Children’s Fiction

Here is a starting list of recommended fiction for children  (ages 5 & up), most of which make great read alouds.

* Indicates books recommended for ages 10 & up.

Books are listed by genre, and in no particular order.

Fantasy
Dangerous Journey: the Story of Pilgrim’s Progress by Oliver Hunkin
The Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis
Peter Rabbit series by Beatrix Potter
The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
Mr. Popper’s Penguins by Richard & Florence Atwater
Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
The Twenty-One Balloons by William Pene DuBois
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
A Cricket in Times Square by Chuck Jones
Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson
Frog and Toad series by Arnold Lobel
Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle series by Betty MacDonald
Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White
Stone Soup by Marcia Brown
So Much the Better by Megan Means
*A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
*The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
*Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt
*The Giver by Lois Lowry
*A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
*The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
*Tales from The Wonder Book by Nathaniel Hawthorne
*Redwall series by Brian Jacques

Historical Fiction
Little House in the Big Woods and others by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Courage of Sarah Noble by Alice Dalgliesh
The Matchlock Gun by Walter Edmonds
Wagon Wheels by Barbara Brenner
Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink
The Family Under the Bridge by Natalie Savage Carlson
By the Great Horn Spoon! By Sid Fleischman
The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman
Phoebe and the General (or Phoebe the Spy) by Judith Griffin
The Cabin Faced West and others by Jean Fritz
Ben and Me by Robert Lawson
Mr. Revere and I by Robert Lawson
Snow Treasure by Marie McSwigan
The Drinking Gourd: A Story of the Underground Railroad by F. N. Monjo
Blue Willow by Doris Gates
Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell
Mr. Tucket by Gary Paulsen
The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare
The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth G. Speare (this is not about a witch 🙂 )
Diary of an Early American Boy by Eric Sloane
*The Cay by Theodore Taylor
*The Slave Dancer by Paula Fox
*Adam of the Road by Elizabeth Janet Gray
*Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt
*The Golden Goblet by Eloise Jarvis McGraw
*The Door in the Wall by Marguerite de Angeli
*Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
*Men of Iron by Howard Pyle

Realistic Fiction
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson
Betsy and Billy series by Carolyn Haywood
The Ox-Cart Man by Donald Hall
Miss Rumphius (and others) by Barbara Cooney
The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes
Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin
Owls in the Family by Farley Mowat
Sounder by William H. Armstrong
The Railway Children by E. Nesbit
The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew by Margaret Sidney
Brighty of the Grand Canyon by Marguerite Henry
Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry
Justin Morgan had a Horse by Marguerite Henry
The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White
The Secret Garden by Frances H. Burnett
Holes by Louis Sachar
*Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry and others by Mildred D. Taylor
*The Watsons Go to Birmingham, 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis
*Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
*Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls
*Words by Heart by Ouida Sebestyen

Stories about Children from Around the World
A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park
The Kite Fighters by Linda Sue Park
In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson by Bette Bao Lord
Heidi by Johanna Spyri
Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss
The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare
The House of Sixty Fathers by Mendert DeJong
The Wheel on the School by Mendert DeJong
Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates by Mary Mapes Dodge
Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner
*Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
*I, Juan de Pareja by Elizabeth Borton de Trevino
*Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
*The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain
*The Endless Steppe by Esther Hautzig
*Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan