Sixteen classics for younger readers
Written for children, or long since adopted by them. We keep the original English text rather than simplified retellings, and every title here is old enough to be free of copyright in the United States. A few contain attitudes that a parent may want to discuss.
The list
- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland — Lewis Carroll, 1865. Genuinely funny for children and for mathematicians, for different reasons.
Read free at Project Gutenberg · print edition on Amazon - Treasure Island — Robert Louis Stevenson, 1883. The template for every treasure map since, told by a narrator who is allowed to be scared.
Read free at Project Gutenberg · print edition on Amazon - The Jungle Book — Rudyard Kipling, 1894. The best children's book about rules, and a masterclass in short-form storytelling.
Read free at Project Gutenberg · print edition on Amazon - Seven Little Australians — Ethel Turner, 1894. The Australian children's classic that refuses to be charming about children.
Read free at Project Gutenberg · print edition on Amazon - The Adventures of Tom Sawyer — Mark Twain, 1876. The great American boyhood novel, and the easiest way into Twain.
Read free at Project Gutenberg · print edition on Amazon - Peter and Wendy — J. M. Barrie, 1911. A children's classic that is really about the fear of growing up, and much darker than its adaptations.
Read free at Project Gutenberg · print edition on Amazon - The Wind in the Willows — Kenneth Grahame, 1908. The best animal friendship book in English, and a portrait of a riverbank that never existed.
Read free at Project Gutenberg · print edition on Amazon - The Secret Garden — Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1911. A gardening novel for children, and one of the few classics that takes work seriously as a cure.
Read free at Project Gutenberg · print edition on Amazon - The Wonderful Wizard of Oz — L. Frank Baum, 1900. The great American fairy tale, and a masterclass in pacing for young readers.
Read free at Project Gutenberg · print edition on Amazon - Just So Stories — Rudyard Kipling, 1902. The best read-aloud book of the period, and a reminder that Kipling could be silly as well as solemn.
Read free at Project Gutenberg · print edition on Amazon - The Railway Children — E. Nesbit, 1906. The best of Nesbit's novels, and a children's book that does not pretend money is unimportant.
Read free at Project Gutenberg · print edition on Amazon - Black Beauty — Anna Sewell, 1877. The first great animal-rights novel, and still one of the most effective.
Read free at Project Gutenberg · print edition on Amazon - Anne of Green Gables — L. M. Montgomery, 1908. The most lovable children's book in Canadian literature, and a masterclass in creating a character by voice.
Read free at Project Gutenberg · print edition on Amazon - The Princess and the Goblin — George MacDonald, 1872. A fairy tale with real theology underneath, and the direct ancestor of much modern fantasy.
Read free at Project Gutenberg · print edition on Amazon - The Water-Babies — Charles Kingsley, 1863. A Victorian children's fantasy that is much stranger than its reputation, and often beautifully written.
Read free at Project Gutenberg · print edition on Amazon - The Happy Prince and Other Tales — Oscar Wilde, 1888. Wilde's best prose, in five short tales that are sadder than they look.
Read free at Project Gutenberg · print edition on Amazon
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