A list of the best children’s books of the past 70 years has divided the critics by snubbing some of the best-known and most successful children’s writers of the era.

The Top Ten, put together by an expert panel and published today, does not include C. S. Lewis, Arthur Ransome or Walter De La Mare. Enid Blyton, J. K. Rowling and Jacqueline Wilson are also notable by their absence. Instead, the selection includes contemporary novels such as Melvin Burgess’s Junk, which realistically depicts the lives of young heroin users.

The list was compiled by the organisers of the Carnegie Medal, the annual children’s literature prize which is open to English-language books published in Britain. Although there is no cash reward, the award is coveted by children’s writers because of its unique judging process. Most literary awards seek submissions from publishers and agents, and invite celebrities to join judging panels. By contrast, the Carnegie’s selection process is rooted in the professional expertise of librarians across the country who alone can nominate titles.

The “Carnegie of Carnegies” list includes some expected titles, notably Mary Norton’s The Borrowers, the endearing classic about a family of tiny people who live beneath the floor, and Philip Pullman’s Northern Lights, which is “now universally revered as one of the most imaginative works in the English language, and a thought-provoking reflection on the human condition”, the Carnegie said.

Blyton, Rowling and Wilson were not among the Top Ten because they have never won the Carnegie prize.

The list split critics yesterday. Expressing surprise at Ransome’s omission, Penelope Lively, the novelist who won the Carnegie in 1973 with The Ghost of Thomas Kempe, said: “It seems rather heavily weighted towards more recent winners.”

Another author, who declined to be named, condemned the selection as a sad reflection of dwindling standards. “When the level of children’s literature sinks as low as it has, and so few teachers read critically and so few children’s librarians were offered the option of serious study of how to evaluate literature when at library school, any list like this has to be deeply suspect.”

The novelist A. S. Byatt had mixed views, describing five of the books as first-rate novels. “ The Family from One End Street I was completely entranced by as a child,” she said. “Alan Garner is a great writer. It isn’t a bad list.”

Jonathan Douglas, director of the National Literacy Trust and a member of the Carnegie expert panel, defended the selections. “We wanted it to be controversial,” he said. “The best of literature should arouse the deepest of passions.”

The public is being invited to vote online (at www.ckg.org.uk) whether the panel’s choices are right and the results will be announced at a ceremony at the British Library in June.

Voters are also being invited to decide “the Greenaway of Greenaways”, the favourite winner of the Kate Greenaway Medal, Britain’s oldest award for children’s book illustration.

Carnegie

Skellig David Almond 1998
Junk Melvin Burgess 1996
Storm Kevin Crossley-Holland 1985
A Gathering Light Jennifer Donnelly 2003
The Owl Service Alan Garner 1967
The Family from One End Street Eve Garnett 1937
The Borrowers Mary Norton 1952
Tom’s Midnight Garden Philippa Pearce 1958
Northern Lights Philip Pullman 1995
The Machine-Gunners Robert Westall 1981

Greenaway

Each Peach Pear Plum Janet Ahlberg 1978
Tim All Alone Edward Ardizzone 1956
Mr Magnolia Quentin Blake 1980
Father Christmas Raymond Briggs 1973
Gorilla Anthony Browne 1983
Borka John Burningham 1963
I Will Never Not Ever Eat a Tomato Lauren Child 2000
Dogger Shirley Hughes 1977
The Highwayman Charles Keeping 1981
Alice in Wonderland Helen Oxenbury 1999

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