# The 22 Greatest Children's Books of All Time

> Picture books read a thousand times sit next to novels that swallowed a whole summer. The age of the reader was never really the point.

*By YPB Team · Published August 9, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/the-22-greatest-childrens-books-of-all-time*

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## Current results (0 votes)

1. **Charlotte's Web**
   E.B. White's 1952 story of a pig saved by a spider who writes in her web.
2. **The Very Hungry Caterpillar**
   Eric Carle's 1969 picture book with holes punched through the fruit.
3. **Where the Wild Things Are**
   Maurice Sendak's 1963 book in which a boy in a wolf suit sails off to rule the monsters.
4. **Goodnight Moon**
   Margaret Wise Brown's 1947 bedtime book that says goodnight to everything in the great green room.
5. **Matilda**
   Roald Dahl's 1988 novel about a gifted girl, a monstrous headmistress and a quiet act of revenge.
6. **Charlie and the Chocolate Factory**
   Dahl's 1964 tale of a golden ticket and five children who mostly deserve what they get.
7. **The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe**
   C.S. Lewis's 1950 novel in which four siblings walk through a wardrobe into an endless winter.
8. **Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone**
   The 1997 novel that sent an eleven-year-old to a school for wizards and changed publishing.
9. **The Tale of Peter Rabbit**
   Beatrix Potter's 1902 story of a rabbit who ignores his mother and raids Mr McGregor's garden.
10. **Alice's Adventures in Wonderland**
   Lewis Carroll's 1865 descent down a rabbit hole into logic turned inside out.
11. **Winnie-the-Pooh**
   A.A. Milne's 1926 collection of stories about a bear of very little brain.
12. **The Wind in the Willows**
   Kenneth Grahame's 1908 riverbank novel with Mole, Ratty, Badger and the insufferable Mr Toad.
13. **The Cat in the Hat**
   Dr. Seuss's 1957 book written to make learning to read something children actually wanted to do.
14. **The Gruffalo**
   Julia Donaldson's 1999 picture book about a mouse who invents a monster and then meets it.
15. **A Wrinkle in Time**
   Madeleine L'Engle's 1962 novel that folds space to send children across the universe after their father.
16. **The Secret Garden**
   Frances Hodgson Burnett's 1911 novel about a sour orphan and a walled garden nobody has opened in years.
17. **Anne of Green Gables**
   L.M. Montgomery's 1908 novel about a talkative red-haired orphan sent to Prince Edward Island by mistake.
18. **The Little Prince**
   Antoine de Saint-Exupery's 1943 fable about a pilot, a small prince and a rose worth returning to.
19. **Pippi Longstocking**
   Astrid Lindgren's 1945 novel about a girl with a horse on the porch and no adults in charge.
20. **The Magic Faraway Tree**
   Enid Blyton's 1943 novel in which children climb a tree into a different world every week.
21. **Peter Pan**
   J.M. Barrie's 1911 novel about the boy who refuses to grow up and the family he takes with him.
22. **The Hobbit**
   Tolkien's 1937 adventure that sends a comfortable hobbit out of his door and toward a dragon.

Tags: fantasy, books, children, classics