A little over a hundred years ago “The Junior Classics” were collected and published. I will let the original managing editor explain:
“The purpose of The Junior Classics is to provide, in ten volumes containing about five thousand pages, a classified collection of tales, stories, and poems, both ancient and modern, suitable for boys and girls of from six to sixteen years of age. Thoughtful parents and teachers, who realize the evils of indiscriminate reading on the part of children, will appreciate the educational value of such a collection. A child’s taste in reading is formed, as a rule, in the first ten or
twelve years of its life, and experience has shown that the childish mind will prefer good literature to any other, if access to it is made easy, and will develop far better on literature of proved merit than on trivial or transitory material.
The boy or girl who becomes familiar with the charming tales and poems in this collection will have gained a knowledge of literature and history that will be of high value in other school and home work. Here are the real elements of imaginative narration, poetry, and ethics, which should enter into the education of every English-
speaking child”
The nature of a “classic” is that it “transcends time” to one degree or another – e.g. Merriam-Webster tells us a classic is “a work of enduring excellence“
Of the 10 Volumes of the “Junior Classics” the volumes of folk tales, mythology, the “Arthur legend”, and the children’s tales (in their “pre-Disney” form) have stood the test of time – i.e. what was “classic” 100 years ago is “classic” today.
The volumes that didn’t age well include the volume of “Animal Stories”, “Stories of Today” (meaning the early 20th Century), and the volume of collected poems songs (Volumes 8, 9, and 10).
Microsoft Word tells me that the “reading level” of these volumes is “8th grade” – but the target audience was 9 to 16 year old readers
Obviously if you are buying the books as a gift – “know your reader.”
The links below are to Barnes and Noble. There are other versions of these volumes available. The paperback volumes available through the links below use a relatively large font designed to be “easy to read” – the eBooks use the same font and have functional “table of contents” (which the “free” ebooks probably won’t offer)
Volume One: Fairy and Wonder Tales
Volume Two: Folk Tales and Myths
Volume Three: Tales from Greece and Rome
Volume Three: Tales From Greece and Rome (eBook)
Volume Four: Heroes and Heroines of Chivalry
Volume Five: Stories that Never Grow Old