* Everything I've read by L'Engle has been awesome (Wrinkle in Time"

* John Bellairs - Only read the trilogy which starts with "The House with the Clock in its Walls" but LOVED it!

* Harriet the Spy - I've probably read this 10 times and still love it.

* Oz - any and all

* Little House - didn't think I'd like 'em but really did

* Roy Chapman Andrews books about his dinosaur-digging expeditions to the Gobi desert in the 30s

* Roald Dahl, particularly Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, Charlie & the Great Glass Elevator and James & the Giant Peach. Some find him too negative or scary for kids, but even when I was quite small I understood his black sense of humor. I think he's one you either "get" and love or don't. Nothin' wrong with that.

* Narnia - Even as a non-Christian, I love these. I think they teach good morality without being too preachy and are lovely adventures besides

* Prydain Chronicles - still faves of mine. An interpretation of Welsh legend including the Arthur mythos

* Grimm's fairy tales - Some feel they are too scary for kids, but I never suffered as a result of reading them or having them read to me.

* Tell Me Why? - A whole series of books which answer all manner of questions that kids ask like "Why is the sky blue?", "How high is up?", etc.

* Macaulay's (might have the spelling wrong, too lazy to go look it up) books on engineering "Castle", "Pyramid", "Cathedral". Excellent!

* The Great Brain series - set in turn-of-the-20th-century Utah, mostly in a little town in the south-east near St. George, The Great Brain is the older brother of the narrator who comes up with all kinds of schemes and gets into and out of multitudes of troubles.

Okay...I'll shut up now...I actually need to go finish unpacking my books and rearranging...

OK Im a school teacher, you shouldnt have asked me, this will take for ever if IM not generall. So I must be
Anything by Tommy DePaola, Stephen Kellog, Arnold Lobel(Frog and Toad!) Seuss, Leo Lionni, Ul De Rico, Rohld Dahl, Bev Cleary, and a few more that will come to mind after I hti "submit"
I also enjoy Harry Potter, The Series Of Unfortunate Events ( Lemony Snickett) and the Spiderwick Chronicles. I loved the Little House books when I was a girl.

Any of Heinlein's 'Juvies' especially (in order of importance)
Have Spacesuit, Will Travel
Tunnel in the Sky
The Door into Summer
StarBeast
The Rolling Stones

And any of Andre Norton's
The Witch World series
Time Traders series

the 'Tom Swift' books (can't remember the Author)

And any by:
Tamora Pierce
L'Engle's

and too many others to list!

Da' WIZ

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nymh

Little kid books: Almost anything by Tommie dePaola, Donald Crewe, Denise Flemming, Taro Gomi ("Everyone Poops" & such), Tana Hoban, Holly Hobbie ("Toot & Puddle" collection), Eric Carle, the pop-up bug books but I forget who does them ("Bugs in a Box", "Jingle Bugs"), Laura Numeroff, Babette Cole, Cynthia Rylant, Mercer Mayer, Sandra Boynton, anything Lynn Munsinger had a hand in (as author or illustrator), Arnold Lobel, Ian Falconer, Dav Pilkey (okay, better stop now!)

I also like "Skippyjon Jones", "Diary of a Wombat"

Bigger kid books: Madeline L'Engle, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Paula Danziger, Judy Blume

I didn't read a lot of "pre-/teen" fiction - I kinda skipped over most of it and went on to adult books fairly early. As such, I never got into Roald Dahl's kid books, but I *love* his adult works.
I also never really got much into Dr. Seuss. I liked "One Fish, Two Fish" and "Yertle the Turtle", but I never really did 'get' The Cat in the Hat.

As a collector of kids (I say kids so as to include both children and young adult literature) and I am super super super super amazingly picky about what I call good, and especially great kids lit.

But with all the classic collections being listed here, I thought I would throw out a new book, that so enraptured me, I was reading it outloud to my boyfriend in the bath tub. :) (And no, there's no infantalism here, we just read to each other in the bath.)

The book is: Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread by Kate Dicamillo

As to classics, or hard to find. . . If you ever have a chance to find a copy of Scuttle, the Stowaway Mouse by Jean Conder Soule, it's quite possible the basis on which I judge any and all Picture books I read.

Meredith

ALL Newbery Award books....
And anything by Judy Blume, Beverly Cleary and Sandra Boynton

Blimey! Slimy, oodles noodles,
slimy sausages for poodles...

~Babette Cole

Its NIMH, for National Institute of Mental Health

My kids are getting older now but I remember they used to dig that book " The Happy Hocky Family" by Lane Smith...It' s very silly.

two series that i really enjoyed were

The Dark is Rising series
and my brother's Tin Tin collection.

I loved the Great Brain series. But my all time favorites were and still are anything by Zelphia Keatley Snynder (?) She wrote a book called "the Changeling" and it has haunted me all this time (I read it when I was in the 5th grade). All of her stories are magical realism.

I also read and re-read, and still have, all the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. And Little Woman.

I loved anything by Tamora Pierce as an adolescent, as well The Hobbit, which will always be a children's book to me, and that really depressing series of books that were written as diaries of young women in and/or coming to America. when I was little, I loved this picture book called Martha B. Rabbit, about this rabbit who was a famous cook in the forest she lived in. That last one could have been an earlier indicator of the obsession I developed with cooking.

Ohhh... I know I shouldn't get started on this, but it's a subject that calls my name! I'll try to control myself...

Some outstanding picture books:

Patricia Polacco's books (even the ones that make me cry!)

books with Illustrations by Trina Schart Hyman --she has illustrated some wonderful tales such as The Water of Life, Rapunzel, Saint George and the Dragon...

Jan Brett's illustrations are brilliant and I love the sub-stories in the borders

Douglas Wood's books such as Grandad's Prayers of the Earth, Old Turtle, The Secret of Saying Thanks are breathtakingly lovely spiritual books

Janet and Allen Ahlberg's books are nostalgic, whimsical and fun --I love "Bye Bye Baby, A Sad Story With a Happy Ending!" Of course their The Jolly Postman is wonderful fun and started a trend...

Babette Cole! Her hilarious, irreverent and lively books are fantastic
--some are delightfully off the wall. Special ones include Prince Cinders, Princess Smartypants, Mommy Laid An Egg (or, where do babies come from) --I love her fearless approach --no subject seems off limits and it all is treated with her zany humour

Barbara Berger's Grandfather Twilight is pure magic

I love Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partidge and Night Noises --both by Mem Fox

Julie Vivas' illustrations give exuberant life to stories

I really could go on... but I'll stop here. <G>

I had a hand me down set of about a hundred of the old hardcover Nancy Drew's when I was a kid and loved the hell out of those books. Now I teach and I finished reading the entire Series of Unfortunate Events series with one of my students who can't read. We finished book the 13th right before she graduated/aged-out of the system. It's one of my favorite memories of her.