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This came via calimac: The 14 children's classics every adult should read

Oh yeah?

I read Ballet Shoes but as I recall, the first Streatfeild that actually crossed my reading eyes was Party Frock, okay, not so iconic a work.

I have to confess that I was recommended The Hobbit in my first year at uni in that unprepossessing circumstance of 'bloke I was not terribly impressed with' pressing it upon me.

I was well past childhood when Watership Down became a lapine phenomenon, but have read it.

As far as I can recall, I read Treasure Island when I was 7 or 8 and have never returned to it, perhaps I should.

Have no memory of The Enchanted Wood as such, but am pretty sure Miss S in primary school read us The Magic Faraway Tree one afternoon.

My first contact with Anne of Green Gables was retold in pictures in either Girl or Princess but we subsequently acquired copies of this and ?one or two of the sequels, or were these in the school library?

Little Women: now that one I did read at a very early age.

Ditto the Alice books.

My Family and Other Animals was one of offerings of my parents' book club - how has it become a children's classic?

The Secret Garden and The Wind in the Willows (also the Pooh books which are shamefully missing from this list) were Christmastime special offers from aforementioned book club.

I have never read The Little Prince, though I've osmosed a certain amount about it.

I don't think I read The Railway Children until I was of maturer years: my first Nesbit was The House of Arden, borrowed from Our Friends Along the Street, and I think maybe The Treasure Seekers and The Wouldbegoods on primary school library shelf?

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was a Christmas present (Penguin edition) when I was 10 or 11, and I went on to read the rest via the good offices of the local public library.

These all seem a bit somehow obvious? Without disputing their classic status, it's still a somewhat banal line-up.