(We have more interesting Harry Potter trivia here.) Rowling’s own rags-to-riches story – she was a poor single mother in Edinburgh when she wrote the first novel, and used to write in a tearoom because it was cheaper to buy a coffee than stay at home and pay the heating bill – is fascinating in itself. Yet they are included on this list because they distil so many aspects of classic children’s fiction: the boarding-school setting, elements of magic and fantasy, the trials and challenges of growing up, and the ‘family romance’ motif proposed by Sigmund Freud. The Harry Potter books need no introduction. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Recommended edition: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Dahl Fiction)ġ0.
But it could have been very different: the working title of the book was ‘Charlie’s Chocolate Boy’, Willy Wonka was called ‘Mr Ritchie’, and the Oompa-Loompas were known as ‘Whipple-Scrumpets’. This classic 1964 novel, about the poor boy Charlie Bucket who wins the chance to go on a tour of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, is among Dahl’s most famous books. Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.Īs a schoolboy, Roald Dahl was one of a number of children ‘employed’ by Cadbury’s as a taste-tester for their chocolate, and Dahl remained a lifelong lover of chocolate, believing that children should be taught the history of chocolate at school and even being buried with the stuff (along with his snooker cues and trusty pencils). Recommended edition: Charlotte’s Web (A Puffin Book)ĩ.
According to Publishers Weekly in 2000, Charlotte’s Web was the bestselling children’s paperback novel of all time and was the last children’s book to appear on the New York Times bestseller list until the Harry Potter series nearly half a century later. White (1899-1945) wrote several classic books for children – he was also the man behind Stuart Little – but this is his best-known novel, about an unlikely friendship on a farm between a pig named Wilbur and a spider named Charlotte. Recommended edition: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (The Chronicles of Narnia) The rewritten version has never been out of print since.
Tolkien, for being too simplistic in its Christian allegorical overtones, and Lewis’s other writer-friends (known as the ‘Inklings’) were reportedly so critical of the manuscript that Lewis destroyed it and rewrote it from scratch. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was criticised by Lewis’s friend and fellow Oxford don, J. Published in 1950, this was the first of seven Chronicles of Narnia novels that Lewis would write, culminating in The Last Battle in 1956. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Recommended edition: Winnie-the-Pooh (Winnie-the-Pooh – Classic Editions)ħ. Although the second Pooh book reportedly made the American wit Dorothy Parker want to throw up, what saves the stories from excessive sentimentality is the strain of gentle humour running throughout them. Millions of children have taken Pooh and his friends Piglet, Kanga, Roo, Tigger, Rabbit, and Owl (who spells his name ‘Wol’) to their hearts. Shepard, also provided the classic illustrations for Milne’s books, including the two collections of tales he wrote about Pooh Bear: Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) and The House at Pooh Corner (1928). The man who illustrated the 1930s editions of Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows, E. Recommended edition: The Wind in the Willows (Wordsworth Collector’s Editions) (While we’re at it, ‘Ratty’ isn’t a rat but a water vole!) One reviewer supposedly complained that The Wind in the Willows was zoologically inaccurate concerning the hibernating habits of moles, but millions of readers have been able to overlook such trivial details and wallow in the sheer fun of it all. Thanks to Roosevelt’s encouragement, the book was published and has entertained readers, young and old, ever since. Grahame had difficulty finding a publisher for The Wind in the Willows, until endorsement came from a surprising source: the President of the United States of America, Theodore ‘Teddy’ Roosevelt, to whom Grahame sent the manuscript. His retirement provided the inspiration for this, his best-known book for children, which also grew out of the tales Grahame told his invalid son, ‘Mouse’, as bedtime stories. Grahame (1859-1932) was an employee at the Bank of England for a number of years, but in 1908 he retired and spent much of his time engaged with relaxing activities (including ‘messing about in boats’) on the River Thames in Berkshire.