Kid's books... a survey, sort of

[pat]

My son's class has just finished reading one of my all-time favorite books from childhood, "From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler." (I trace my love of art and art museums to wanting to run away to the Metropolitan Museum of Art with the heroine...)

I love children's literature. I still occasionally reread "Little Women" and "Rose in Bloom" by Louisa May Alcott. I think Jon Scieszka is a genius: every intelligent adult I know who has read it falls into fits of laughter over "Math Curse". And "Clack Clack, Moo Moo: Cows that Type" by Doreen Cronin gives me a serious case of hysterical giggles.


So, my question is .... what are your favorite kids' books?

What books did you read as a child change your life?
What books were your favorite escapes?
What books did you discover as an adult which you wish you had known about when you were a kid? (A good friend in college, horrified that I had never read "The Phantom Tollbooth," once gave me a copy for my birthday. I loved it after the first five pages.)
What books do you recommend or buy for your children, nieces and nephews, or your friends' kids?

And any age range here... from "Where the Wild Things Are" and "Goodnight, Moon" to "The Chronicles of Narnia" and "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone."

I'm interested in seeing what books affected people. Not to mention checking into ones I haven't read yet : >

Comments

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

Favourite kids books:

Books I read as a child that could be said to have changed my life:

The Hobbit

Lord of the Rings (can be read as a kid's book)

The Tom Swift books

Godel Escher Back - well I read it at 15, so maybe it counts as a kids book!


Favourite escapes:

Lord of the Rings

Dune

Sherlock Holmes

Children of Morrow

Catseye by Andre Norton


Recent discoveries:

Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials series (reading the last one at the moment)


What would I buy:

Anything they asked for, and the Phillip Pullmans