The 50 books every child should read

Michael Gove says he wants 11-year-olds to read the equivalent of a book a week. So what should they be? The Telegraph ask the experts

Wednesday, 23 March 2011

Clockwise from top left: 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland', 'Pinocchio', 'Emil and the Detectives', 'Swallows and Amazons', 'When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit', 'Carry On, Jeeves', 'The Tygrine Cat', 'The Hobbit'

Education Secretary Michael Gove says that children aged 11 should be reading 50 books a year to improve literacy standards.
We asked three of Britain's leading children's authors and two of our in-house book experts to each pick 10 books, suitable for Year 7 students.

The authors chose books that have brought them huge joy, while expressing their outrage at the "great big contradiction" of Mr Gove's claim to wish to improve literacy while closing libraries across the country.

Michael Morpurgo said: "This target sounds like a neat solution, but the Government is depriving the massive number of children who don't read of the chance to discover books."

Mr Gove made his comments after observing a school in Harlem, New York, which sets pupils a "50-book challenge" over a year.

Philip Pullman

* Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll. Indispensable. The great classic beginning of English children's literature.

* Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi. What effortless invention looks like.

* Emil and the Detectives by Erich Kastner. A great political story: democracy in action.

* Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome. As clear and pure as Mozart.

* Black Hearts in Battersea by Joan Aiken. If Ransome was Mozart, Aiken was Rossini. Unforced effervescence.

* The Owl Service by Alan Garner. Showed how children's literature could sound dark and troubling chords.

* The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. Superb wit and vigorous invention.

* Moominsummer Madness by Tove Jansson. Any of the Moomin books would supply the same strange light Nordic magic.

* A Hundred Million Francs by Paul Berna. A particular favourite of mine, as much for Richard Kennedy's delicate illustrations (in the English edition) as for the story.

* The Castafiore Emerald by Hergé. Three generations of this family have loved Tintin. Perfect timing, perfect narrative tact and command, blissfully funny.

Read the other selections here.