Book Day: The Top 50 Books Every Child Should Read

by NDFAuthors

  • Mar 05, 2015

To celebrate World Book Day, Sainsbury’s has published a list of 50 books, which every child should read by the age of 16, with Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory taking the first place.

World Book Day is a worldwide celebration of books and reading, and is marked in over 100 countries around the globe. Now in its 18th year, World Book Day aims to encourage children to explore the pleasures of books and reading.

girl-playing-with-a-book-outdoors

To mark the World Book Day, Census Wide polled 2,000 parents in February 2015 to determine the ultimate list of the top 50 books that should be on every child’s reading list, encouraging bedtime reading for families.

According to the survey, Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Puffin) is the book parents most think their children should read before the age of 16. After Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,  the next most popular book was Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, followed by The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C S Lewis.  The list covers a range of traditional classics and more modern tales with Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J K Rowling coming in at number 12.

father-and-son-learning-from-a-book

The top 50 books every child should read by the age of 16:

  1. Charlie and The Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
  2. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
  3. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – C. S. Lewis
  4. Winnie The Pooh – A.A.Milne
  5. Black Beauty- Anna Sewell
  6. James and The Giant Peach – Roald Dahl
  7. The BFG – Roald Dahl
  8. A Bear Called Paddington – Michael Bond
  9. Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson
  10. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
  11. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone – J.K. Rowling
  12. Matilda – Roald Dahl
  13. The Railway Children – E. Nesbit
  14. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
  15. Five on a Treasure Island – Enid Blyton
  16. The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
  17. The Very Hungry Caterpillar – Eric Carle
  18. The Jungle Book – Rudyard Kipling
  19. Charlotte’s Web – EB White
  20. The Tale of Peter Rabbit – Beatrix Potter
  21. Watership Down – Richard Adams
  22. The Hobbit – J.R.Tolkien
  23. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – J.K. Rowling
  24. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
  25. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, aged 13 ¾ Sue Townsend
  26. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
  27. The Cat in the Hat – Dr Seuss
  28. The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson-Burnett
  29. The Diary of a Young Girl – Anne Frank
  30. The Twits – Roald Dahl
  31. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz – L. Frank Baum
  32. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas – John Boyne
  33. Anne of Green Gables – L.M.Montgomery
  34. The Tiger Who Came to Tea – Judith Kerr
  35. Green Eggs and Ham – Dr Seuss
  36. The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
  37. Bambi – Felix Selten
  38. Tom’s Midnight Garden – Phillipa Pearce
  39. Little House on the Prairie – Laura Ingalls Wilder
  40. Funny Bones – Janet and Allan Ahlberg
  41. Where The Wild Things Are – Maurice Sendak
  42. Carrie’s War – Nina Bawden
  43. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – Mark Haddon
  44. The Magician’s Nephew – C.S. Lewis
  45. The Golden Compass – Philip Pullman
  46. The Story of Doctor Dolittle – Hugh Lofting
  47. The Story of Tracy Beaker – Jacqueline Wilson
  48. The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins
  49. Curious George – H.A.Ray
  50. Each Peach Pear Plum by Janet and Allan Ahlberg

Celebrate the World Book Day by encouraging your children to pick up a book you will read together at bedtime. Why not mark World Book Day by sharing with Novak Djokovic Foundation on Facebook  or Twitter the cover of””or character from””a children’s book you love on March 5th.