Five Books All Children Should Read

In no particular order...

1. To Kill a Mockingbird

"Scout," said Atticus, "nigger-lover is just one of those terms that don't mean anything—like snot-nose. It's hard to explain—ignorant, trashy people use it when they think somebody's favoring Negroes over and above themselves. It's slipped into usage with some people like ourselves, when they want a common, ugly term to label somebody."

"You aren't really a nigger-lover, then, are you?"

"I certainly am. I do my best to love everybody... I'm hard put, sometimes—baby, it's never an insult to be called what somebody thinks is a bad name. It just shows you how poor that person is, it doesn't hurt you."

2. Jungle Book 

Now Chil the Kite brings home the night

That Mang the Bat sets free--
The herds are shut in byre and hut,

For loosed till dawn are we.
This is the hour of pride and power,

Talon and tush and claw.
Oh, hear the call!--Good hunting all

That keep the Jungle Law!

3. Peter Pan

“There could not have been a lovelier sight; but there was none to see it except a little boy who was staring in at the window. He had ecstasies innumerable that other children can never know; but he was looking through the window at the one joy from which he must be for ever barred.” 

4. One of Enid Blyton's many school stories (they're all pretty much the same :P)

(paraphrased) "If you take nothing else home with you to France, take the English sense of honour!"\

English sense of honour, my foot. They are definitely very enjoyable though.

5. Harry Potter (all seven of them. They count as one book)

“Seventeen, eh!" said Hagrid as he accepted a bucket-sized glass of wine from Fred.
"Six years to the day we met, Harry, d’yeh remember it?"
"Vaguely," said Harry, grinning up at him. "Didn’t you smash down the front door, give Dudley a pig’s tail, and tell me I was a wizard?"
"I forge’ the details," Hagrid chortled.”

This list is incredibly short of course, Five Hundred Books Children Should Read will be the next post. But I think, if, heaven forbid, children were only allowed to read five books, they might do worse than these five.