Recommended:
- Everything in the Puffin series – all of the Newbery Medal and Honor books
- Aesop's Fables
- Aladdin and Other Tales from the Arabian Nights (Everyman's Library of Children's Classics)
- Altsheler, Joseph A. (American Henty)
- And the Green Grass Grew All Around (Poems and Songs)
- Andersen, Hans Christian
- Anne of Green Gables series and Emily of New Moon series
- Babar series
- Barron, T. A.
- Baum, L. Frank
- Bevis: the Story of a Boy – Richard Jefferies
- Book of Nursery and Mother Goose Rhymes - Marguerite de Angeli
- Bounty Trilogy – Nordhoff and Hall
- Boy Life on the Prairie (and other Hamlin Garland, mainly Middle Border series)
- Boys and Girls Plutarch
- Boys Froissart - Sidney Lanier
- Boys King Arthur - Sidney Lanier
- Bullfinch's Mythology
- Burroughs, Edgar Rice
- Chalet School series
- Child's Garden of Verses
- Colum, Padraic
- Cooper, James Fennimore
- Curious George series
- D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths
- de la Mare Verse (and short stories)
- Dink Stover series
- Dove (two versions of this book: one for kids, one for adults)
- Doyle, A. C.
- Dr. Doolittle series
- Dr. Seuss
- Enright, Elizabeth
- Fair Girls and Grey Horses – Pullein-Thompson
- Farnol, Jeffery
- Frank Merriwell series
- Freddy the Pig series
- Golden Treasury of Myths and Legends
- Goldsmith (mainly Vicar of Wakefield but verse too)
- Grimm's' Fairy Tales
- Hans Brinker
- Hardy Boys series
- Heidi
- Henty, G. A.
- I Saw Esau – Opies (others too)
- John, W. E.
- Lambs' Tales from Shakespeare
- Lays of Ancient Rome
- Limberlost series
- Little Women series
- London, Jack
- MacDonald, George
- Madeline series
- Mary Poppins series
- Milne, A. A.
- Mundy, Talbot
- My Side of the Mountain (Trilogy) – all by Jean Craighead George
- Nancy Drew series
- Narnia series
- Nesbit, E.
- New Oxford Book of Children's Verse
- Omoo
- Oxford Book of American Children's Verse
- Oxford Book of Children's Verse
- Oxford Illustrated Classics (8-volumes)
- -The Bible Story
- -The Odyssey
- -El Cid
- -Don Quixote
- -Canterbury Tales
- -Gulliver's Travels
- -Pinocchio
- -Moby Dick
- Paddington Bear series
- Pease, Howard
- Penrod -- Booth Tarkington
- Pilgrim's Progress
- Potter, Beatrix
- Pullman, Philip (mainly “His Dark Materials”)
- Pyle, Howard
- Robinson Crusoe
- Rover Boys series
- Sabatini, Rafael
- Scott, Sir Walter (mainly verse but prose too)
- Seredy, Kate
- Seventeen -- Booth Tarkington
- Stevenson, R. L.
- Sutcliff, Rosemary
- Swallows and Amazons series
- Tanglewood Tales - Nathaniel Hawthorne
- Tales of Washington Irving
- Tatar, Maria (ed.) – The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales
- The Swiss Family Robinson
- The Wind in the Willows
- Tom Swift series
- Twain, Mark
- Twice Told Tales - Nathaniel Hawthorne
- Two Years Before the Mast
- Typee
- Uncle Remus
- Verne, Jules
- Watson (ed.) The Cambridge Guide to Children’s Literature in English
- Wells, H. G. (particularly the Outline of History but also sci-fi)
- Wonder Book – Nathaniel Hawthorne
