This list started with a quotation from WH Auden: \u201cThere are no good books which are only for children.\u201d It was so popular that I made it a Top 20, with the second half next week, and a supplementary Top 10 of underrated children\u2019s books by authors famous for other work, which will follow the week after. <\/p>\n
The first 10, in alphabetical order by author, then…<\/p>\n
1. The Dark Is Rising, Susan Cooper, and the other four titles in the sequence, 1965-77. \u201cRetells Arthurian myths, weaves in Welsh folklore, Christian and family quests against an epic good versus evil battle\u201d \u2013 Kate Nicholls. \u201cGreat characters child and adult, satisfying narrative arc, wonderful evocation of real and fictional places, mysticism, peril. Should be regarded as classic\u201d \u2013 Andy Helliwell. \u201cWintry, Christmassy, yet terrifying. Full of old English myth. And morally complex characters\u201d \u2013 Nick Clark. Supporting nominations from Tanya Gold, Rootless Cosmopolitan and Conor Downey.<\/p>\n
2. Moondial, Helen Cresswell, 1987. \u201cGhosts, mysteries and time travel, but it\u2019s surprisingly adult in its treatment of loss: the heroine\u2019s father is dead, mother critically ill, and the heroine can\u2019t fix anything; all she can do is lay the dead to rest and hope for the living\u201d \u2013 Philip Redhair. Also: the Bagthorpes series. \u201cStill makes me laugh out loud\u201d \u2013 Ruth Callaghan.<\/p>\n
3. The Otterbury Incident, Cecil Day-Lewis, 1948. \u201cReal danger and excitement\u201d \u2013 Bill Bennett. \u201cA perfect little evocation of Britain just after the Second World War, with bombsites and clearly defined baddies\u201d \u2013 Fraser Southey. \u201cIt was the technology that I loved \u2013 tanks and sticky bombs\u201d \u2013 YesWestLothian. \u201cA great underrated depiction of children forming gangs and solving crime during the war\u201d \u2013 Paul Ferguson. \u201cLoved this book. Very nostalgic, the tank in the book was exactly the kind of thing I daydreamed about building\u201d \u2013 Gilman Grundy. Also nominated by John Delaney.<\/p>\n
4. The Marlows series, Antonia Forest, 1948-82. \u201cBoarding school stories which are full of nuance and insight\u201d \u2013 Stephen Dilley.<\/p>\n
5. The Owl Service, Alan Garner, 1967. \u201cWeaves magic, Welsh mythology, a teenage love triangle and a set of crockery into a haunting and beautiful piece of 1960s folk horror\u201d \u2013 Dinah Rose. Also nominated by Scot Ramsay, Carl Gardner and Mike Godwin. Also by Garner: Elidor. \u201cA now neglected fantasy, but utterly beguiling. Features real working-class kids. A crisis in a magical, parallel world to our own begins to bleed into our reality. And it\u2019s up to the kids to stop it\u201d \u2013 Scope Davies.<\/p>\n
6. The Family from One End Street, Eve Garnett, 1937. \u201cOne of the few children\u2019s books about working-class families. I loved it because I came from a big, poor family where all the children were loved\u201d \u2013 Lady Anne of the Greenhouse. \u201cRealistic adventures of a working-class family which charmingly captures a bygone way of life\u201d \u2013 Ipsedixitissimus. Also nominated by Jude Brown.<\/p>\n
7. The Load of Unicorn, Cynthia Harnett, 1959. \u201cAbout the arrival of print in medieval London\u201d \u2013 Terry Stiastny.<\/p>\n
8. The Mouse and his Child, Russell Hoban, 1967. \u201cEmotional depth about a clockwork toy that Toy Story could only dream of. Freedom, redemption and eternity\u201d \u2013 Helen Jeffries.<\/p>\n
9. The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster, illustrated by Jules Feiffer, 1961. \u201cFantastical quest full of wordplay and jokes, also friendship and courage\u201d \u2013 Ruth Dixon. \u201cThe book that Alice in Wonderland should and would have been if Lewis Carroll had had a sense of humour\u201d \u2013 Dan Tench (ouch). Also nominated by Mike Martin.<\/p>\n
10. Emil and the Detectives, Erich Kastner, 1929. Boy robbed on train to Berlin enlists new friends to track down the thief. Nominated by Jude Brown and Mat Greener. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t underrated in the Sixties but is it forgotten now?\u201d asked Lady Anne of the Greenhouse. I think so. <\/p>\n
To keep up to speed with all the latest opinions and comment, sign up to our free weekly Voices Dispatches newsletter by clicking here<\/p>\n
It proved surprisingly hard to judge the distance between reputation and quality \u2013 some nominations were too popular to be called \u201cunderrated\u201d; others I wasn\u2019t sure were good enough to rank with the classics. Part two next week will feature authors K to W. <\/p>\n
Next week: Numbers 11-20 in this list, followed by a third list of underrated children\u2019s books by famous authors.<\/p>\n
Coming soon: Jesters, as Boris Johnson prepares to leave the stage.<\/p>\n
Your suggestions please, and ideas for future Top 10s, to me on Twitter, or by email to top10@independent.co.uk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This list started with a quotation from WH Auden: \u201cThere are no good books which are only for children.\u201d It was so popular that I made it a Top 20, with the second half next week, and a supplementary Top 10 of underrated children\u2019s books by authors famous for other work, which will follow the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1042,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n