Our Favorite Children's Books from 60 Years Ago

For our last episode of 2024, we talked about our favorite children's books of 60 years ago, which we defined as 1964-1966---a great era for children's books.

Here are our favorites, but it's more fun if you listen to the episode first. We disqualified books that we've done episodes on. 

Mary Grace's top five:

5. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl.

4. The Strange Light by James Reeves

3. Ismo by John Verney

2. The Castle of Llyr by Lloyd Alexander

1. The Long Secret by Louise Fitzhugh

Deborah's top five:

5. The Pushcart War by Jean Merrill. 

4. Apples Every Day by Grace Richardson

3. The Noonday Friends by Mary Stolz

2. Bread and Jam for Frances by Russell and Lillian Hoban

1. The Long Secret by Louise Fitzhugh

Honorable Mentions:

Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper

Nightbirds on Nantucket by Joan Aiken

The Arm of the Starfish by Madeleine L'Engle

Henry Reed's Babysitting Service by Keith Robertson

Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang by Ian Fleming

You can find Deborah at her author website and Mary Grace at My Life 100 Years Ago.

This episode was edited by Adam Linder of Bespoken Podcasting.

Podcast website at rereadingourchildhood.com