Children's Classics

Classic books have been read and enjoyed by readers for generations.  Many of titles listed here are ones that parents may remember reading when they were young.  Please check with your teacher if you need to read a “classic” for an assignment.

Unless otherwise indicated, books are arranged on the shelves by the author’s last name in the sections below. Titles are also available as:

A = Audiobook
P = Playaway
eA = eAudiobook
eB =  eBook

J Fiction (Grades 2-3)

The Hundred Dresses
by Eleanor Estes                                  A   P
None of her classmates pay much attention to Wanda Petronski until she announces she has 100 dresses in her closet. Everyone laughs and teases her so much that she stops coming to school.   80 pgs.

Pippi Longstocking
by Astrid Lindgren                                A
This book describes the adventures of a lucky little girl who lives with a horse and a monkey--but without any parents--at the edge of a Swedish village.   158 pgs.

Little House on the Prairie
by Laura Ingalls Wilder (J LIT)            A
This is the story of Laura and her family and their travels from the Big Woods of Wisconsin to a new home on the prairie, where they build a house, sink a well, and fight a prairie fire. 
335 pgs.  (Look for other titles featuring Laura’s family.)

Sarah, Plain and Tall
by Patricia MacLachlan                                   A
When their father invites a mail-order bride to come and live with them on their prairie home, Caleb and Anna are captivated by their new mother and hope that she will stay.  58 pgs.  (Look for other titles by this author.)

Winnie-the-Pooh
by A. A. Milne                                     A   P   eA
Stuffed animals come alive for Christopher Robin. In this adventure, Pooh uses a balloon to get honey, Piglet meets a Heffalump, and Eeyore has a birthday.  161 pgs.

The Boxcar Children
by Gertrude Chandler Warner              A
Because they do not want to be separated, four orphans run away and live in an old abandoned boxcar.  154 pgs.  (Look for other titles by this author.)

Charlotte’s Web
by E. B. White                                     A   P   eA
Wilbur, the pig, is saved from becoming dinner by the actions of his spider friend, Charlotte.  184 pgs.  (Look for other titles by this author.)

The Velveteen Rabbit
by Margery Williams Bianco                           A
The Velveteen Rabbit wants to become real, but it is a long transformation for him.    33 pgs.

J Fiction (Grades 3-8)

Little Women
by Louisa May Alcott                          A   P  eA
This is a chronicle of the joys and sorrows faced by the four March sisters as they grow into young ladies in nineteenth-century New England.  502 pgs.    (Look for other titles by this author.)

Peter Pan
by J.M. Barrie                                      A   P
This is the classic story of a boy who would not grow up.  184 pgs.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
by L. Frank Baum
After a cyclone transports her to the land of Oz, Dorothy seeks out the great wizard in order to get back to Kansas.  267 pgs.   (Look for other titles by this author.)

The Secret Garden
by Frances Hodgson Burnett                            A   P  eB
A ten-year-old orphan comes to live in a lonely house on the Yorkshire moors where she discovers an invalid cousin and the mysteries of a locked garden.  345 pgs.

The Incredible Journey
by Sheila Every Burnford                    A   P
Two dogs and a cat travel over 250 miles across the Canadian wilderness to find their family.  148 pgs.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
by Lewis Carroll                                 A
When she falls down a rabbit hole, Alice discovers a world full of amusing characters. 191 pgs. (Look for other titles by this author.)

Ramona the Pest
by Beverly Cleary                                A
This is the story of Ramona’s first days at school and all of the misunderstandings that cause her to become a kindergarten dropout.  192 pgs.     (Look for other titles about Ramona.)

The Wind in the Willows
by Kenneth Grahame                           A   P
This book describes the adventures of Toad, Mole, Rat, and Badger, four animal friends who live along a river in the English countryside.   204 pgs.

The Jungle Book
by Rudyard Kipling                                         A
Selected stories from Kipling’s two Jungle Books feature the adventures of Mowgli, the boy raised by a pack of wolves in an Indian jungle.  258 pgs.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
by C. S. Lewis                                     A   
Through the back of a wardrobe, four English schoolchildren find their way to a magical land called Narnia. They assist Aslan, the golden lion, in his battle against the White Witch, who has cursed the land into eternal winter.  189 pgs.  (Look for other titles in The Chronicles of Narnia series.)

The Call of the Wild
by Jack London                                   A   P   eA
Buck the dog is taken from California to the Alaskan Yukon and is transformed from a pet to an animal that lives in the wild.  139 pgs.

The Cricket in Times Square
 by George Selden                               A  eA
A country cricket finds a home in New York City with a cat and a mouse.   132 pgs.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
by Mark Twain                                    A  P   eA   eB
This book describes the adventures of a mischievous boy and his friends growing up in a Mississippi River town in the nineteenth century.   317 pgs.   (Look for other titles by this author.)

Black Beauty:  The Autobiography of a Horse    
by Anna Sewell                                               A   eA   eB                                
A horse in nineteenth-century England recounts his life and his experiences with both good and bad masters.  301 pgs.

Heidi
by Johanna Spyri                                 A   P
A Swiss orphan is heartbroken when she must leave her beloved grandfather and their happy home in the mountains to go to school and care for an invalid girl in the city.  327 pgs.

Treasure Island
by Robert Louis Stevenson                  A   P  eB
The discovery of a treasure map turns Jim Hawkins’ ordinary life upside-down.  As he sets off on an expedition to search for buried treasure, he discovers that most of the crew are pirates under the leadership of Long John Silver.    296 pgs.

The Hobbit, or, There and Back Again     
by  J. R. R. Tolkien                              A   eB                                     
Bilbo Baggins, a respectable, well-to-do hobbit, lives a comfortable life in his hobbit-hole until the day the wandering wizard Gandalf chooses him to share an incredible journey from which he may never return.  290 pgs

Mary Poppins
by P. L. Travers                                               A
The East Wind brings a new nanny with magical powers to Number Seventeen Cherry Tree Lane.  Mary Poppins takes her charges on adventures no matter where they go.  202 pgs.  (Look for other titles by this author.)

Around the World in Eighty Days    
by Jules Verne                                     A  eA
Phileas Fogg, an eccentric English gentleman, races around the world in 80 days in order to win a bet.  296 pgs.  (Look for other titles by this author.)

The Sword in the Stone
by T. H. White                                     A
Before there was a famous king named Arthur, there was a boy named Wart and a kind old wizard named Merlyn.  This is the tale of Arthur’s journey to become a great king.   256 pgs.

JH Fiction (Grades 6-8)

The Giver  
by Lois Lowry                                     A   P
Jona’s perfect, controlled existence starts to unravel when he becomes the Receiver of Memories and learns the terrible truth behind his seemingly ideal society.  180 pgs.     

Anne of Green Gables           
by L. M. Montgomery                          A   P   eA
When Anne, an eleven-year-old orphan, is mistakenly sent to live on Prince Edward Island with a lonely middle-aged brother and sister, she changes their lives for the better.  383 pgs.  (Look for other titles by this author.)

This list was prepared by the Youth Services Department of the St. Charles Public Library.
(630) 584-9390

Ask Youth Services! at St. Charles Public Library
      630-584-9390 or contact us online.

mg 11/03, revised 6/11