Top 100 List of the All Time
Best Classic Literature for Children and Young Adults
A Sick Day for Amos McGee by Philip C. Stead - Age 2 and up
Corduroy by Don Freeman - Age 2 and up
Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown - Age 2 and up
Love You Forever by Robert Munsch - Age 2 and up
On the Night You Were Born by Nancy Tillman - Age 2 and up
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle - Age 2 and up
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin, Jr. and John Archambault - Age 3 and up
Fox in Socks by Dr. Seuss - Age 3 and up
The Giving Tree by Shell Sliverstein - Age 3 and up
Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson Age 3 and up
The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper - Age 3 and up
Llama Llama Red Pajama by Anna Dewdney - Age 3 and up
Oh the Places You'll Go! by Dr. Seuss - Age 3 and up
The Saggy Baggy Elephant by K. Jackson and B. Jackson - Age 3 and up
The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter - Age 3 and up
Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne - Age 3 and up
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good ,Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst - Age 4 and up
Curious George by H.A. Rey - Age 4 and up
George and Martha by James Marshall - Age 4 and up
Horton Hatches the Egg by Dr Seuss - Age 4 and up
If You Give a Moose a Muffin by Laura Numeroff - Age 4 and up
I Wish You More by Amy Krouse Rosenth - Age 4 and up
The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn - Age 4 and up
Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse by Kevin Henkes - Age 4 and up
The Littlest Angel by Charles Tazewell - Age 4 and up
Stellaluna by Janell Cannon - Age 4 and up
Stone Soup by Jon J. Muth - Age 4 and up
The Story about Ping by Marjorie Flack
The Ugly Duckling by Hans Christian Andersen - Age 4 and up
The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams - Ages 4 and up
Matthew and the Sea Singer by Jill Paton Walsh - Age 5 and up
Skippyjon Jones by Judy Schachner - Age 5 and up
The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats - Age 5 and up
The Green Children by Kenny Chumbley & Jim McGuiggan - Age 5 and up
Jumanji by Chris Van Allsburg - Age 6 and up
A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein - Age 6 and up
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne - Age 6 and up
Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater - Age 7 and up
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett - Age 7 and up
Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume - Age 7 and up
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume - Age 8 and up
Black Beauty by Anna Sewell - Age 8 and up
Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis - Age 8 and up
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl Age 8 and up
Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White - Age 8 and up
Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh - Age 8 and up
Holes by Louis Sachar - Age 8 and up
The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles by Julie Andrews Edwards - Age 8 and up
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis - Age 8 and up
My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George - Age 8 and up
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens - Age 8 and up
The One and Only Ivan, K.A. Applegate - Age 8 and up
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster - Age 8 and up
The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White - Age 8 and up
Treasure Island Robert Louis Stevenson - Age 8 and up
Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls - Age 8 and up
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle - Age 8 and up
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll - Age 9 and up
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery - Age 9 and up
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson - Age 9 and up
Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick - Age 9 and up
Gulliver's Travels, by Jonathan Swift - Age 9 and up
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling - Age 9 and up
Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell - Age 9 and up
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery - Age 9 and up
Number the Stars by Lois Lowry - Age 9 and up
Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry, by Mildred D. Taylor
Watership Down by Richard Adams- Age 9 and up
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain - Age 10 and up
The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill - Age 10 and up
The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling - Age 10 and up
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott - Age 10 and up
Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt - Age 10 and up
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank - Age 12 and up
The Giver by Lois Lowry - Age 12 and up
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes - Age 12 and up
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien - Age 12 and up
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens - Age 12 and up
That Was Then, This is Now by S.E. Hinton - Age 12 and up
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton - Age 12 and up
The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings - Age 12 and up
Animal Farm by George Orwell - Young Adult
Beauty & the Beast by Rebecca Hammond Yager - Young Adult
Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger - Young Adult
Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra - Young Adult
Emma by Jane Austen - Young Adult
Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon - Young Adult
Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury - Young Adult
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell - Young Adult
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou - Young Adult
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë - Young Adult
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo - Young Adult
Lord of the Flies by William Golding - Young Adult
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck - Young Adult
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen - Young Adult
Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain - Young Adult
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee - Young Adult
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway - Young Adult
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith - Young Adult
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte - Young Adult
While it would be nearly impossible to list all the best books in classic literature for children and young adults, we have created a compilation based upon selections from our staff, reviewers, and fans of Literary Classics.
Our list of top 100 books for children and young adults is sorted by recommended reading age.
This top 100 list of best books for children and young adults has been created as a reading guide to help parents and young readers gain exposure to some of the most highly respected works of literature of all time.
(Feel as though our list is lacking? Let us know. We'd love to hear your comments.)
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