BBC Poll - 100 Greatest Children's Books

[Boatbuilder]

It's like the adverts that loudly proclaim that 96% respondents said that this new moisturiser made their skin look luminous. Then in very small print it says "survey of 27 people."

Excellent, Fiona.

[Anita Bensoussane]

This strikes me as a very odd poll, especially as we don't know who exactly was chosen (and by who - BBC producers or executives in the Children's TV department?) to vote and in which countries.

It's possible to see the list of voters and their countries by clicking on the link below, but there's no explanation of how and why those particular people/countries were chosen. Of course, it's possible that many more were invited to take part in the poll but declined because of the absurdities!

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/202 ... -who-voted

...only books now in print seem to appear.

Good point, Tim. I hadn't thought about that.

I'd love to know who compiled the list of 1050 books that respondents had to choose from, and the criteria used.

[Anita Bensoussane]

...the voters "came from 56 countries, from Austria to Uzbekistan" (hmmm... if that's in alphabetical order, obviously they didn't include Australia ).

It ought to have been "from Armenia to Vietnam" as Armenia, Australia and Vietnam are included:

Ruzan Tonoyan – President of the Armenian National Section of IBBY, Armenia
1. Fairy Tales by Hovhannes Tumanyan (Hovhannes Tumanyan, 1930)
2. The Magic Buttons (Nouneh Sarkissian, 2015)
3. The Blue Fox (Lilit Altunyan, 2016)
4. Manyunya (Narine Abgaryan, 2010)
5. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1943)
6. Pippi Longstocking (Astrid Lindgren, 1945)
7. Bunny the Fourth (Yuri Sahakyan and Narine Gevorgyan, 2011)
8. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (JK Rowling, 1997)
9. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Roald Dahl, 1964)
10. Fables (Khnko Aper)

Eve Green – Rights executive, Australia
1. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (JK Rowling, 1997)
2. Tashi (Anna Fienberg, Barbara Fienberg and Kim Gamble, 1995)
3. The Field Guide (Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black, 2003)
4. The BFG (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, 1982)
5. Fablehaven (Brandon Mull, 2006)
6. Meet Snugglepot and Cuddlepie (May Gibbs, 2013)
7. The Gypsy Crown (Kate Forsyth, 2007)
8. Katie Morag and the Two Grandmothers (Mairi Hedderwick, 1985)
9. Rowan of Rin (Emily Rodda, 1993)
10. The Silver Brumby (Elyne Mitchell, 1958)

Amanda Shaw – Hardie Grant Children's Publishing, Australia
1. The Twits (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, 1980)
2. George's Marvellous Medicine (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, 1981)
3. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret (Judy Blume, 1970)
4. Flat Stanley (Jeff Brown, 1964)
5. Follow That Bus (Pat Hutchins, 1987)
6. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (CS Lewis, 1950)
7. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾ (Sue Townsend, 1982)
8. Five on a Treasure Island (Enid Blyton, 1942)
9. The Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Grahame, 1908)
10. The Secret of the Old Clock (Carolyn Keene, 1930)

John Stephens – Emeritus Professor, Macquarie University, Australia
1. The Graveyard Book (Neil Gaiman, 2008)
2. Goldengrove (Jill Paton Walsh, 1972)
3. The Wee Free Men (Terry Pratchett, 2003)
4. Charlotte Sometimes (Penelope Farmer, 1969)
5. Tom's Midnight Garden (Philippa Pearce, 1958)
6. Tuesday (David Wiesner, 1991)
7. Outside Over There (Maurice Sendak, 1981)
8. The Red Shoe (Ursula Dubosarsky, 2006)
9. Paper Towns (John Green, 2008)
10. The Wreck of the Zephyr (Chris van Allsburg, 1983)

Anna Zobel – Children's author and illustrator, Australia
1. The Journey Home (Alison Lester, 1989)
2. The Dark is Rising (Susan Cooper, 1973)
3. Fire and Hemlock (Diana Wynne Jones, 1985)
4. The Tombs of Atuan (Ursula K Le Guin, 1970)
5. The Boy from the Mish (Gary Lonesborough, 2021)
6. Clown (Quentin Blake, 1995)
7. Witch Hat Atelier, Volume1 (Kamome Shirahama, 2017)
8. Coraline (Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean, 2002)
9. Sorry Day (Coral Vass and Dub Leffler, 2018)
10. Leo: A Ghost Story (Mac Barnett and Christian Robinson, 2015)

Huynh Kim Lien – Picture book illustrator, Vietnam
1. Flotsam (David Wiesner, 2006)
2. Duck, Death and the Tulip (Wolf Erlbruch, 2007)
3. The Lion and the Mouse (Jerry Pinkney, 2009)
4. Black Dog (Levi Pinfold, 2011)
5. Rules of Summer (Shaun Tan, 2013)
6. Lost and Found: Three (Shaun Tan, 2011)
7. Mr Tiger Goes Wild (Peter Brown, 2013)
8. The Wanderer (Peter van den Ende, 2019)
9. Notturni, piraterie e allunaggi (Gianni De Conno, 2018)
10. The Fate of Fausto (Oliver Jeffers, 2019)

Phung Nguyen Quang – Picture book author and illustrator, Vietnam
1. Rules of Summer (Shaun Tan, 2013)
2. Duck, Death and the Tulip (Wolf Erlbruch, 2007)
3. Black Dog (Levi Pinfold, 2011)
4. Like a Giant (Marc Daniau and Yvan Duque, 2021)
5. Oh, the Places You'll Go! (Dr Seuss, 1990)
6. The Bear and the Moon (Matthew Burgess and Catia Chien, 2020)
7. Mr Tiger Goes Wild (Peter Brown, 2013)
8. The Fate of Fausto (Oliver Jeffers, 2019)
9. Everyone's Awake (Colin Meloy and Shawn Harris, 2020)
10. The Undefeated (Kwame Alexander and Kadir Nelson, 2019)

[Courtenay]

Of course, it's possible that many more were invited to take part in the poll but declined because of the absurdities!

Good point...

I'd love to know who compiled the list of 1050 books that respondents had to choose from, and the criteria used.

Yes, so would I! Thanks for sharing the extra info, Anita. It's interesting to see the top 10 of some of the participants, with some choices that would be similar to mine if I picked my own top 10!

I don't think I've heard of any of the Australians who voted, but Eve Green has several Australian classics among her choices — Tashi (a series I missed while growing up, as it started just as I hit high school and my "I'm too big for kiddies' books" phase, but I grew out of that... I should read those books some time!), Snugglepot and Cuddlepie (the Gumnut Babies), Rowan of Rin (one of my favourite junior fantasy sagas — highly recommended! ), and The Silver Brumby (oh, I LOVED those books when I was in late primary school, despite not even being a "horsey" person myself! ).

Anna Zobel, whom I also haven't heard of, puts another Aussie classic at the top of her list: The Journey Home by Alison Lester. I can't remember too many details of that particular book, but I'm sure we had it at primary school. Alison Lester's books and illustrations are wonderful — my all-time favourite is Magic Beach, a rhyming story about a group of children playing on a beach that bears quite a resemblance to where I grew up in South Gippsland. Each verse — beginning "At our beach, at our magic beach..." — alternates between the "real life" things the children are doing (building sandcastles, collecting shells, playing in the waves) and then their imaginative games based on those (saving their castle from a dragon, meeting mermaids and pirates, finding hidden treasure)...

And as I'm having such a wave of hiraeth (which we were discussing in the Welsh thread; the English word "nostalgia" is not evocative enough) that I am genuinely in tears, I'd better move on and stop going off topic. But we DO have some utterly awesome children's authors and illustrators in Australia, honestly.

[IceMaiden]

The Silver Brumby! Gosh that's brought back some memories! Not the books but it was a cartoon series here in the 90s with a very memorable theme tune. It was dubbed 'the Australian Farthing Wood' though I don't remember it being as traumatic!

[Anita Bensoussane]

It's interesting to read your thoughts on the Australian books that people voted for, Courtenay.

Regarding "hiraeth", I still feel it for Wales sometimes, even though I haven't lived there for 35 years. Since I still live in the UK and could travel to Wales in a few short hours, it's not the same as having gone from Australia to England, of course! All in all, I think it's lovely to have the chance to form strong connections with more than one place, and to come to feel that you "belong" to both/all of them.

Glancing at the names of those who took part in the poll, besides illustrator Jim Kay (whose choices I mentioned in a previous post), I'm most familiar with M. G. Leonard. I've read one of her books, Twitch, and have bought the two sequels ready to read when time allows. I've also heard a lot of praise for Robin Stevens' books (A Murder Most Unladylike, etc.) though I haven't tried them myself. M. G. Leonard and Robin Stevens voted as follows:

MG Leonard – Author, United Kingdom
1. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1911)
2. The Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Grahame, 1908)
3. The Twits (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, 1980)
4. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (CS Lewis, 1950)
5. Winnie-the-Pooh (AA Milne and EH Shepard, 1926)
6. My Family and Other Animals (Gerald Durrell, 1956)
7. Anne of Green Gables (LM Montgomery, 1908)
8. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott, 1869)
9. The Dark is Rising (Susan Cooper, 1973)
10. The Lord of the Rings (JRR Tolkien, 1954)

Robin Stevens – Children's author, United Kingdom
1. Howl's Moving Castle (Diana Wynne Jones, 1986)
2. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler (EL Konigsburg, 1967)
3. The Secret of Platform 13 (Eva Ibbotson, 1994)
4. The Hundred and One Dalmatians (Dodie Smith, 1956)
5. Finn Family Moomintroll (Tove Jansson, 1948)
6. Noughts and Crosses (Malorie Blackman, 2001)
7. White Boots (Noel Streatfeild, 1951)
8. Ella Enchanted (Gail Carson Levine, 1997)
9. A Kind of Spark (Elle McNicoll, 2020)
10. High-Rise Mystery (Sharna Jackson, 2019)