I’m a big fan of the Swallows and Amazons series.
Harold & the Purple Crayon
Blueberries for Sal
And The Amazing Bone.
I also like Tomie de Paola.
Has he read * My Fathers Dragon*?
How about Mr Poppers Penguins or Catwings?
Edward Eager did a series of books of which Half Magic was the first one. I read it when I was a girl and it’s the first author whose name I learned. The series is called Tales of Magic and there’s a boxed set. Some of the books involve the same children and some are linked in surprising ways.
Also loved Misty of Chincoteague and the sequel Sea Star. And Black Beauty while we’re on horses.
Can’t leave out Peter Pan and the Little House series.
Leo Lionni books: Swimmy, Tico and the Golden Wings. Really, all of them.
The Bunnicula books: somehow especially great for the tooth-loss years.
The Margaret Wise Brown books beyond Goodnight, Moon.
David Wiesner, June 29, 1999 – loved this!
@WindintheWillows – Do you have Maurice Sendak’s “Mommy?” Pop-up book? It is gorgeous with some of the most animated pop-ups I’ve ever seen, though I’m pretty sure it was after 1950.
Anyone else a fan of the Maud Hart Lovelace Betsy Tacy series? I spent many hours reading that to my daughter, and on one memorable night rapidly editing on the fly when I realized that it broke the Santa Claus myth!
Cheaper By the Dozen, and quite a few of the juvenile Heinlein books, like Have Spacesuit, Will Travel were also favorites. Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth was one I somehow missed when I was a kid, but luckily I found it for my daughter.
@mathmom – I loved those Noel Streatfield books. My mom’s family was Canadian, and she had the English versions. And Madeline L’Engle gave me so many hours of pleasurable reading.
The Blue Fairy Book, and pretty much all of Jules Verne, though I’m not sure if it would be considered Children’s Lit.
In junior high I volunteered in the school library covering new books, with the added bonus of being able to check out new books before they ever made it to the shelf. It almost – almost – made up for the dreadful English teacher who slaughtered Johnny Tremain by having us read 4 pages of it every day for a big chunk of a year. Ugh.
I can see I’ve got some re-reading to do! Thanks for the idea.
witw - are you talking about books from about 1900-1950, or later? Some of the authors you listed were from the 1960’s; what years are you most interested in?
Books from my childhood included the Eloise books, Mary Poppins, and the Mrs. Piggle Wiggle series. When we visited my grandparents, my mother and aunt’s books included the Bobbsey Twins and early Nancy Drew. I also enjoyed the series of Fairy Tale books by Andrew Lang - a number of different colors. The Oz books would be good collectibles.
I still have my copy of the first book I ever read by myself (per my mother) - Sonny Elephant. Apparently it’s now a collectible!
I second “Up a Road Slowly”- one of my all-time favorites. Also, “Outside Over There” by Sendak, “Look-Alikes”, Henrik Drescher (amazing) .
“Andrew Henry’s Meadow” by Doris Burn
Roald Dahl of course. Surprised he hasn’t been mentioned yet.
Freddy the Pig series by Walter R. Brooks
The Pushcart War by Jean Merrill
Paul Gallico especially The Abandoned and The Snow Goose- The Abandoned is my all time favorite book, I’ve never met any one else who has read it. Good for late elementary early middle school age.
Thirding @NJTheatreMOM and @Marilyn on Half Magic, Edward Eager, and all his children’s books. They were my favorites in the 1960s and my children’s favorites 30 years later. I love the N.M. Bodecker illustrations. Another artist has done the covers for the current series, but I think the Bodecker illustrations are still in the books.
We also loved Natalie Babbitt, especially The Search for Delicious, the Homer Price stories by Robert McKloskey, and many of the authors already mentioned.
Seconding Half Magic series; *Up a Road Slowly/i; Homer Price; My Father’s Dragon series.
Suggesting The Boxcar Children series (great for elementary-age independent reading); Rabbit Hill; *The Witch of Blackbird Pond/i
The Wizard of Earthsea trilogy is one of my all time favorites. I also loved The Book of Three series by Lloyd Alexander. My sister and I read and reread those many times.
Good morning everyone! Great, great, great suggestions.
Someone asked about 1950 v later… I’m publishing date agnostic if the book is great. I have found that books written between the late 1800s and ‘mid-century’ (say into the 60s) tend to be wordier and more character-driven than plot driven.
Just a theory (!) but I think the rising popularity of comic books and cartoons in the 50s and 60s onwards drove children’s books to more action-oriented. Don’t get me wrong, we love great action/plot-driven books and comics (e.g. Tin-Tin, Asterix)… but especially as a mom of boys, I especially hunt for books in which there is an intimate and deep dive into the characters and, in general, a slower paced plot with plenty of room for ponderings, ruminations, and time to dwell inside a character’s head. My sons seem to be naturally attracted to the high octane books (especially my 5-year-old who really goes for “hero” main characters like Zita from Zita the Space Girl or Speed Racer), so I want to fortify that with books that take the scenic route, and do lots of intellectually nutritious meandering.
I’d say A.A. Milne’s Winnie-The-Poo is a good balance between plot and character as I’ve seen in a kids book. You don’t just go with Pooh on the adventure but you worry with him, you watch his mind get all mixed up, and you identify a bit along the way! Very different kind of lit but similar thinking-time-balanced-with-action time would be Calvin and Hobbes. Very action oriented and yet you can’t read Calvin without getting to really know Calvin. (By the way my 6yo is basically Calvin. Equal parts brilliant and rascal. But that’s another post!)
My all time favorite is reflected in my handle. I read the whole book to my boys, unabridged, every spring. It’s a tradition I started three years ago when eldest was first able to sit through the whole thing.
When day the first crocuses are sighted in Central Park, that night we begin chapter 1. We got a fresh blanket of snow here in NYC so it may be a bit!
I’m just floored by what great children’s literature can give little minds. I have a Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of Chicago and let me tell you, the passage below is THE BEST characterization of ‘animal sense’ I’ve ever come across in my life. From Chapter 5, “Dulce Domum”:
“We others, who have long lost the more subtle of the physical senses, have not even proper terms to express an animal’s inter-communications with his surroundings, living or otherwise, and have only the word `smell,’ for instance, to include the whole range of delicate thrills which murmur in the nose of the animal night and day, summoning, warning? inciting, repelling. It was one of these mysterious fairy calls from out the void that suddenly reached Mole in the darkness, making him tingle through and through with its very familiar appeal, even while yet he could not clearly remember what it was. He stopped dead in his tracks, his nose searching hither and thither in its efforts to recapture the fine filament, the telegraphic current, that had so strongly moved him. A moment, and he had caught it again; and with it this time came recollection in fullest flood. Home!”
I have a ton of work today so I won’t ben back on till late tonight but please keep the recs coming.
Thanks friends!!
@mathmom, we all love Sylvia Engdahl at our house! Another book we love is Snow Treasure by Marie McSwigan.
How about the Joan Aiken books? The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, Black Hearts in Battersea, etc., are all wonderful.
From the last century, The Light Princess, by George MacDonald is great. It seems quite modern, quite light, and has the feel of a fairy tale with a sense of humor. Get the small version illustrated by Maurice Sendak for bonus points.
How could I forget The Swallows and Amazons? Probably my favorite non-fantasy series from childhood. I still read them regularly. Comfort food reading.
And I forgot favorite ** picture books**:
Tuesday by David Wiesner - sly surreal and one older son’s favorite books
Freight Train by Donald Crews - the first book older son read by himself
Grandfather Twilight - by Barbara Helen Burger
Emma’s Rug - by Alan Say
Go Away Big Green Monster by Edward Emberly a book with very clever holes, empowering your kid can literally make the monster go away as you turn the pages.
I like Edward Eager and loved that his characters loved E Nesbit. Half Magic is my favorite. It’s like those pesky three wishes, so hard to get the wording right!
Loved those Joan Aiken books, but my boys didn’t. 
They did like Jane Langton’s Diamond in the Window (and it’s sequel whose name escapes me - the house it’s based on is right on a main drag in Concord MA.)
I too found that older kids books were good for my kids who flew through books far too quickly. They still go for long books though now it tends to be 700+ page fantasy and sci fi.
If you like historical fiction, try Elizabeth Gray - Adam of the Road, I Will Adventure, etc.
Also the Clyde Robert Bulla books. They’re a bit thinner and easier to read. A Lion to Guard Us, Star of the Wild Horse Canyon, Pirate’s Promise, A Sword in the Tree, etc.
For picture books, I love (and have some copies signed) several of those illustrated by Susan Jeffers, in particular her beautiful “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” and “Wynken, Blynken and Nod,” and “Hiawatha.”
“Make Way for Ducklings” is a favorite of women in three generations of my family (I have a signed copy of that as well). My D now lives in Boston, just a couple of blocks from the Public Garden, and the duckling statues there were featured in her engagement photo shoot. I have several family stories focused on that book, and mean to write them up. (One involved my D being at a church service one day when she was under two, seeing a copy of “Ducklings” in the hands of another child, and getting hysterical, thinking he had somehow taken HER book, which was of course safely at home. She of course had no conception of the book publishing industry and multiple identical copies of books.)
For chapter books, favorites are Winnie the Pooh, Charlotte’s Web, the Betsy, Tacey and Tib series (that series not great literature, but much enjoyed as a young girl), Anne of Green Gables, The Secret Garden, Five Little Peppers and How they Grew, and Little Women. Need to bone up on more titles appealing to boys, as I have a grandson on the way. 
Selecting books for the next generation is one of my greatest life joys.