100 Books Every Child Should Read

In celebration of National Children's Book Week, Booktrust has compiled a list of the 100 best children's books to read by the age of 14.

The exciting 100 combines an eclectic mix of traditional classics and modern greats that we believe are must-reads to fire children’s imaginations and turn them into life-long readers. The cut-off age of 14 was chosen as beyond that, children tend to progress to more adult literature.

The books are divided into age-based categories, with titles ranging from The Cat in the Hat to The Hobbit and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time.

For the full list of books on one page, check out this page on Metro or visit the link below to view by age category and vote for your favourites.

The Ultimate List of 100 best children's books (via Booktrust)

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The Nightingale's Healing Melody

Hans Christian Anderson Hans Christian Andersen. (1805–1875) The Nightingale, from Tales. The Emperor of China lies on his deathbed grieving for the song of his favorite bird. Hark, the song! It charms, coaxes, and bribes Death to depart. It brings new life to the master. IN China, you must know, the Emperor is a Chinaman, and all whom he has about him are Chinamen too. It happened a good many years ago, but that’s just why it’s worth while to hear the story, before it is forgotten. The Emperor’s palace was the most splendid in the world; it was made entirely of porcelain, very costly, but so delicate and brittle that one had to take care how one touched it. In the garden were to be seen the most wonderful flowers, and to the costliest of them silver bells were tied, which sounded, so that nobody should pass by without noticing the flowers. Yes, everything in the Emperor’s garden was admirably arranged. And it extended so far, that the gardener himself did not know where th

Odysseus Silenced the Sirens

Homer Homer (fl. 850 B.C.). Book XII, The Odyssey. When his ship approached the siren's rock, Odysseus stuffed the ears of his crew with wax and had himself bound to the mast that he might hear the alluring voice of the siren and yet not wreck his ship on the enchanted rock. Odysseus, his passage by the Sirens, and by Scylla and Charybdis. The sacrilege committed by his men in the isle Thrinacia. The destruction of his ships and men. How he swam on a plank nine days together, and came to Ogygia, where he stayed seven years with Calypso. ‘NOW after the ship had left the stream of the river Oceanus, and was come to the wave of the wide sea, and the isle Aeaean, where is the dwelling place of early Dawn and her dancing grounds, and the land of sunrising, upon our coming thither we beached the ship in the sand, and ourselves too stept ashore on the sea beach. There we fell on sound sleep and awaited the bright Dawn.

Cicero on Friendship

Cicero Cicero (106 B.C.–43 B.C.). On Friendship. "Fire and water are not of more universal use than friendship" - such is the high value put upon this great human relationship by the most famous orator of Rome. Now this truth seems clear to me, that nature has so formed us that a certain tie unites us all, but that this tie becomes stronger from proximity. So it is that fellow-citizens are preferred in our affections to foreigners, relations to strangers; for in their case Nature herself has caused a kind of friendship to exist, though it is one which lacks some of the elements of permanence. Friendship excels relationship in this, that whereas you may eliminate affection from relationship, you cannot do so from friendship. Without it relationship still exists in name, friendship does not. You may best understand this friendship by considering that, whereas the merely natural ties uniting the human race are indefinite, this one is so concentrated, and confined t

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