Books aimed at Children+
Age 7 and upwards
Style: Classic
Attitude: Positive
Kay Harker comes home for the Christmas holidays and finds himself helping Cole Hawlings, a slightly unusual Punch and Judy showman, to keep his Box of Delights from falling into the hands of the Wolves, led by Abner Brown.
A magical and exhilarating scramble, full of innocent enjoyment, adventure and friendship.
Classic, Humorous, Magic
Style: Good
Attitude: Positive
Bertie grows up in South Africa and befriends a lion cub which must go to a circus when he goes to school in England.
Growing-Up, Spooky, War
Style: Good
Attitude: Positive
Carrie and Nick Willow are evacuated to Wales.
Classic, Friendship, Growing-Up, War
Style: Good
Attitude: Positive
Tolly, a shy 8-year-old, goes to visit his great-grandmother at her house, Green Knowe, and discovers that there are other children playing there.
Classic, Magic
Style: Good
Attitude: Positive
Granny Oldknow is making patchwork quilts out of materials from the inhabitants of GK in the 19th century: blind Susan, Jacob her black servant, Sefton, Caxton, Maria, Captain Oldknow and the Grandmother.
Classic, Magic
Style: Classic
Attitude: Positive
Eight children witness the history of the world of Narnia, from its creation out of inchoate blackness to the extinction of its stars and the return of darkness.
Simple adventure stories, with a clear Christian basis. Heroic valour and virtue among straightforward characters who must each face individual challenges, overcome their own shortcomings, and decide where they place their trust.
Animal, Classic, Fantasy, Growing-Up, Magic
Style: Good
Attitude: Take Care → Positive
Will Stanton, seventh son of a seventh son, wakes on his 11th birthday to discover that he is the last of the Old Ones, destined to aid The Light in protecting the world we live in against The Dark.
A boy coming to terms with new-found powers and responsibilities; family life; love for music
Growing-Up, Magic
Style: Good
Attitude: Positive
Intelligent and talented 18-year-old Matt travels to Africa to help war-injured children, leaving his widowed mother and younger sister Olly behind.
Positive and thought-provoking look at the effects of war on the children of Africa, and on the difference one determined young man can make.
Animal, Growing-Up, Thought-provoking, War
Style: Good
Attitude: Positive
The story begins with Robin in hospital after he has been attacked and badly injured by a dog.
Family, Friendship, Humorous
Style: Good
Attitude: Positive
Ping and Tolly are both staying at Green Knowe when the dislikeable Dr Melanie Powers comes, looking for books of magic left behind by the 16th-century Dr Vogel.
Classic, Magic
Style: Good
Attitude: Unobjectionable
The Trewissick grail, found in [Over Sea, Under Stone] has been stolen.
Adventure, Arthurian, Magic
Style: Classic
Attitude: Positive
Shasta, a Narnian living among Calormenes, escapes on Bree, a Narnian horse.
Criticised for its black-and-white portrayal of the Narnians and Calormenes. Straightforward adventure journey tale demonstrating overcoming prejudice and pride, pushing oneself to ones limits to help friends, and trusting even when you can't see the outcome.
Animal, Classic, Fantasy, Growing-Up, Magic
Style: Classic
Attitude: Positive
Tirian is king of Narnia in a time of peace when a plot involving the Calormenes and a false Aslan threaten the country.
Night falls on Narnia. Good and bad in creatures are not as obvious to us as might be expected. The need to stand and fight for what you see is right. Different Gods. Life in glory after death.
Animal, Classic, Fantasy, Growing-Up, Magic
Style: Average
Attitude: Unobjectionable
Charlie Ashanti, the hero of the story, is able to speak Cat, which is not only the language of the domesticated variety but also that of the wild kind, such as lions.
Interesting and enjoyable. Question of animal intelligence.
Adventure, Family, Friendship, SciFi
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Style: Classic
Attitude: Positive
The Pevensie children find a mysterious winterbound land when they step through a wardrobe in a forgotten room of the house they're evacuated to.
First-written and most famous of the Narnia stories, whimsical, moving, human and ultimately Christian without that detracting from its readability.
Animal, Classic, Fantasy, Growing-Up, Magic
Style: Classic
Attitude: Positive
Sara Crewe is sent to school in London by her father before he returns to India.
Classic riches-to-rags-to-riches story of a virtuous child, abandoned to the mild cruelties of grasping spinsters. Virtue is rewarded, vice is shamed, and large and well-to-do families are cheerful and welcoming.
Classic, Friendship, Girls, Historical
Style: Classic
Attitude: Positive
Polly and Digory are tricked into travelling by Uncle Andrew's magic rings to other worlds.
A highly-readable fantasy story relating to Christian beliefs, especially about creation. Faintly avuncular in style. Magical elements.
Animal, Classic, Fantasy, Growing-Up, Magic
Mrs Frisby and the Rats of Nimh
Style: Classic
Attitude: Take Care → Positive
Widowed fieldmouse Mrs Frisby turns to the rats for help when her family's house is threatened, only to find them abnormally intelligent and with technology.
A gentle story, highlighting a mother's love for her children and the risks she'll take to help them. Normal animal behaviour combined with intelligent actions and, in the case of the laboratory-enhanced Rats, developed technology which they're giving up.
Animal, Classic, Thought-provoking
Style: Average
Attitude: Positive
The Drew family and their Great Uncle Merry are staying in a Cornish house on holiday when the children find an old map which seems to lead to some treasure buried "Over the sea and under the stone".
Straightforward adventure story, slightly dated; ordinary family life
Adventure, Arthurian, Family, Fantasy
Style: Classic
Attitude: Positive
The Pevensies return to Narnia to discover that 1,000 years have passed and that they are the stuff of legends, as are the talking animals of Narnia and Aslan himself.
Conventional adventure story with young heroes and natural forces overcoming adult humans who are clearly in the wrong.
Animal, Classic, Fantasy, Growing-Up, Magic
Style: Classic
Attitude: Some Care Needed → Positive
Erstwhile King Rudolf of Ruritania is drugged and then kidnapped the day before his coronation; his guards Sapt and Fritz happen upon Rudolf Rassendyll, an Englishman abroad, who bears an uncanny resemblance to the king, due to the king's ancestor's having fathered a child somewhere in the Rassendyll ancestry.
Swashbuckling adventure with a dashing hero, a bearded villain and a lovely heroine.
Adventure, Boys, Classic, Historical, Romantic
Style: Classic
Attitude: Positive
Mary Lennox, living in her uncle's lonely house on the Yorkshire Moors, finds the joy of living when she discovers the Secret Garden, locked away ten years before.
Classic, Growing-Up
Style: Good
Attitude: Positive
Peter buys a model ship and discovers it to be magical, having the power to grow and shrink and to travel to distant places and times.
Magic
Style: Classic
Attitude: Positive
Eustace returns with Jill to Narnia where they must travel across little-explored areas of the land to find a prince lost for years.
A Quest tale, taking Eustace and Jill through hardships, trials of friendship and faith in their guide, and near-despair as they have to rescue a lost prince from his captor, a witch. Death as a return to life.
Animal, Classic, Fantasy, Growing-Up, Magic
Style: Average
Attitude: Unobjectionable
Will, Bran and the Drews are gathered in Wales for the final part of the quest begun with the finding of the grail in Trewissick.
Awkward storyline; some nice set pieces; Good & Evil as two opposing forces
Arthurian, Magic
Style: Good
Attitude: Edifying
The story centres round the Balicki family set against the bleak landscape of war-torn Warsaw and the wreck that is post war Germany.
Classic, Family, War
Style: Good
Attitude: Positive
A mediaeval boy living at Green Knowe discovers that by going to the stones behind the house, he can meet the people who have lived and will live in the house.
Classic, Historical, Magic, Spooky
Style: Good
Attitude: Positive
Ping, the young refugee who stayed with two friends at Green Knowe in "The River.
The opening section, describing Hanno's childhood in the jungle is descriptive and moving. While the book is clearly aimed at the younger reader, the issues involved are not to be dealt with lightly: the author describes the loneliness of the caged animal, tempering this with the friendship of the zookeeper. Ping is forced into stealing to keep the creature fed.
Classic, Magic
The Swallows and Amazons Series
Style: Classic
Attitude: Positive
Three families of children enjoy themselves outdoors in general, and sailing in particular, over several holidays.
Classic set of gentle outdoor adventure stories, often with a sailing theme. Healthy combination of imagination and down-to-earth competence in outdoor pursuits. Nicely-rounded characters inhabiting an inter-war landscape where children are allowed a wide degree of freedom but where politeness and consideration are uppermost. The books' uncomplicated style coupled with their outdoor milieux is like fresh air to a modern reader.
Classic, Friendship, Growing-Up, Seafaring
Style: Weak → Average
Attitude: Some Care Needed → Unobjectionable
Ben is captured by slave traders while Ned is rescued from the sea by friendly travelling entertainers who are themselves taken by the slave traders under false pretences.
Easy-reading adventure story with heroism and friendship. Simple characterisations. Surprisingly many violent deaths.
Adventure, Historical, Seafaring
Style: Good
Attitude: Positive
Lord Hunter travels on the Arctic Tern with a message of peace from Queen Elizabeth of England to the King of Spain.
Remorse at assisting in an evil act, however tempted; redemption by finding and punishing the person responsible.
Adventure, Historical, Seafaring, Spooky
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Style: Classic
Attitude: Positive
Lucy & Edmund along with Eustace their spoilt and peevish cousin find themselves on board a Narnian ship with King Caspian, travelling to the outer reaches of Narnia, encountering new creatures and strange places.
A voyage-of-discovery story with interesting people and challenges. Each character has to undergo a trial to grow in themselves.
Animal, Classic, Fantasy, Growing-Up, Magic
Style: Good
Attitude: Positive
Set in the Bronze Age on the Downs near the Ridgeway.
Historical
Style: Classic
Attitude: Positive
Katy Carr, a 12-year-old in turn-of-the-century America, has an accident through her own disobedience when she falls from a swing and injures her back.
Classic, Family, Girls
Style: Good
Attitude: Positive
Arriman Canker is the mighty Wizard of the North of England.
Humorous, Magic
Style: Good
Attitude: Positive → Edifying
The Water Rat senses that the River is disturbed, just as he receives notice of a delivery for him in the town, at the same time as the Badger hears of plans to tear down the Wild Woods to build new houses.
A quiet story contemplating the autumn of one's life, and highlighting the value of what's gone before without losing sight of the future. Quiet companionship and unspoken generosity. The responsibility of the older generation for the younger, and vice versa.
Friendship