A ‘BEAR of very little brain’ tops a nationwide poll of best-loved children’s books over the last 150 years.

Threadbare but still ‘in there’, A.A. Milne’s perennially popular Winnie the Pooh, 88 this year, is still the all-time family favourite, according to a YouGov poll for chain store John Lewis and children’s charity Barnardo’s.

Modern children’s book authors like Harry Potter’s creator JK Rowling don’t get a look in to the Top 10, which is dominated by books from the 19th and 20th centuries.

Here’s the full list in order of merit:

• Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne, 1926
• Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, 1869
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, 1969
• The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien, 1937
• The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson, 1999
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl, 1964
• Black Beauty by Anna Sewell, 1877
• Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, 1883
• The BFG by Roald Dahl, 1982
• The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis, 1950

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