DRAGON'S DELECTABLES:

150 Best Children's Books:

Recommended Fare for Elementary

and Middle School Educators

Contemporary and Historical Realism

Aiken, Joan.  The Wolves of Willoughby Chase.  Cape, 1962

Alcott, Louisa M.  Little Women.  Roberts Brothers, 1868

Armstrong, William.  Sounder.  Harper, 1969

Avi.  The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle.  Orchard, 1990.

Bauer, Marion Dane.  On My Honor.  Clarion, 1986

Bawden, Nina.  Carrie's War.  Gollancz, 1973

Brink, Carol.  Caddie Woodlawn.  Macmillan, 1935

Burch, Robert.  Queenie Peavy.  Viking, 1966

Burnett, Frances Hodgson.  The Secret Garden.  Heinemann, 1911

Burnford, Sheila.  The Incredible Journey.  Little, 1961

Byars, Betsy.  The Summer of the Swans.  Viking, 1970

Cameron, Eleanor.  A Room Made of Windows.  Little, 1971

Clark, Ann Nolan.  All This Wild Land.  Viking, 1976*

Cleary, Beverly.  Ramona the Pest.  Morrow, 1968

Cleaver, Vera and Bill.  Where the Lilies Bloom.  Lippincott, 1969

Conrad, Pam.  Prairie Songs.  Harper, 1985*

Cormier, Robert.  I Am the Cheese.  Pantheon, 1977

Creech, Sharon.  Walk Two Moons.  HarperCollins, 1994

Curtis, Christopher Paul.  The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963.  Delacorte, 1995

Cushman, Karen.  Catherine, Called Birdy.  Clarion, 1994

Dalgliesh, Alice.  The Courage of Sarah Noble.  Scribner's, 1954

De Angeli, Marguerite.  The Door in the Wall.  Doubleday, 1949

DeJong, Meindert.  The Wheel on the School.  Harper, 1954

Dickinson, Peter.  The Dancing Bear.  Gollancz, 1972

Dodge, Mary Mapes.  Hans Brinker; or, The Silver Skates.  James O'Kane, 1865

Enright, Elizabeth.  Thimble Summer.  Farrar and Rinehart, 1938

Estes, Eleanor.  The Hundred Dresses.  Harcourt Brace, 1944

Fitzhugh, Louise.  Harriet the Spy.  Harper, 1964

Fleischman, Sid.  The Whipping Boy.  Greenwillow, 1986

Forbes, Esther.  Johnny Tremain.  Houghton, 1943

Fox, Paula.  The Slave Dancer.  Bradbury, 1973

Frank, Anne.  The Diary of a Young Girl.  Trans. B.M. Mooyaarf-Doubleday.  Doubleday, 1952

Fritz, Jean.  Homesick: My Own Story.  Putnam, 1982

Gardiner, John.  Stone Fox.  Crowell, 1980

Garfield, Leon.  Smith.  Pantheon, 1967

Gates, Doris.  Blue Willow.  Viking, 1940

George, Jean Craighead.  Julie of the Wolves.  Harper, 1972

Gordon, Sheila.  Waiting for the Rains: A Novel of South Africa.  Orchard, 1987

Hamilton, Virginia.  M.C. Higgins, the Great.  Macmillan, 1974

Harting, Peter.  Crutches.  Trans. Elizabeth Crawford.  Lothrop, 1988

Hassler, Jon.  Four Miles to Pinecone.  Warne, 1977*

Haugaard, Erik.  The Little Fishes.  Houghton, 1967

Holman, Felice.  Slake's Limbo.  Scribner's, 1974

Hubbard, Margaret Ann.  Little Whirlwind.  Macmillan, 1940*

Hughes, Monica.  Hunter in the Dark.  Atheneum, 1982

Hunt, Irene.  Across Five Aprils.  Follett, 1964

Hunter, Mollie.  A Sound of Chariots.  Harper, 1972

Kastner, Erich.  Emil and the Detectives.  Trans. Eric Sutton.  Dodd, Mead, 1930

Kerr M.E.  Is That You, Miss Blue?  Harper, 1975.

Konigsburg, Elaine.  The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.  Atheneum, 1967

Latham, Jean.  Carry On, Mr. Bowditch.  Houghton Mifflin, 1955

Lawlor, Laurie.  Addie Across the Prairie.  Whitman, 1986*

L'Engle, Madeleine.  Meet the Austins.  Vanguard, 1960

Lenski, Lois.  Prairie School.  Lippincott, 1951*

Little, Jean.  From Anna.  Harper, 1972

Lovelace, Maud Hart.  Betsy-Tracy.  Illus. Lois Lenski.  Crowell, 1940*

Lowry, Lois.  Number the Stars.  Houghton, 1989

MacLachlan, Patricia.  Sarah, Plain and Tall.  Harper, 1985

McCloskey, Robert.  Homer Price.  Viking, 1943

Magorian, Michelle.  Good Night, Mr. Tom.  Harper, 1981

Mahy, Margaret.  Memory.  McElderry, 1987

Mathis, Sharon Bell.  The Hundred Penny Box.  Viking, 1975

Montgomery, L.M.  Anne of Green Gables.  L.C. Page, 1908

Myers, Walter Dean.  Scorpions.  Harper, 1988

Nesbit, Edith.  The Story of the Treasure Seekers.  Unwin, 1899

O'Dell, Scott.  The Island of the Blue Dolphins.  Houghton, 1960

Orlev, Uri.  The Island on Bird Street.  Trans. Hillel Halkin.  Houghton, 1984

Paterson, Katherine.  Bridge to Terabithia.  Crowell, 1977

Paton, Walsh, Jill.  A Parcel of Patterns.  Farrar Straus, 1983

Paulsen, Gary.  The Winter Room.  Orchard, 1989

Peck, Robert Newton.  A Day No Pigs Would Die.  Knopf, 1972

Porter, Gene Stratton.  A Girl of the Limberlost.  Doubleday, 1909

Pyle, Howard.  Otto of the Silver Hand.  Scribner, 1888

Rawlings, Margorie Kinnan.  The Yearling.  Scribner’s, 1938

Richter, Hans Peter.  Friedrich.  Trans. Edite Kroll.  Holt, 1970

Rylant, Cynthia.  Missing May.  Orchard, 1992

Sachs, Marilyn.  A Pocket Full of Seeds.  Doubleday, 1973

Sebestyen, Ouida.  Words by Heart.  Little, Brown, 1979

Seredy, Kate.  The Good Master.  Viking, 1935

Snyder, Zilpha Keatley.  The Egypt Game.  Atheneum, 1967

Southall, Ivan.  Josh.  Angus and Robertson, 1971

Speare, Elizabeth George.  The Witch of Blackbird Pond.  Houghton, 1958

Sperry, Armstrong.   Call It Courage.  Macmillan, 1940

Staples, Suzanne.  Shabanu.  Knopf, 1989

Stevenson, Robert Louis.  Treasure Island.  Cassell, 1883

Streatfeild, Noel.  Ballet Shoes.  Dent, 1936

Sypher, Lucy Johnston.  The Edge of Nowhere.  Atheneum, 1972*

Taylor, Mildred.  Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry.  Dial, 1976

Turner, Ann.  Grasshopper Summer.  Macmillan, 1989*

Twain, Mark.  The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.  American, 1876

Uchida, Yoshiko.  Journey to Topaz: A Story of Japanese-American Evacuation.  Scribner’s, 1971

Voigt, Cynthia.  Homecoming.  Atheneum, 1982

Westall, Robert.  The Machine Gunners.  Macmillan, 1975

Wilder, Laura Ingalls.  Little House on the Prairie.  Harper, 1935*

Woodson, Jacqueline.  I Hadn’t Meant to Tell You This.  Delacorte, 1994

Yep, Lawrence.  Dragonwings.  Harper, 1975

Folklore, Myth, and Fantasy

Alexander, Lloyd.  The Book of Three.  Holt, 1964

Andersen, Hans Christian.  The Complete Fairy Tales and Stories.  Trans. Eric Haugaard,  Doubleday, 1974

Babbitt, Natalie.  Tuck Everlasting.  Farrar, 1975

Baum, L. Frank.  The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.  Illus. W.W. Denslow.  George M. Hill, 1900

Bond, Nancy.  A String in the Harp.  Atheneum, 1976

Boston, Lucy.  Children of Green Knowe.  Faber, 1954

Cameron, Eleanor.  The Court of the Stone Children.  Dutton, 1973

Carroll, Lewis.  Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.  Illus. John Tenniel.  Macmillan, 1865

Christopher, John.  The White Mountains.  Macmillan, 1967

Collodi, C.  The Story of a Puppet: or, The Adventures of Pinocchio.  Trans. M.A. Murray.  Unwin, 1891

Cooper, Susan.  The Dark Is Rising.  Atheneum, 1973

Cresswell, Helen.  The Night Watchmen.  Macmillan, 1969

Dahl, Roald.  The BFG.  Farrar Straus, 1982

Engdahl, Sylvia.  Enchantress from the Stars.  Atheneum, 1970

Farmer, Nancy.  The Ear, the Eye and the Arm.  Orchard, 1994

Garner, Alan.  The Stone Book Quartet.  Collins, 1983

Grahame, Kenneth.  The Wind in the Willows.  Schribner, 1908

Hoban, Russell.  The Mouse and His Child.  Harper, 1967

Jansson, Tove.  Finn Family Moomintroll.  Trans. Elizabeth Portch.  Walck, 1958

Jarrell, Randall.  The Bat-Poet.  Illus. Maurice Sendak.  Macmillan, 1964

Juster, Norman.  The Phantom Tollbooth.  Random House, 1961

Kendall, Carol.  The Gammage Cup.  Harcourt, 1959

Kipling, Rudyard.  The Jungle Books.  Macmillan, 1894

Langton, Jane.  The Fledgling.  Harper, 1980

LeGuin, Ursula.  The Wizard of Earthsea.  Parnassus, 1968

L’Engle, Madeleine.  A Wrinkle in Time.  Ariel, 1962

Lewis, C.S.  The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  Macmillan, 1950

Lindgren, Astrid.  Pippi Longstocking.  Trans. Florence Lamboon.  Viking, 1950

Lively, Penelope.  The Ghost of Thomas Kempe.  Heinemann, 1972

Lowry, Lois.  The Giver.  Houghton, 1993

Lunn, Janet.  The Root Cellar.  Lester and Orpen Dennys, 1981

McCaffrey, Anne.  Dragonsinger.  Atheneum, 1977

MacDonald, George.  The Princess and the Goblin.  Routledge, 1871

Mayne, William.  Earthfasts.  Dutton, 1967

McKinley, Robin.  Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of the Beauty and the Beast.  Harper, 1978

Merrill, Jean.  The Pushcart War.  Young Scott, 1964

Milne, A.A.  Winne-the-Pooh.  Illus. Ernest Shepard.  Methuen, 1926

Norton, Andre.  The Crystal Gryphon.  Atheneum, 1972

Norton, Mary.  The Borrowers.  Dent, 1952

O’Brien, Robert.  Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH.  Atheneum, 1971

Park, Ruth.  Playing Beatie Bow.  Nelson, 1980

Pearce, Philippa.  Tom’s Midnight Garden.  Oxford, 1958

Peyton, K.M.  A Pattern of Roses.  Oxford, 1972

Pinkwater, D. Manus.  Lizard Music.  Dodd, 1976

Selden, George.  The Cricket in Times Square.  Farrar, 1960

Sendak, Maurice.  Higglety Pigglety Pop! Or, There Must Be More to Life.  Harper, 1967

Singer, Isaac Bashevis.  Zlateh, the Goat.  Harper, 1966

Spinelli, Jerry.  Maniac Magee.  Little, Brown, 1990

Steig, William.  Abel’s Island.  Farrar, 1976

Sutcliff, Rosemary.  The Sword and the Circle: King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.  Dutton, 1981

Tolkien, J. R.  The Hobbit.  Allen and Unwin, 1937

White, E.B.  Charlotte’s Web.  Harper, 1952

White, T.H.  The Sword in the Stone.  Collins, 1938

Wrightson, Patricia.  Balyet.  McElderry, 1989

Compiled by M. Sarah Smedman and Carol H. Sibley, Minnesota State University Moorhead, Moorhead, Minnesota.