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I've read Little Women and I thought that it was about 700 pages too long. My mom and I read it together when is was 8, and it end up taking us a year and a half to get through. Some chapters of that book are extremely boring. In fact, the only children's books from the late 19th, early 20th century that I actually liked were the Secret Garden and Anne of Green Gables. All the other books were preachy Sunday school lessons (Little Women) or very negative and depressing (Black Beauty).

As for newer classics, I think that Charlotte's Web is one of the best children's books ever written and was (and still is) one of my favorites. I also love some of the older Newberry books that I read when I was in 3rd/ 4th grade, and that are now considered "classics." (Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry; Caddie Woodlawn; Jacob Have I Loved; The Bridge to Terebitha; The Door in the Wall; The Whipping Boy; The Mixed Up Files of Miss Basil E. Frankweiler; etc). However, when I was growing up, there were no good children's books being published, outside of Lois Lowry and Cynthia Voight (for junior high kids); in fact, my teachers generally taught us books from the 60s and 70s because the current "critically acclaimed" books were so boring. Now, kids get to read Harry Potter (which is better than 99% of the books written for adults), and because of those books' success, the whole youth literary market has improved.

I think Little Women is about the worst of LMA's books. Little Men is much better, IMO, as are An Old-Fashioned Girl, Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom.

Did you read the rest of the "Anne" books or just Anne of Green Gables? And L.M. Montgomery wrote lots more, Pat of Silver Bush being one of my favorites, along with the "Emily" books.

Good Morning, Accygirl.
Just to toss out something neutral since we're on the topic (it seems) of children's literature.

When I was a youngun', I must have taken the same two books out of our elementary school library 15 times. The books were titled "The Children of Noisy Village" and "Happy Times in Noisy Village", by Astrid Lindgren, whom I believe to be Scandinavian.

I would recommend these two books as light fare for anyone encouraging their children to read. Heck, I MIGHT even go to our public library and see if they're there. I could use a return to my childhool.

Does anyone else remember these books with fond memories as I have?