20th Century
| Title | Author | Year published | References |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Wonderful Wizard of Oz | L. Frank Baum | 1900 | |
| Five Children and It | E. Nesbit | 1902 | |
| Just So Stories | Rudyard Kipling | 1902 | |
| The Tale of Peter Rabbit | Beatrix Potter | 1902 | |
| King Arthur and His Knights | Howard Pyle | 1902-3 | |
| The Call of the Wild | Jack London | 1903 | |
| Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm | Kate Douglas Wiggin | 1903 | |
| Peter Pan | J. M. Barrie | 1904 | |
| A Little Princess | Frances Hodgson Burnett | 1905 | |
| The Railway Children | E. Nesbit | 1906 | |
| White Fang | Jack London | 1906 | |
| Anne of Green Gables | Lucy Maud Montgomery | 1908 | |
| The Wind in the Willows | Kenneth Grahame | 1908 | |
| The Secret Garden | Frances Hodgson Burnett | 1909/1911 | |
| The Lost World | Sir Arthur Conan Doyle | 1912 | |
| Pollyanna | Eleanor H. Porter | 1913 | |
| The Magic Pudding | Norman Lindsay | 1918 | |
| The Story of Doctor Dolittle | Hugh Lofting | 1920 | |
| Winnie-the-Pooh | A. A. Milne | 1926 | |
| The House at Pooh Corner | A. A. Milne | 1927 | |
| Emil and the Detectives | Erich Kästner | 1929 | |
| Swallows and Amazons | Arthur Ransome | 1930–1931 | |
| Little House in the Big Woods | Laura Ingalls Wilder | 1932 | |
| The Hobbit | J. R. R. Tolkien | 1937 | |
| The Reluctant Dragon | Kenneth Grahame | 1938 | |
| Curious George | H. A. Rey | 1941 | |
| Five on a Treasure Island | Enid Blyton | 1942 | |
| Johnny Tremain | Esther Forbes | 1943 | |
| The Little Prince | Antoine de Saint-Exupéry | 1943 | |
| Pippi Longstocking | Astrid Lindgren | 1945 | |
| The Little White Horse | Elizabeth Goudge | 1946 | |
| Goodnight Moon | Margaret Wise Brown | 1947 | |
| Finn Family Moomintroll | Tove Jansson | 1949 | |
| The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe | C.S. Lewis | 1950 | |
| The Cat in the Hat | Dr. Seuss | 1957 | First high quality limited-vocabulary book, written for early readers |
| James and the Giant Peach | Roald Dahl | 1961 | |
| The Phantom Tollbooth | Norton Juster | 1961 | |
| To Kill a Mockingbird | Harper Lee | 1962 | Pulitzer for book market to children; also seminal work on race. |
| Where the Wild Things Are | Maurice Sendak | 1963 | |
| Charlie and the Chocolate Factory | Roald Dahl | 1964 | |
| A Wizard of Earthsea | Ursula K. Le Guin | 1968 | and sequels broke ground for epic fantasy in several ways: the first book had a non-white hero, the later books explored the role of gender in fantasy and power, and the quest structure is not good vs. evil but balance. |
| Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret | Judy Blume | 1970 | approached puberty more openly than children's books had in the past. |
| A Taste of Blackberries | Doris Buchanan Smith | 1973 | Groundbreaking children's book (Grades 4-6) about death and grieving. Currently in its 19th edition (2005). |
Read more about this topic: List Of Children's Classic Books
Famous quotes containing the word century:
“Necessity gives the law and does not itself receive it.”
—Publilius Syrus (1st century B.C.)