1001 Children’s Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up
Julia Eccleshare, Ed.
Universe, 2009

This kind of reference makes you think about devoting an entire year to reading just children’s books. When you see so many favourites discussed herein, you only want to reread them. And when you see something completely new to you on the page next to a favourite, it only makes you want to read that one instead. It’s a book filled with temptations. (There is a short description in yesterday’s chat, which gives you an idea of the book’s structure, if you missed that.)

I mean, who knew Louise Fitzhugh wrote about characters other than Harriet and Sport? Who knew that Anita Desai wrote for children, too? Should I be adding her, like Penelope Lively, to my MRE list? And do I really need to hear Margaret Mahy’s name yet again before I finally get around to reading her? And why haven’t I already gobbled loads of Monica Hughes books? (Okay, it’s the slightly weird covers: they’ve always put me off, but I know, I know, I know that I need to get past that.)

Nan Chauncy’s Tangara (1961)
Mavis Thorpe Clark’s The Min-min (1966)
Patricia Wrightson’s The Nargun and the Stars (1973)
Louise Fitzhugh’s Nobody’s Family is Going to Change (1974)
Monica Hughes’ Crisis on Conshelf Ten (1975)
Anita Desai’s The Village by the Sea (1982)
Robert Swindells’ Brother in the Land (1984)
Margaret Mahy’s The Changeover (1984)
Victor Kelleher’s Taronga (1986)Gudren Pausewang’s The Cloud (1987)
Bernardo Atxaga’s Memoirs of a Basque Cow (1991)
Malorie Blackman’s Noughts and Crosses (2001)
Jonathan Stroud’s The Amulet of Samarkand (2003)
Rafael Abalos’ Grimpow (2005)
Ursula Dubosarsky’s The Red Shoe (2006)
Timothee de Fombelle’s Toby Alone (2006)

Are there books here that you would nudge me towards sooner rather than later?