little Reads. The Box of Delights, Elidor and The Hobbit are all on the free account, which has 100+ free books. The whole library is 3,000+ hand-picked books, £7.99 a month after a 7-day free trial. Cancel anytime.
It’s a library, so there are no quizzes and no reading levels. For the child who already loves a story and doesn’t mind a book that’s older than they are, there’s a lot here.