@intparent, we love Snow Treasure too. Based on the story of the Norwegian treasury being hidden from the Nazis.
@intparent I love Snow Treasure too - my boys read my old copy of the book.
I love The Abandoned. I believe it is back in print, it was difficult to find for a while.
I had very, very few books growing up myself, ( as a result I read my parents books, which were way over my head. Valley of the Dolls & The Tin Drum for instance).
But I read many of my children’s books, even in middle & high school.
The Fledgling was one that I was trying to remember.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/186457.The_Fledgling
Don’t mix it up with the vampire book by the same name or the one by Octavia Butler.
For a different perspective, there is the All of a Kind series by Sydney Tayor about a Jewish family in New York at the turn of the century. But maybe not for boys…
Eleanor Farjeon’s books, especially Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard (actually written for adults, but seems like a kid’s book; I read it as a kid), and its sequel Martin Pippin in the Daisy Field (written for kids). Both are collections of short stories woven together with a framing narrative, written in England around WWI.
And my absolute favorite is Elizabeth Enright, her Melendy series (The Saturdays, Four-Story Mistake, Then There Were Five, and Spiderweb for Two). I named two of my kids after two of her characters! Gone-Away Lake and Return to Gone Away Lake are also excellent.
A modern series that is great is The Penderwicks, by Jeanne Birdsall (there are four so far).
I can’t believe no one has mentioned The Secret Garden and A Little Princess, by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I reread that every year while I long for the snow to melt.
Another newer series is by Patricia C Wrede, Dealing with Dragons is the first in the series; for older girls her series with her friend Caroline Stevermer, starting with Sorcery and Cecelia.
William Steig’s Abel’s Island.
In addition to his Fairy books, Andrew Lang wrote a couple of “modern” (he was Victorian) fairy tales, quite funny, about Prince Prigio (collected under the name Chronicles of Pantouflia).
Terry Pratchett’s kids books, starting with Wee Free Men (“Crivens!”).
Those are my comfort books, along with the previously mentioned Edward Eagers.
And I second the Phantom Tollbooth! Especially for reading aloud.
Today is Dr. Seuss Day, and I get to go read in some elementary classrooms. I am reading selections from Shel Silverstein’s “Where the Sidewalk Ends.”
@mathmom, #13…I cannot get over the fact that there is another KM Peyton fan here! Not to mention Rifles for Watie, Alan Garner, Robin McKinley, Rosemary Sutcliff, et al!! Those are among my very favorites.
As a kid, I was particularly fond of the books of Stephen W. Meader and Jack Kjelgaard. (I suppose most people would have considered them “boy’s books.” ) Edward Eager’s books were partially set in New Canaan, the town I grew up in. I loved the fact that his characters read E Nesbit, also.
Other mid-century children’s classics to consider are Elizabeth Enright (The Saturdays, et al), The Pink Motel by Carol Ryrie Brink, everything by Lois Lenski. The Mushroom Planet books by Eleanor Cameron.
Does anyone else have fond memories of The Pink Dress, by Anne Alexander? Although I suppose that it, like many I’ve mentioned, may be considered YA.
Now I have to go read the rest of the thread…
Okay, I read the rest of the thread. I kept saying YES! YES!
Snow Treasure, Mr. Popper’s Penguins, Mary Poppins, Anne of Green Gables…such riches. Adam of the Road! Yes! Lloyd Alexander!
Of course, no one has mentioned Laura Ingalls Wilder, probably because it is too obvious. 
I want to put in a plug for Garth Nix. Sabriel, Lirael, Abhorsen, et al.
OP, when S and his friends were in 1st and second grade, they loved the Brian Jacques Redwall books.
My sister-in-law gave my daughter three books from the Billy and Blaze series. I remember reading them aloud to her over and over. I never could find all the books in the series… this was back in pre-Amazon days.
I collect books illustrated by Robert Lawson. Some he wrote, others were written by others (including a couple mentioned earlier, Mr. Popper’s Penguins and Adam of the Road). Many of them are (in my opinion) really beautiful, and they egg on a collector because some are very easy to find (Rabbit Hill, Story of Ferdinand), while others are rare and obscure.
I also like Cameron’s Mushroom Planet books. They are pretty hard to find at a reasonable price, except for the first one.
Horse books: Billy and Blaze, Walter Farley, Dorothy Lyons…
I mentioned the Little House series:
I had that boxed set too.
I read a lot of the Arthur C Clarke books when I was a teen. I was going to mention the Dragonriders of Pern early books but then remembered they did get kind of steamy in certain scenes, especially between the dragons!
I was going to put the Little House books in but forgot. I adore The Saturdays - my copy belonged to my mother she would have been 11 when it came out - and love, love, loved Spiderweb for Two.
For more recent contemporary books I love Cynthia Voigt’s books about the Tillerman family - just love Dicey and her prickly Grandmother.
I like Garth Nix too.
I read a fair number of horse books, but a lot of them were British - particularly those written by the Pullein-Thompson sisters. And speaking of British books I read an inordinate number of books by Enid Blyton.
This thread is bringing back wonderful memories.
S taught himself to read when he was four with the original Thomas the Tank Engine series from England. He also loved “The Little House” by Virginia Lee Burton and “My Dearest Dinosaur” by Margaret Wild when he was very little. He graduated to “The Boxcar Children” series when he was five and read every single one of them that year. He then fell for “A Wrinkle in Time” and wrote Aunt Beast fan fiction when we seven. Then on to the Redwall and the Dark is Rising series. (This was all pre-Harry Potter.) He was an early and voracious reader…until adolescence. 
D, on the other hand, didn’t read until she was seven. And didn’t really get enthused until she found Harry Potter at nine. She loves teenage distopian novels like the Divergent series, and she has literally read every word that John Green has published. A more obscure favorite that she discovered and I loved as well was “Elsewhere” by Gabrielle Zeven. The one thing she is most looking forward to after APs is being able to read for fun again. (AP Lit, especially Dante’s “Inferno” and “Crime and Punishment”, have just about put her over the edge in the last couple of months.)
We are getting rid of a lot of books in preparation for moving, but none of the Enid Blyton books are in the boxes to go!
Almost forgot The Hobbit, which was written as a children’s book.
Sorry, @Marilyn, I missed that in my enthusiasm
I read a lot of historical fiction as a kid. Howard Pyle’s Men of Iron, the Meader books I mentioned above, Sutcliff. Even, believe it or not, James Fennimore Cooper–The Last of the Mohicans was my favorite book, circa 7th grade–and I recall reading Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Black Arrow, Dickens’ Nicholas Nickleby, and Scott’s Ivanhoe in 5th grade or so.
The Matchlock Gun by Walter D. Edmonds, and when a little older his other books including In the Hands of the Seneca, Guns Along the Mohawk.
Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel!
Picture books from S’s childhood: Dinosaur Bob by William Joyce, Owl Moon by Jane Yolen, Painting the Wind illus by Kevin Hawkes, Chris van Allsburg’s Jumanji, The Garden of Abdul Gasazi.
I read and enjoyed some of these as well, but I think it’s worth mentioning that efforts to recommend these to kids today will probably not end well–they are very slow reads compared to a lot of what is available today.
Susan Cooper’s Dark Is Rising series
Robin Mckinley
MacDonald’s The Princess and the Goblin and The Princess and Curdie
The Streatfeild Shoes books
McKillip’s The Riddlemaster of Hed trilogy
Narnia of course
THANKS for reminding me about Snow Treasure–loved that book as a kid and just ordered another copy.
Picture books–the Zoom series by Tim Wynne-Jones are lovely.
The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo is a more recent book, but great story. My kids loved the Brian Jacques Redwall series when they were young.