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Roald Dahl is my shepherd; I shall not wander...
At this point, I guess you can still count the Harry Potter books as children's lit, so J.K. Rowling is def on the top of my list.
As for blatant children authors, Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson series). He did what Disney couldn't with Hercules, and did it better.
ADHD? Bitch please, those are battle instincts!Terry Deary and Richard Adams.
For more conventional authors. Emily Rodda, Roald Dahl J.K.Rowling and C.S.Lewis were childhood favorites. Others like Rudyard Kipling and Lewis Carrol I liked better as I got older.
I'm having to learn to pay the priceI know a lot of people who love Deltora Quest, but Archive Panic has kept me from that series, I think...
edited 3rd May '12 12:48:19 PM by FreezairForALimitedTime
"Proto-Indo-European makes the damnedest words related. It's great. It's the Kevin Bacon of etymology." ~Madrugada
And I don't even consider Watership Down a children's book. It's always been in the adult sections of any library where I've seen it. Do people consider it a children's book just because it's about rabbits?
edited 2nd May '12 1:54:00 AM by DoktorvonEurotrash
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: Richard Adams wrote it for his own children, and always considered it to be a children's book himself. The edition I have has a foreword from him where he talks about how glad it makes him to see children everywhere enjoying it.
I have to second the Michael Ende love, but since I already made a topic about him, I might as well link to it, rather than write the same stuff again. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=12971900380A82780100&page=0
Another one who was already mentioned, Astrid Lindgren. Be it Pippi, Kalle Blomkvist or Mio, My Mio, they are all damn good books and she really captures the way a child thinks.
So, just to mention some authors whom no-one but me would know, let's go for some Danish ones.
Dennis Jürgensen: Probably the most popular Danish author amongst the teenage boy demographic. A popularity that definitely isn't undeserved. He writes in a lot of different genres and has even written some books for adults as well. However his most common genres are probably comedy, fantasy (though never standard high medieval fantasy) and horror. Most of his works, regardless of genre, is peppered with quite a lot of comedy. I remember his Freddy series (about a horror-obsessed boy who ends up having to help a group of iconic horror monsters, who turn out to be pretty nice people, navigate the landscape of the modern world) as being extremely funny when I read it as a kid. He is by no means a literary genius, but his books are fun, exciting, imaginative, very readable and in a few cases they even have a somewhat deeper point. He has however never been translated to English.
Knud Holten: Yet another author of pure fun. His Alex on Adventures series is a good read, though the quality varies from book to book. But it is very imaginative, Alex basically lives in a pulp/fantasy/science fiction kitchen sink, where anything is possible. In addition Alex's grandmother is probably one of the coolest old ladies I have seen in fiction, this side of Granny Weatherwax. Once again, no English translations.
Josefine Ottesen: Also fantasy, you're probably seeing a pattern here. Her stories tend to be characterised by coming-of-age themes and the contrast/similarities between the masculine and the feminine. She is a really good author, though I'd say a little heavier than the other two I mentioned, which can also be a good thing and certainly makes for pretty good books. Again, no English versions.
Jon Bing: So just to not be all nationalist, let's mention a Norwegian author as well. He is not a children's author as such, but he has written some books aimed at children. Particularly The Chronicles of the Starship Alexandria, which is about a so-called ”library ship” which travels between the scattered worlds of colonised space. Traveling between planets can take hundreds of years and as such the librarians sleep these centuries away in a state of cold sleep. They share and obtain knowledge from the planets they visit, thus performing the crucial task of connecting human civilisation and contributing to the overall advancement of technology etc. The main character is introduced as a resident of the first planet they visit and each book generally has a few new characters corresponding to the world that is visited. Now, for the sake of drama, most of the worlds they visit have some kind of problem. It is often in the form of the power being in the hands of very few people, who ”trick” or coerce the rest of the population into obedience. The librarians use their knowledge and ingenuity to help the people of these planets, never resorting to downright force. Not sure if any of his work is translated to English.
I also enjoyed a lot of ”children” novels translated from English when I was a child, but since a lot of other people can mention these authors just as well as me, it's hardly that interesting of a subject.
edited 3rd May '12 4:34:18 AM by Mathias
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I like the sound of this Dennis Jürgensen. Sounds a bit like a Jacqueline Wilson in a way. Never translated into English, you say? Shame.
I think you said on another thread that The Little Prince was uplifting. Granted that I read it as an oversensitive eight-year-old with a weakness as to the finer points, but I remember that book ending on a serious downer. Didn't it?
EDIT: Whoops, missed the first paragraph. Those who have read it my weigh in.
edited 3rd May '12 7:26:44 PM by DomaDoma
Hail Martin Septim!I am shocked, shocked by the lamentable lack of Garth Nix love on this thread.
Nothing stopping you from adding pages on them! :D Do it, and introduce more people to them!
"Proto-Indo-European makes the damnedest words related. It's great. It's the Kevin Bacon of etymology." ~Madrugada

Can we also stipulate that Rowling forward a percentage of her earnings to Jill Murphy for causing the poor woman to be accused of ripping off Harry Potter, despite writing her own series of children's books about a fledgling magical practitioner at a school for wizards 23 years prior to Rowling?
Roald Dahl, definitely numbers among my favourite Children's Authors and I can still remember Rik Mayall's reading of George's Marvellous Medicine on Jackanory (BBC kids TV programme where kids books were read by celebs).
Lucy M Boston's The Green Knowe Chronicles series scores highly, too.
As do Robert Westall; for writing kids books that weren't afraid to be seriously creepy and at times downright nasty. Plus they featured heroic cats.
Earthsea, Narnia, The Hobbit, Lo TR all feature fairly highly on my list too. Lo TR I mainly got to experience from an early age via The BBC Radio adaptation and Bakshi's animated version. Gandalf will forever be Sir Michael Hordern, so far as I'm concerned.
Douglas Hill, who produced The Col Sec Trilogy and The Last Legionary and the Master of Fiends pair.
Lynley Dodd's Hairy MacLary and Slinky Malinki books are great stuff for kids, too. And actually fun to read as an adult reading to them.
Shame so many of these are now out of print.