From Pippi Longstocking to Matilda, the quirky, fictional outsiders who fight authority and injustice are the most memorable characters. Cath Pound explores why.

The best children's fiction "helps us refind things we may not even know we have lost", writes the author Katherine Rundell, with many books proving subversive and emboldening.

Recent revisions made to Roald Dahl's children's novels sparked a controversy over censorship. However, the rewriting and editing of books is nothing new, writes Neil Armstrong.

Is Lewis Carroll’s tale really about sex, drugs, and colonialism? Some say yes. Others argue it’s about eating disorders or the Wars of the Roses. Hephzibah Anderson takes a look.

The 1990s trilogy His Dark Materials was challenged in the US when first published. Now children's and YA book banning has escalated to an unprecedented rate, writes Jane Ciabattari.

The recent titles that made it into BBC Culture's 100 greatest children's books reveal how storytelling for children is evolving in exciting ways, writes Hephzibah Anderson.

What do the global critics and experts who voted in our poll have to say about their top picks?

BBC Culture polled 177 experts from 56 countries to find the greatest children's books ever. From Where the Wild Things Are to Haroun and the Sea of Stories, here's the top 100.