Great books for young people?

[Blood Jester]

...Also that whole book series about the Mouse that drove a toy car was great too. Ahhh, the idyllic memories of childhood.

That would be Beverly Cleary, and the mouse was Ralph S. Mouse.

The Mouse and the Motorcycle being the start of that series. "idyllic memories" indeed!

 

[Dinkeldog]

The Mallorean was a disappointment for me, but not totally awful. I thought he did much better with The Elenium, Sparhawk is an interesting character, and the series is a little darker than the others ('darker' being a very relative term).

Dark! Yeah, that's the criterion I use when choosing books for my kids...

Of the ones mentioned here (a couple new ones added), the order (more or less) in which I read them:

The Phantom Tollbooth (age 7--I get free reign at a school library)
Peter Pan
Mrs. Frisbee and the Rats of Nimh
Prydain Chronicles
Various Oz books
The Secret Garden
The Turn of the Screw
Mary Poppins, 2nd book also (Mary Poppins returns?)
a couple books of random fairy tales
Dark is Rising
anything I could find with Robin Hood
Wrinkle in Time series
La Morte d'Arthur (very heavy, I think I skipped Lancelot's book)
Once and Future King
The Hobbit.
The Chronicles of Narnia.
Lord of the Rings
tons of stuff that I can't remember any more.

That was by the time I was 10, so I'd already been playing D&D for a couple years. The three that made the biggest impact on me were The Phantom Tollbooth, Mrs. Frisbee and the Rats of Nimh and the Prydain Chronicles. After that I read everything in the school library and then the public library that involved fantasy settings at all. The librarians had to special order stuff, and it seemed by the time I was 10 that there was nothing else that they could dig up for me. (They recommended against La Morte, and afterward I agreed, so they gave me Once and Future King.)

I would probably add in the Belgariad now, but really only if I were reading with them. I'd definitely add Harry Potter.

 

[Blood Jester]

Dark! Yeah, that's the criterion I use when choosing books for my kids...

...

Don't be a poopy-pants!

SJ side-tracked me on Eddings other stuff.

[edit: need to keep my authors straight]

And let's not start on Dr. Seuss! (Who, by the way, was one on the greatest geniuses the world has ever known if you ask me.)

 

[LcKedovan]

I think I'll add The Hardy Boys series to the list of books posted so far, I loved them as a kid and I think it is a younger people's Sherlock Holmes style.

-Will

 

[SemperJase]

Bumpity bump

This is great. A number of people had mentioned ones I forgot.

Any more?

 

[tsadkiel]

Bumpity bump

This is great. A number of people had mentioned ones I forgot.

Any more?

"A Series of Unfortunate Events", by Lemony Snicket. Un-freakin'-believably good books, with prose so perfect it makes me get up and dance about the room.

Hans Christian Anderson.

Eva Ibbotson's fantasy books.

The Worst Witch books, by Jill Murphy

And while they've been mentioned before, I'm contractually obligated to mention the Oz books.

 

[alsih2o]

"me, alice" alice coopers autobiography, great stuff...explains the difference between alice cooper and vince furnier

"the invisible man"

"mr. tall and mr. small"

"conan"

 

[Tiefling]

Leaving the picture-dominated-book era, I can remember the Chronicles of Narnia being one good read of course, and I also really liked some other cool series (probably less D&D oriented) about uh... Tripods?? ... or something like that, anybody remember what series that was called?

Yah, the Tripod trilogy (The White Mountains, The City of Gold and Lead, and the Pool of Fire), that's a favorite of mine too.

I also recommend Patricia C. Wrede's books - Dealing with Dragons, Searching for Dragons, Calling on Dragons, and Talking to Dragons.

Redwall is good, if you don't mind reading the same story with different character again... and again... and again.

George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" is great as well.

 

[Mistwell]

Well some of these aren't really fantasy, but:

Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged
or The Fountainhead

Ayn Rand, for a child?

Man, you must have been one weird kid Mike.

 

[Mistwell]

George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" is great as well.

Song of Ice & Fire would not be appropriate for a child. Mid to late teens, okay. But a kid? Have you forgotten how disgustingly bloody that book is? How it's lessons are essentially (so far) how everyone is somewhat bad at heart?