Based on the "Three Little Pigs," this picture book puts a new twist on the classic tale when the pigs head off on their own imaginative adventures. The book features a myriad of illustration styles from David Wiesner. Author Charles J. Finger traveled through South and Central America to collect the 19 traditional folktales he compiled for "Tales From Silver Lands." The book was among the first in the United States to share Indigenous folktales with children. It won the 1925 Newbery Medal.

Boring errands—like haircuts and shopping—get better for a young boy when he is accompanied by a dinosaur in this picture book by Elise Broach. Time magazine's Belinda Luscombe and Amy Lennard Goeh dubbed the title one of the top 10 children's books of 2007. Virginia Woolf's last novel follows the upper-middle class Pargiter family over the span of 50 years from the 1880s to 1930s, focusing on the children of a retired British general who served in India. The Victorian, omniscient point of view used in the novel differs from her usual stream of consciousness prose. Author Margery Sharp tells the tale of altruistic mice as they take on a daring mission to rescue an imprisoned poet in "The Rescuers." A Walt Disney movie by the same name was released nearly 20 years later, but it was primarily based on the sequel to the 1959 title.

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In "Waiting," five toys wait for excitement while sitting on a windowsill. The book teaches the value of patience and ways that youngsters can have fun while waiting. This humorous tale follows the adventures of a modest house painter who somehow finds himself the caretaker of a brood of penguins. The book was turned into a movie by the same name in 2011, starring Jim Carrey.

Author Eleanor Coerr tells the true story of Sadako Sasaki, a girl with leukemia caused by the radiation from the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, who's on a mission to fold 1,000 paper cranes, in this 1977 historical novel for children. The book can inspire students to fold their own origami cranes and send them to Japan in memory of Sadako, writes Kate Lyman of Rethinking Schools. This novel follows Buddy Glass, who takes a brief leave from the Army during World War II to attend his brother Seymour’s wedding. Seymour is missing, and the novel depicts Buddy’s experience interacting with the wedding party and attendees.

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This beloved novella focuses on Franny and Zooey, the two youngest siblings of J.D. Salinger’s Glass family. Franny has a religious and existential breakdown while visiting her boyfriend's college over a weekend. This story follows a Greek-American who pursues different roles—husband, advertising executive, magazine writer—and struggles between the self that he projects to others and his true self. He suffers a mental breakdown in the process of living authentically. This first-person narrative concerns a man who wants to learn the nine insights of life from an ancient Peruvian manuscript that had been recently translated. As he continues in his spiritual journey and his attempt to bring the knowledge to the public at large, he is chased by authorities who are loyal to the Catholic Church and don’t want the manuscript to get out. In this historical fiction book for children, a tomboy named Caddie spends her days exploring the frontier land of Wisconsin with her brothers and eventually befriends Native Americans—a situation that leaves her neighbors, mother, and sisters baffled. The book was turned into a radio drama by the author a decade later. Thornton Wilder’s best-selling novel set during the Great Depression follows George Brush, a traveling textbook salesman. He’s a religious convert determined to lead a good life, and his travels take him through a more secular America. This book is considered a picaresque novel, just like Voltaire’s "Candide."

James Michener's novel spins a fictional version of the United States space program. It covers the lives of four men and their families over the course of 30 years: an engineer, a U.S. senator, a former Nazi, and an astronaut.Little ones can learn all the sounds various animals make when they read "Moo, Baa, La La La!" with their parents. More than 3 million copies of the silly rhyming book with humorous art were sold after the book was first published in 1982, according to Simon & Schuster. This classic tale revolves around a honey-loving bear and a number of other creatures as they go on adventures in the Hundred Acre Wood. Fans of the story can see the real toys that inspired the work on display at the New York Public Library, according to Lauren Smith McDonough of Good Housekeeping.

The first title in "The Chronicles of Narnia" series, "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" takes readers into a mythical world with talking creatures that four English children discover through a magical wardrobe. The book has themes of Christianity, but is more than a "strictly allegorical" story, writes Meghan O'Rourke of Slate. One of the bestselling kids' books in history, "Charlotte's Web" explores life and death on a farm where Charlotte the spider weaves phrases into her web to help prevent Wilbur the pig from being slaughtered. According to Joey Lanzendorfer of Mental Floss, author E.B. White based the novel on a real farm in Maine.

This lesson-oriented story teaches youngsters about the importance of staying safe around strangers. "Never Talk to Strangers" is known as much for its psychedelic illustrations and witty rhymes as it is for its timeless message.