I agree with Roald Dahl definitely - among other things I love that he can be dark in a kids book, e.g. things/people die... e.g. The Giant Peachsleepydumpling wrote:Children's books have to have strong stories to keep kids interested. Adults may love books for their character, settings or language, but kids get bored too easy if there isn't a good solid, well paced story to keep them going.
Favourites of mine as a kid were Roald Dahl, Astrid Lindgren, Judy Blume, LM Montgomery... there are more I'm sure!
I recently started reading to my children, when they went to bed, from a book I was reading which was quite sad, dark, complex, strong and interesting prose, - the book was Tim Winton, The Riders - my kids loved it - they seemed to get caught up in the descriptive side and use of words and the "then and now" story... I did not start at the beginning or finish at the end, they simply got a chapter or two wherever I was up to. I did it because we were on holiday and had no kids books and I was to tiered to make up a story... the result was surprising and I will do it again.