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People who love to read can often point to a single magical book that first captured their imaginations and made them lifelong readers. For instance, at age four I learned to read the Aristocats by Robert B. Sherman, but it wasn’t until I later read The Gift of Magic by Louis Duncan that I was captured completely. But I wanted to know what books inspired other readers, so I had Book Cave ask their readers on social media to name their favorite childhood book. Their answers are as different and varied as the author who wrote them.
Here are the favorites. Did any of these books make an impact on you as a child?
Top Favorite Books Read as a Child
These are the childhood favorites most listed by Book Cave readers, with Nancy Drew drawing more than double the votes of The Secret Garden. But to be fair, Nancy Drew is an entire series versus Burnett’s single book.
Nancy Drew Mysteries by Benson Mildred A. Wirt
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Books that Received the Second Highest Number of Nominations
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Grimm’s Fairy Tales by The Brothers Grimm (including “The Elves and the Shoemaker”)
Books that Tied for Third
Trixie Belden by Julie Campbell
Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery
The Famous Five by Enid Blyton
Hardy Boys Mysteries by Franklin W. Dixon
Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
Ramona by Beverly Cleary
Bobbsey Twins by Laura Lee Hope
The Five Little Peppers by Margot Sydney
Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell
Danny Dunn series by Abrashkin Abrashkin and Jay Williams
Fourth-Place Winners
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
Henry Huggins by Beverly Cleary
Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
Things That Go Bump in the Night by Louis C Jones
A Little Princess by Frances Hodgen Burnett
Dark Shadows by Marilyn Ross
Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle
Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe
The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne
Norse Gods and Giants by Ingri and Edgar Parin d’Aulaire
Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls
Striped Ice Cream by Joan M. Lexau
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson and Donna Diamond
The Two Princesses of Bamarre by Gail Carson Levine
Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
The Gift of Magic by Lois Duncan
The Adventures of The Borrowers by Mary Norton
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
East of the Sun and West of the Moon by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen
Book of Bible Stories by Unknown
The Bernstein Bears: The Big Honey Hunt by Stan Berenstain and Jan Berenstain
Make Way For Ducklings by Robert McCloskey
Mike Mulligan’s Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton
Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White
Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli
The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner
Animals of Farthing Wood by Colin Dann
The Littlest Angel (pop-up book) by Charles Tazewel
Bunny Blue by Catherine Stahlmann
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
The Little Ballerina by Katharine Ross and Heidi Petach
Three Investigators by Robert Author
Swiss Family Robinson by Jean Rudolph Wyss
Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss
The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes by DuBose Heyward and Marjorie Flack
Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd
Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella
Baby Sitters Club Ann M. Martin
Heidi by Johanna Spyri
Call of The Wild by Jack London
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert O’Brien
Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Great and Terrible Quest by Margaret Lovett
Artie The Smarty by Faith McNulty
Captain’s Courageous by Rudyard Kipling
Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne
Amelia Bedelia by Herman Parish
Babar by Jean de Brunhoff
Books that Probably Shouldn’t Be Read by a Child
Last of all, I was surprised when one reader said they’d somehow read this last book at age eight. I was freaked out by it at sixteen, so I’m thinking that was probably not a great read for a child. Definitely an impact there—and not likely a good one. What a reminder to be careful what we leave lying around for eager young eyes to ingest.
Pet Cemetery by Stephen King
My first memory of reading was The Golden Egg Book (Big Little Golden Book), which of course is also my first favorite. A few years later with several reads under my belt, in no particular order, for I cannot decide between the 3 which would be my favorite; Charlotte’s Web by E. B White, James and the Giant Peach
by Roald Dahl, and The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis.
What a fun list! It brought back a lot of memories. It’s amazing that most of the top ones are decades-old (or more) children’s classics.
My personal favorite was the entire Little House series. I literally read it all 9 times between the ages of 7 and 9. YA for tweens and teens was relatively new at the time, and I read MANY of those.