Tag Archives: 100 books to read

100 children’s books to read in your lifetime

As you know, I love lists. I enjoy going through lists like this one and checking off the ones I’ve completed.

I found a reading challenge you’d perhaps like to take on.

Here are the top 100 Children’s Books to Read in your Lifetime as chosen by Goodreads readers and Amazon editors. These books are for age 12 or younger but are enjoyed by all ages and readers. Books listed in a series have been combined. 

Which of these have you read? In green are the ones I’ve read.

1. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone – J. K. Rowling

2. Charlotte’s Web – E. B. White

3. The Chronicles of Narnia – C. S. Lewis

4. Goodnight Moon – Margaret Wise Brown

5. A Wrinkle in Time – Madeleine L’Engle

6. Where the Wild Things Are – Maurice Sendak

7. The Giver – Lois Lowry

8. Little Women – Louisa May Alcott

9. The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Barrett

10. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl

11. The Cat in the Hat – Dr. Seuss

12. The House at Pooh Corner – A. A. Milne

13. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz – L. Frank Baum

14. Where the Sidewalk Ends – Shel Silverstein

15. Madeline – Ludwig Bemelmens

16. Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll

17. The Hobbit – J. R. R. Tolkien

18. The Very Hungry Caterpillar – Eric Carle

19. The Story of Ferdinand – Munro Leaf

20. Little House on the Prairie – Laura Ingalls Wilder

21. Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel – Virginia Lee Burton

22. Green Eggs and Ham – Dr. Seuss

23. Black Beauty – Anna Sewell

24. Pippi Longstocking – Astrid Lindgren

25. Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales – the Brothers Grimm

26. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler – E. L. Konigsburg

27. Nancy Drew: The Secret of the Old Clock – Carolyn Keene

28. Press Here – Hervé Tullet

29. The Phantom Tollbooth – Norton Juster

30. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer – Mark Twain

31. Island of the Blue Dolphins – Scott O’Dell

32. Goodnight Goodnight Construction Site – Sherri Duskey Rinker

33. The Wind in the Willows -Kenneth Grahame

34. The Westing Game – Ellen Raskin

35. Peter Pan – J. M. Barrie

36. Number the Stars – Lois Lowry

37. Holes – Louis Sachar

38. Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief – Rick Riordan

39. Wonder – R. J. Palacio

40. The Book Thief – Markus Zusak

41. How the Grinch Stole Christmas! – Dr. Seuss

42. The Giving Tree – Shel Silverstein

43. Flora and the Flamingo – Molly Idle

44. Curious George – Margret & H. A. Rey

45. Amelia Bedelia – Peggy Parish

46. Bridge to Terabithia – Katherine Paterson

47. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain

48. Matilda – Roald Dahl

49. Heidi – Johanna Spyri

50. The Graveyard Book – Neil Gaiman

51. The Snowy Day – Ezra Jack Keats

52. Ivy and Bean – Annie Barrows

53. The Boxcar Children – Gertrude C. Warner

54. A Little Princess – Frances Hodgson Burnett

55. Peek-A Who? – Nina Laden

56. The Paper Bag Princess Robert Munsch

57. Tuck Everlasting – Natalie Babbitt

58. The Day the Crayons Quit – Drew Daywalt

59. Ender’s Game – Orson Scott Card

60. Hatchet – Gary Paulsen

61. Bread and Jam for Francis – Russell Hoban

62. Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson

63. The Velveteen Rabbit – Margery Williams

64. Because of Winn Dixie – Kate DiCamillo

65. The One and Only Ivan – Katherine Applegate

66. The Witch of Blackbird Pond – Elizabeth George Speare

67. The Tale of Peter Rabbit – Beatrix Potter

68. The BFG – Roald Dahl

69. The Call of the Wild – Jack London

70. A Bear Called Paddington – Michael Bond

71. Ramona Quimby, Age 8 – Beverly Cleary

72. The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963 – Christopher Paul Curtis

73. Oh, the Places You’ll Go – Dr. Seuss

74. Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective – Donald J. Sobol

75. Harold and the Purple Crayon – Crockett Johnson

76. Ella Enchanted – Gail Carson Levine

77. Fantastic Mr. Fox – Roald Dahl

78. Going Over – Beth Kephart

79. Achren (The Chronicles of Prydain) – Lloyd Alexander

80. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs – Judi Barrett

81. The Twits – Roald Dahl

82. Inkheart – Cornelia Funke

83. White Fang – Jack London

84. Rhyme Schemer – K. A. Holt

85. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase – Joan Aiken

86. Esperanza Rising – Pam Muñoz Ryan

87. The Dark Is Rising – Susan Cooper

88. The Invention of Hugo Cabret – Brian Selznick

89. Danny, the Champion of the World – Roald Dahl

90. The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle – Avi

91. When You Reach Me – Rebecca Stead

92. A Girl of the Limberlost – Gene Stratton-Porter

93. Bud Not Buddy – Christopher Paul Curtis

94. Daddy Long Legs – Jean Webster

95. Bambi – Felix Salten  (I’ve only read the Disney version of this one)

96. Low Riders in Space – Cathy Camper

97. The Once and Future King – T. H. White

98. Flora and Ulysses – Kate DiCamillo

99. Pictures of Hollis Woods – Patricia Reilly Giff

100. Anne of Green Gables – L. M. Montgomery

Out of 100 books read, the average score is 33. I was doing pretty well, until two-thirds of the way through the list. My score is 40, and I have 5 more that I’ve not completed.

What is your score? Are there any on the list you want to read?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

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Have you read these 100 books?

In Nov. ’09 I read the following article, and when checking it over I found  that I can easily check a dozen books that I have read completely (inc. the Bible), a couple I’ve read in part and another dozen that I’ve seen on TV – but that doesn’t count.  So, which ones do you believe are must reads?

The BBC believe most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up?
Instructions: Look at the list and mark the books you have read.


1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6 The Bible –
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philis Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34.Emma – Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Inferno – Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings!  🙂