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!