10 favorite children's book authors

[magid]

In no particular order, since I wouldn't be able to rank them, anyway.

Diana Wynne Jones
Edward Eager
Joan Aiken
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Cynthia Voight
Ellen Raskin
Daniel Pinkwater
Joan Bauer
E. L. Konigsburg
Mildred Taylor

Some of these write light, funny books, some more serious ones, but all write wonderful books.
Why are so many of these authors women? Am I biased, or do more kid (sorry, young adult) books get written by women?
Oh, and Madeline L'Engle might've made it onto the list if she weren't so uneven: there are some of hers I love, and some I thought were just blah. Not to mention not so subtle religious undertones (that goes for C. S. Lewis, too).

[22:10 Addendum: I didn't include authors who have just one or two kid books in this list, so no Norton Juster, for instance, though The Phantom Tollbooth is absolutely wonderful.]

Comments

Westmark

[magid.livejournal.com]

I have it. Let me know when you'd like to borrow it (during the semester or after, in other words :-). You know that there are sequels to it? I have one of them, and I think there's another, too.

It makes sense to me that books you've loved for ages would be young adult ones; you'd've read them earlier than adult fiction.

Re: Westmark

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

Anytime would be fine :) Isn't "The Kestrel" a sequel? Or is that part of another series? I think I read them last in middle school (eep).

Er, yeah . . . *duh* I guess that does make sense. Though I consider them favorites even over more adult stuff (some of Heinlein, f'rinstance) that I read at about the same time.

Re: Westmark

[magid.livejournal.com]

I think The Kestrel is a sequel, and not the one I have (I need to go shopping; book shopping doesn't even require trying on all those plaid clothes my mom kept shoving through the curtain at me. Oh. Yeah. Grown up now (nominally), so no longer take my mom when I get clothes. Still, no trying on stuff.). I'm feeling lazy, like I don't want to rummage through the books in the other room to see exactly which book (other than Westmark) I have.

I haven't read any Heinlein, so I can't speak to that, exactly, but I did love Hitchhiker's, and pretty much everything by Wodehouse, and some other stuff, but some books are more... timeless than others. (Notice the careful lack of clothing analogy here. :-)