2/22/08

Top 50 UK children's books

"Narnia Triumphs Over Potter" is the headline in an article in today's Telegraph (UK), that offers yet another list of the top 50 children's books (at least, I feel that I have read many such UK lists in the past year...maybe it's just me). In this case, the books were chosen by parents, so many of the top books are older--Enid Blyton's Famous Five series is in third place, for instance. I devoured these when I was young, and was very angry indeed at my mother for leaving our complete set behind in the Bahamas when we moved back to the states when I was 11--like many parents, she never liked Blyton, which perhaps added spice to my reading experience. The fairytales of Hans Christian Anderson are in 22nd place, much higher than where I would have put them. Any collection that includes a story about insects crawling over the frozen-open eyeballs of a little girl (The Girl Who Stepped on a Loaf) is not one that I crack open regularly to share with my children.

It was very interesting, however, to learn that since its publication in 1960, The Very Hungry Caterpillarar has sold about 1 copy a minute.

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