A canon of children’s literature that is fit for the 21st century will therefore reflect the children who read it. It is no exaggeration to point out that audiences have changed since the all-conquering Enid Blyton and her contemporaries wrote predominantly about white, middle-class children in private boarding schools and set their adventures in nostalgically idealised versions of the English countryside.

This does not mean that we must “do away with” the groundbreaking works of the past. Alice in Wonderland, The Secret Garden and The Railway Children, to name just three, will, I hope, be read for as long as there is children’s literature. There is no rule that the canon can only be read once. What we do with “problematic” themes in classic books – for example, the white-faced subplot in Dr Dolittle or Roald Dahl’s fatphobia – is the subject of a thorough debate.

But as the mainstream school system expanded, as empires crumbled, as industrialisation changed the class system and the nature of our landscape, as waves of immigration shook up our demographics, as travel gave us the feeling that ‘there’ didn’t have to be different, as religion became less important and some families took on forms other than just a mother, father and three or four children, as children’s imaginations were completely transformed by radio, television and the Internet… all these changes offered new opportunities and new challenges to children’s book authors.

The canon changes, of course, as canons do. Few people today read Anna Laetitia Barbauld, GA Henty or Mary Martha Sherwood. But critics can, I hope, give it a little nudge. And here is my list, which includes both authors of the past whose work still touches us today or whose excellence is in danger of being forgotten, and a few from the present who have expanded the possibilities of children’s literature. Here follows a handful of authors who, unfortunately or not, we can probably let fall into oblivion.

IN

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)
Was Kipling a “white racist”? This label does not do justice to the complexity of this man and the brilliant genius of his work. Children’s literature would not be what it is without him.

A.A. Milne (1882-1956)
Winnie the Pooh is timeless. Philosophical, sentimental, charmingly absurd: few children’s stories have invented such a completely self-contained and delightful world as that of the Hundred Acre Wood.

C.S. Lewis (1898-1963)
You might think they are racist, you might think they are sexist, you might think they are certainly reactionary and full of “Christian persuasion”: the Narnia books are all of these things. But they are also full of fantasy: who does not shudder a little at the words “Aslan is on the rise”?

T.H. White (1906-1964)
White’s wild and idiosyncratic variation on the Arthurian legend, The King of Camelot (1958), is like nothing else in the canon: funny, dignified, moving and wonderfully well-written.

Judy Blume (born 1938)
Blume spoke to young people about their lives as they were, not as adults wanted them to be, and did so with great enthusiasm and compassion. She had also fought against philistines and prudish people who banned books, a battle that is still ongoing.

Jacqueline Wilson (born 1945)
Wilson expanded the subject matter and audience for children’s literature. Her Tracy Beaker stories about a child in a foster home are full of life. Hilarious for children, heartbreaking for adults.

Philip Pullman (born 1946)
Pullman offers stylish prose and captivating storytelling – and at the same time shows that there is no reason why children’s literature cannot also devote itself to big ideas: theodicy in “His Dark Materials”; metafiction and determinism in “Clockwork”.

Julia Donaldson (born 1948)
Donaldson’s picture books, mostly illustrated by Axel Scheffler, are masterpieces of rhythm, rhyme and narrative structure. Start with The Gruffalo and move on to Tiddler, Tabby McTat, Stick Man and more. There isn’t a single dud among them.

Malorie Blackman (born 1962)
It’s amazing that we reached the 21st century before a black children’s author had a real breakthrough. In the Noughts and Crosses series, the clever idea of ​​race switching is brought to life through Blackman’s wild storytelling.

JK Rowling (born 1965)
She has her haters (I’m not one of them), but Rowling spoke to a generation of young readers with extraordinary directness and changed the landscape of children’s publishing in the process. Harry Potter changed the world – for the better.

Jon Klassen (born 1981)
Klassen’s debut I Want My Hat Back from 2011 was Aesop in the style of Aeschylus. A comedy, a character study, a horror story, a morality tale, it can be re-read endlessly. It was not only the start of the immortal hat trilogy, but also heralded the arrival of a generational talent in picture book literature. No one draws or writes like him.

Katherine Rundell (born 1987)
Rundell is the queen bee of the new generation of children’s authors – telling old-fashioned adventure stories with the sprightly intelligence of the literary scholar she is and the sense of wonder of the child she was.

OUT OF

Willard Price (1887–1983)
It’s sad to put Price on the discard pile – I loved him as a kid – but it’s necessary. The adventure stories may tell you how to beat an octopus in a brawl, but they’re embarrassingly racist, feature no recognizable female characters, and treat rare animals and habitats as resources to be plundered for profit.

WE Johns (1893-1968)
Captain WE Johns was no more a captain than Colonel Sanders was a colonel, and the Biggles stories are to literature what KFC is to food. They were good in their day, but that time has passed like the double-decker.

Enid Blyton (1897-1968)
Blyton, the Japanese knotweed of the mid-20th century publishing world, is in desperate need of a dose of weed killer. She peddles outdated views and parody stories in clumsy prose. The children of the 21st century deserve (and have) better.

Roald Dahl (1916-1990)
Dahl’s best books are compelling, but the vitriol and prejudice that are part of his appeal are increasingly unpleasant. If we can’t stand him today, we’d rather backlist him than subject him to clumsy, politically correct rewrites.

Roger Hargreaves (1935–1988)
The problem with the Mr. Men stories is not so much the gender stereotypes, but the fact that they are all a bit boring. They are too text-heavy and their drawings are simple and have become a bit flat. To Hargreaves’ credit, though, he was good at drawing shoes.

David Walliams (born 1971)
To his credit, Walliams’ books are unpretentious and do indeed make text-averse young boys read. But they are also childish and sometimes downright crass, and the whole celebrity children’s book thing poisons the well for the many more interesting authors who aren’t just on TV.

The Haunted Wood: A History of Childhood Reading by Sam Leith (Oneworld, £30) is published on September 5th