Top Ten Underrated Children's Authors

The theme for this week's Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by The Broke and the Bookish) is Top Ten Underrated Authors or Books in X genre. In my opinion there are many great underrated children's authors that I loved growing up so I'd like to share them with you. :)
Some of these I know may be more on your horizon but I think they're under-read so I included them too.
These are at varying reading levels but I would estimate that I read these all in the younger elementary grades.
So, to repeat, these are all great books and in my opinion if a children's book is really great it is not only enjoyable for a kid but also for an adult and all of these I continue to re-read even though now I'm a "grown up".

1. Maud Hart Lovelace- Wrote the Betsy-Tacy series
2. Sydney Taylor- Wrote the All-of-a-Kind Family series
3. Carolyn Haywood- Wrote the B is for Betsy books
4. Lloyd Alexander- Wrote the Chronicles of Prydain
5. Betty MacDonald- Wrote the Mrs. Piggy-Wiggle series
6. Michael Bond- Wrote A Bear Called Paddington series
7. Arleta Richardson- Wrote the In Grandma's Attic series
8. A.A. Milne- Wrote the Winnie the Pooh series
9. Walter R. Brooks- Wrote the Freddy the Pig series
10. Thornton Burgess- Wrote Old Mother West Wind and others

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Top Ten Tuesday: All Time Favorite Books in the Fantasy Genre

The link up for today at The Broke and the Bookish was "All time favorite books in X genre". I chose fantasy as that's probably my favorite reading genre. :) While it is my favorite genre I haven't actually read tons of books in that genre so we'll see if I get a list of ten. And these are in no way in any order, though LOTR is definitely number one.

1. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (duh)
2. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
3. The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis
4. The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
5. The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
6. Redwall series by Brian Jacques
7. Eragon by Christopher Paolini (first one is good but I don't really care for the others)
8. The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander
9. The Wizard of Oz series by L. Frank Baum
10. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Caroll

We'll I did come up with ten, though I wasn't exactly consistent with how I listed them (some I listed series, some I listed single titles). I'm so afraid I missed something obvious but who knows. I went scrolling through lists of fantasy books which jogged my memory. I almost forgot certain books/series were fantasy. :)

P.S. I know I said I'd announce the winners for my giveaway today. Please know I haven't forgotten... I am going to post it later on today. :)

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Kids' Books and The Chronicles of Prydain

I am an unashamed re-reader of books that I read as a kid. There, its out.  Personally, I don't see why anyone thinks one shouldn't read those books just because now one is "grown up".  In part it is because I want to know what to give my future kids and also in part because those books are still just as good as they were when I was reading them for the first time ten or so years ago.  There is a reason some of those authors won awards... their books were good.

Anyways, I wanted to give that dissertation before writing what I set out to write this blog post on. :)

My little brother (one of the many) was talking to me about a series he was reading the other day that I had read when I was young (and have re-read far too many times to mention). As he got talking about them I decided I would really like to re-read them (again).  However, I don't know how many of y'all (my blog readers) have read them even thought I believe they are quite popular so I wanted to share about this fun series.  The Chronicals of Prydain are composed of five books: The Book of Three, The Black Cauldron, The Castle of Lyre, Taran Wanderer, and The High King.  They follow the adventures (and misadventures) of Taran who is an assistant pig keeper but a wannabe hero.  The chronicles are full of great characters including the strange creature Gurgi (who always wants "crunchings and muchings"), Fflweddur Fflam (who if he tells a lie or exaggerates one of his harp strings will break... they break a lot), and Eliowny (who has a fiery temper and whenever she unleashes it on Taran she declares "Taran, I'm not talking to you ever again).  The young AND the old will enjoy these engaging stories and you may find yourself smiling and realizing that you may just be like Taran... a wannabe hero.


Lois Johnson, avid writer, tea drinker, and reader but first and foremost, avid Christian.