Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is Books Written Before I Was Born.
Oh dear. Is this topic just an under-handed way to get me to disclose how old I am???? Because I’ll tell you, relative to the majority of the book bloggers I know, sometimes I feel like I’m ANCIENT. (OK, so I’m in my 50s, which isn’t completely over the hill just yet!)
Anyhoo… I thought I’d zoom in on children’s books, written before I was born, that stand the test of time! Almost all of these are books that I read myself as a child, and then shared with my own kids too.
- Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White (1952)
- All-of-a-Kind Family by Syndey Taylor (1951)
- Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (1868)
- The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare (1958)
- My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George (1959)
- A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle (1962)
- Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell (1960)
- Dr. Seuss’s Sleep Book by Dr. Seuss (1962)
- Knight’s Castle by Edward Eager (1956)
Honorable mention: I’d include these books as well, but I didn’t read them until I was an adult! Still, they definitely belong on a list of favorite children’s books — and they were certainly written before I was born:
- The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis (1950)
- Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery (1908)
- The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien (1954)
Are any of these your favorites too?
What books written before you were born do you really love?
Please share your link so I can check out your top 10!
Bookshelf Fantasies 
The Chronicles of Narnia was on my list! Have you read all of the books in that series?
My post.
Yes! I read them all with my son about 8 or 9 years ago, which was really fun. (I could have lived without the last book, but at that point, I needed to finish!)
I’m so glad that I’m seeing so many people put Island of the Blue Dolphins and The Phantom Tollbooth on their lists!
Both excellent books!
What a fun prompt! Narnia and Anne of Green Gables were my favorites as a child. I hated Island of the Blue Dolphin though. It seemed so scary/depressing!
It was pretty upsetting, for sure! i remember there was a movie (or maybe TV) version that also made a big impression at the time.
I love that we’re in the same age decade, lol:-) I see a lot of old favorites on your list, and The Witch of Blackbird Pond! That’s a good one.
Ha, yes, we’re peers!! Nice to have a comrade in my decade. 🙂
I love Anne of Green Gables!
It’s really wonderful! I can’t believe I didn’t read it as a kid!
Some beautiful classics there.
I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of Little Women! I’d actually like to go back and read (or reread) more of Louisa May Alcott’s books.
Great list! Charlotte’s Web, The Phantom Tollbooth and Wrinkle in Time are favorites of mine, and I have fond memories of The All-of-a-Kind Family. I’d probably have to add The Secret Garden, the Mary Poppins books, and the Oz series.
All great choices! And I remember reading 101 Dalmatians (the original story, not the Disney version) while home sick and having nightmares about all the puppies. 🙂
Great list! I remember reading Charlotte’s Web in school and loving it, and I’d really like to cross Anne of Green Gables off my TBR one day.
I’m so glad I finally did! I read it about two years ago, and ended up reading the entire series. Next up, I have a trilogy by the Anne author that I want to read this year.
The Anne books are so good, but I think I like the Emily books and the Pat books even better.
Great to hear! I’m committed to reading the Emily books in 2021!
The Fellowship of the Ring was on my list too. Here’s my TTT.
Such a great book! I want to reread the LOTR books sometime soon.
I see some great ones in there and you have given me ideas on books I never got to, like Anne of Green Gables and A Wrinkle in Time. I loved My Side of the Mountain – read it a few times!
Same for My Side of the Mountain — I remember really being inspired by it as a kid, and then loved reading it with my son and seeing how excited he was about the story.
Yes, I read it with a couple of my kids and we had the same experience! 🙂
I love everything by L. M. Montgomery, Little Women, and Lord of the Rings. I just made a list of my favorite Newbery books, since the award was announced recently. The ones I like the best I didn’t read until I was taking a children’s lit class in college!
https://www.nerdandahalf.com/post/childhood-favorites-and-newberys-of-old
Very cool, thanks for sharing your link! There are definitely some children’s classics that I didn’t actually read until I was an adult, and I’m always open to reading more.
Woohoo! You picked a great set of books this week — including two I don’t know (Knight’s Castle and All-of-a-Kind Family), which is not an easy trick with me. Not to mention a Dr. Seuss I completely forgot about.
Little Women and My Side of the Mountain are my favorites here (I have a Jean Craighead George book on my list this week too — Childhood Me GOBBLED up her canon), but I’ve read all the others except The Phantom Tollbooth.
–RS
There are so many fantastic children’s classics, and I never get tired of exploring them! Since we have so many books in common, I really recommend checking out Edward Eager’s books. Half Magic is terrific!
Ohh, that’s why the name seemed vaguely familiar — Half Magic! Yes, thank you for the reminder/encouragement — that’s one of those I keep meaning to track down. I never get tired of exploring children’s classics either.
I think Half Magic is the one more people are familiar with. I had read Knight’s Castle as a child and remembered the story, but not the title or author. It was only when I picked up Half Magic with my son and then started exploring his other books that I realized that Knight’s Castle was the book I’d been trying to identify!