12 Books to Read

before you are 12 (from The Telegraph via sfsignal):

Freak the Mighty, by Rodman Philbrick
Cloud Busting, by Malorie Blackman
Dream On, by Bali Rai
Evil Inventions (Horrible Science), by Nick Arnold
Framed, by Frank Cottrell Boyce
A Dog Called Grk, by Joshua Doder
I, Coriander, by Sally Gardner Coriander
Journey to the River Sea, by Eva Ibbotson
Mortal Engines, by Philip Reeve
The Ring of Words – An Anthology of Poetry, selected by Roger McGough
Saffy’s Angel, by Hilary McKay Saffy
Unbelievable!, by Paul Jennings

Call me an Old Fogey, but the fact that I've never heard of any of these books says something negative about the list as well as revealing the fact that I have no under-12 kiddies.

My attempt at a list of must-reads for the 12 and under crowd:

Peter and Wendy, by J.M. Barrie

The Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, by Lewis Carroll

Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe

Household Tales, by the Brothers Grimm

Moomintroll books, by Tove Jansson

The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster

The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood and The Story of King Arthur and His Knights, by Howard Pyle

Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson

The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien

Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain

and at least 1 book on Greek/Roman and Norse mythology, such as Bulfinch's Age of Fable and Asbjørnsen and Moe's Norwegian Folktales.