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10 Wonderful Books That All Children Should Read

Inspire

Literary recommendations for stimulating the imagination and for children to begin to read with pleasure.

The best books for children are neither educational nor moralizing. Rather, they are literary works that suggest that there are other views of human life than shopping and fashion trends; they are those that express an imaginative, unconventional and non-commercial vision of the world, and are essential readings because they define who will be and who will not be a reader for the rest of their life.

If, for example, a child is given The Iliad or Don Quixote to read at the age of 12, the most likely result is that the world will lose a reader for good. Both are grueling reads and will only provoke a premature disenchantment with a language and a mythology that they would probably greatly enjoy later on in life. On the contrary, if one gives a child The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or The Jungle Book at that age, he will find the way to beginning to read with pleasure.

Children are the most demanding readers. If they are not grabbed by a book from the outset, or if they detect (and they always do) that the book wants to pontificate under the disguise of entertainment, they will abandon reading it because there are more interesting things to do. Good books are, in large part, good stories well told without being condescending. As Chesterton said, “fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.”

The following is a list of some wonderful and memorable books for children, instruments of stimulation to begin to instill a genuine love of literature.

 

1. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain

 

2. The BFG – Roald Dahl

 

3. Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson

 

4. The Jungle Book – Rudyard Kipling

 

5. The Tigers of Mompracem – Emilio Salgari

 

6. The Hobbit -J.R.Tolkien

 

7. The Cat in the Hat – Dr Seuss

 

8. The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson-Burnett

 

9. The Garden of Abdul Gasazi – Chris Van Allsburg

 

10. The Worst Woman in the World – Francisco Hinojosa

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