1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up is the perfect introduction to the very best books of childhood: those books that have a special place in the heart of every reader. It introduces a wonderfully rich world of literature to parents and their children, offering both new titles and much-loved classics that many generations have read and enjoyed. From wordless picture books and books introducing the first words and sounds of the alphabet through to hard-hitting and edgy teenage fiction, the titles featured in this book reflect the wealth of reading opportunities for children.Browsing the titles in 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up will take you on a journey of discovery into fantasy, adventure, history, contermporary life, and much more. These books will enable you to travel to some of the most famous imaginary worlds such as Narnia, Middle Earth, and Hogwart's School. And the route taken may be pretty strange, too. You may fall down a rabbit hole, as Alice does on her way to Wonderland, or go through the back of a wardrobe to reach the snowy wastes of Narnia.

Wicked wolves and a grim governess threaten Bonnie and her cousin Sylvia when Bonnie's parents leave Willoughby Chase for a sea voyage. Left in the care of the cruel Miss Slighcarp, the girls can hardly believe what is happening to their once happy home. The servants are dismissed, the furniture is sold, and Bonnie and Sylvia are sent to a prison-like orphan school. It seems as if the endless hours of drudgery will never cease. With the help of Simon the gooseboy and his flock, they escape. But how will they ever get Willoughby Chase free from the clutches of the evil Miss Slighcarp?

In revolutionary Paris, a disaffected Victorian wife becomes enraptured by her husband’s mistress—a “brilliantly entertaining” historical fiction novel that was “far ahead of its time” (Guardian). “One of the great under-read British novelists of the 20th century . . . my favorite of her novels.” —Sarah Waters, author of Fingersmith Sophia Willoughby, a young Englishwoman from an aristocratic family and a person of strong opinions and even stronger will, has packed her cheating husband off to Paris. He can have his tawdry mistress. She intends to devote herself to the serious business of raising her two children in proper Tory fashion. Then tragedy strikes: the children die, and Sophia, in despair, finds her way to Paris, arriving just in time for the revolution of 1848. Before long she has formed the unlikeliest of close relations with Minna, her husband’s sometime mistress, whose dramatic recitations, based on her hair-raising childhood in czarist Russia, electrify audiences in drawing rooms and on the street alike. Minna, “magnanimous and unscrupulous, fickle, ardent, and interfering,” leads Sophia on a wild adventure through bohemian and revolutionary Paris, in a story that reaches an unforgettable conclusion amidst the bullets, bloodshed, and hope of the barricades. Sylvia Townsend Warner was one of the most original and inventive of twentieth-century English novelists. At once an adventure story, a love story, and a novel of ideas, Summer Will Show is a brilliant reimagining of the possibilities of historical fiction.