The children's lists
Welcome, to the wonderful world of children's books. It is never too early to start forming children in what is True and Good. Through beauty (books), stories transport the child to the transcendental world, turning the child's gaze towards greatness and encouraging them to cultivate their will to do what is good.
I hope these books will find a place in your home. That they will surround your family with a love for wisdom and inspiration to greatness, through the enduring and time-tested tool of human formation, that is, reading good books.
Finally, I am happy to accompany you in this journey. I offer individual and group seminars on "How books form children and cultivating a reading culture in the home." Write to me to ask.
Lucy
How the lists work
Open a list and tick the books you want. Your choices wait for you on every page until you build the list and download it.
- 4–7Open the list
The Nursery
Aesop, Beatrix Potter, the Grimms: stories short enough for bedtime and good enough to read again on Thursday. 31 authors.
- 8–11Open the list
School Days
Roald Dahl, Narnia, The Secret Garden: the age of the long story a child can read alone, and will want to tell you about. 22 authors.
- 12–15Open the list
Adolescence
Anne Frank's diary, Robinson Crusoe, Anne of Green Gables: for the years when a child starts asking whether the world is fair. 24 authors.
- 16–20Open the list
Youth
Austen, Dickens, Dostoevsky, Homer: the canon as adults read it. Meet these at eighteen and you keep them for life. 36 authors.
Take the list to Text Book Centre and ask for the editions by name.
A few notes on these lists.
- This list of books is by no means definitive. It is a starting point for any parent who wants to build a home library and cultivate virtuous character and a love for reading in their children.
- The books selected reflect timeless, universal themes of any classical work, but written in language that children, and grown-up children, will understand and love.
- These books nurture in readers a love for truth, goodness, and beauty.
- The books contain Christian values, or at the very least, do not reflect values that contradict Christian teachings in a way that will deform the readers' ethos.
- Please read the version of the book(s) written by the author indicated, because this is the one I can confidently recommend after research.
