什么樣的書才能稱得上最偉大的兒童書呢？英國廣播公司（BBC）文化頻道的編輯采訪了幾十位世界各地的書評人和童書編輯，讓他們列出自己心目中針對10歲以下兒童最好的英文兒童讀物。這些評論人士和編輯一共列出了151本書，而下面的這11本在他們的推薦中多次出現。我們相信，這些書還會繼續陪伴一代又一代兒童成長。

11. Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House on the Prairie (1935)
《草原上的小木屋》（1935年），蘿拉?英格斯?懷德著

Wilder’s nine classic frontier novels were inspired by her own 19th Century childhood. She was raised in a pioneer family, and traveled through the Midwest by covered wagon. Wilder writes with authentic detail of a little girl living “in the Big Woods of Wisconsin, in a little gray house made of logs" with her parents, two sisters and their dog, Jack. "As far as a man could go to the north in a day, or a week, or a whole month, there was nothing but woods. There were no houses.” Wilder’s accounts have made daily life on the frontier vivid for generations. (Credit: Harper)
懷德的9部經典邊疆小說都是在她自己19世紀的童年生活啟發下寫成的。她成長于一個拓荒者家庭，曾經坐著大篷車橫穿美國中西部。懷德用逼真的細節描述了一個小女孩跟她的父母、兩個姐姐和一條名叫杰克的狗生活在“威斯康星州大森林里的一座灰色小木屋里”。“一個人走一天、一個星期、或者整整一個月，也走不出這片森林。一個房子也看不到，只有森林。” 懷德的作品為一代又一代兒童生動描述了邊疆地區的日常生活。（來源：哈珀柯林斯出版社）

10. Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle In Time (1962)
《時間的皺紋》（1962年），麥德琳?蘭歌著

Meg Murry’s father, a time traveling physicist, has disappeared. One night she, her precocious younger brother Charles Wallace and her mother – “a scientist and a beauty as well” – have an unexpected visitor. "Wild nights are my glory," the strange Mrs Whatsit tells them. "I just got blown off course.” She refers to a tesseract, a fifth dimension that allows travel through time and space. With her brother and a high school friend, Calvin, Meg sets out across the universe to find her father. Their confrontation with IT, the disembodied conformist intelligence that casts a shadow over the universe, is a noirish Cold War touch. L’Engle’s Newbery Award-winning book was an early foray into science fiction for younger readers, inspired in part by Einstein’s theory of relativity. Meg was a first in literature: a nerdy girl whose intelligence was matched by her powerful love for her family. (Credit: Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
梅格?默里的父親是一位能夠穿越時光的物理學家，他不見了。一天晚上，她和她親愛的弟弟查爾斯?華萊士，還有她的母親，一位美女科學家，迎來了一位不速之客。這位奇怪的“什么”夫人跟他們說：“狂野的夜晚是我的榮耀。我剛剛被吹離了航線。”她指的是超立方體，能夠讓人穿越時空的五維空間。梅格帶著弟弟和高中同學凱文穿越宇宙去尋找父親。他們與IT的對峙其實是在用黑色手法表現冷戰。IT是一個沒有肉體、循規蹈矩的智能設備，它給整個宇宙罩上了一層陰影。蘭歌的這部作品靈感來源于愛因斯坦的相對論，曾經摘得紐伯瑞兒童文學獎，同時也是針對青少年讀者科幻作品的早期嘗試。梅格是文學世界里第一個：智商與其對家人強烈的愛相匹配的怪咖女孩。（來源：法勞?斯特勞斯?吉羅出版公司）

9. Ursula K Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea (1968)
《地海巫師》（1968年），厄休拉?勒奎恩著

A young boy known as Sparrowhawk saves his village with a smattering of magic he learned from his aunt, a local witch. Apprenticed to the mage Ogion the Silent, and renamed Ged, he begins his training as a sorcerer. Le Guin’s exploration of the consequences of Ged’s misfires and temptations while at a school for wizards, his struggles with dragons and his inner demons, reshaped fantasy storytelling’s concepts of good and evil. Gradually, Ged gains wisdom as he faces his challenges. "He knew now, and the knowledge was hard, that his task had never been to undo what he had done, but to finish what he had begun." "To me Le Guin’s story is about learning your craft as a writer, the long and painful struggle for mastery of both your art and yourself, written in astounding prose," says Amanda Craig, author and reviewer for the New Statesman and the Daily Telegraph. (Credit: Parnassus Press)
一位名叫雀鷹的少年憑借從女巫姨媽那里學到的一點法術拯救了他的村莊。后來他給巫師“沉默的歐吉安”做學徒，師父歐吉安給他改名為“格得”，自那以后他就開始學習做巫師。勒奎恩對于格得在巫師學院失手遭反噬以及面對的種種誘惑，他與龍族以及自己內心的惡魔做斗爭的描寫，重新定義了奇幻小說的善惡概念。漸漸地，格得在面對挑戰的過程中智慧見長。“經歷了一番艱難困苦后，他現在明白，他的使命從來不是要撤銷他所種下的果，而是要把他做的事堅持到底。”“對我而言，勒奎恩的故事講的是作為一個作家如何磨煉你的寫作技巧，她用令人驚嘆的文字告訴我們，達到藝術和個人境界的高峰需要經過一番漫長而痛苦的掙扎，”《新政治家周刊》和《每日電訊報》撰稿人及評論家阿曼達?克雷格說。（來源：帕那色斯出版社）

8. Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964)
《查理和巧克力工廠》（1964年），羅爾德?達爾著

The critics’ poll nominated five of Roald Dahl’s children’s books – the most by any author. Poet and book critic Tess Taylor calls his work “rollicking, funny, scary, humane and magical.” New York Times columnist Carmela Ciuraru says, “It seems impossible to choose just one favourite by Dahl, arguably the greatest children's book author of all time, but he is at his most delightful, imaginative and mischievous in this 1964 classic.” Dahl’s most popular among the five nominated is the story of Charlie Bucket, his Grandpa Joe, the Oompa-Loompas and the five golden tickets that take Charlie inside the factory of Willy Wonka, “the most amazing, the most fantastic, the most extraordinary chocolate maker the world has ever seen!” “Something crazy is going to happen now, Charlie thought. But he wasn’t frightened. He wasn’t even nervous. He was just terrifically excited.” (Credit: Penguin Books)
在書評人士的提名中，羅爾德?達爾兒童書就有5本，是作品得到提名最多的作家。詩人、書評家苔絲?泰勒將達爾的作品描述為“歡樂、有趣、嚇人、人道、神奇”。《紐約時報》專欄作家卡梅拉?丘拉魯說：“達爾可能是有史以來最偉大的兒童讀物作家。在達爾的作品中不可能只選出一部最喜歡的，但這部1964年的經典作品是他的巔峰之作，是他最歡樂、最具想象力，也最調皮的一部作品。”這個關于查理?巴克特、他的爺爺喬、奧柏倫柏人和五張威利?旺卡巧克力工廠金參觀券的故事是達爾被提名的五部作品中最受歡迎的。“這是世界有史以來最驚人、最奇妙、最非凡的巧克力工廠！”“現在要發生一些瘋狂的事兒了，查理想。但他沒有恐懼。他甚至沒有緊張。他只是激動得不得了。”（來源：企鵝出版社）

7. AA Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh (1926)
《小熊維尼》（1926年），AA米爾恩著

Milne named the characters in his classic children’s book after his own son Christopher Robin, his cuddly teddy bear, his stuffed animals Piglet, Tigger, the donkey Eeyore and others. Christopher and Pooh wander through the Hundred Acre Wood not unlike the forest near Milne’s home in East Sussex. His first adventure sends him up a tree buzzing with bees, singing a little song to himself: “Isn’t it funny how a bear likes honey…” And the adventures continue, narrated with sweet grace by a father who includes his son and his son’s world in every new plot twist. A playwright and contributor to Punch, Milne will be forever known as the creator of the perfect read-aloud nursery tale. (Credit: Dutton Books)
米爾恩用他的兒子和兒子玩具的名字來給這本經典童書里的人物命名：小男孩克里斯多夫?羅賓、可愛的泰迪熊維尼、毛絨玩具小豬、跳跳虎、毛驢屹耳等等。克里斯多夫和維尼?噗經常閑逛的百畝森林和米爾恩在英格蘭東薩西克斯郡的家附近的森林也很像。米爾恩的兒子的第一次冒險是爬上一棵蜜蜂嗡嗡飛的樹，自娛自樂地唱著一支小曲：“熊愛吃蜂蜜，這是不是很有趣……”冒險故事在書中延續了下去，父親很有愛地把兒子和兒子的世界寫進了每個新的故事情節。作為一名劇作家和《笨趣》雜志的撰稿者，米爾恩將作為這本完美的床頭幼兒讀物的創作者而永遠被世人銘記。（來源：達頓出版社）