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We all have our favorite children’s books that have shaped who we are.
Even highly successful people can appreciate the enduring impact various childhood stories have had on their lives.
Here are the 12 best and most influential children’s books, according to some highly successful people.
‘The Harry Potter’ Series by J.K. Rowling
Scholastic
A series that needs no introduction, “Harry Potter” has brought millions of fans worldwide together to celebrate the story’s magical, yet entirely relatable, world of witchcraft and wizardry.
Adam Grant, a professor of management at Wharton, told Business Insider that J.K. Rowling is perhaps the most influential person alive.
“There’s a lot of originality in the ‘Harry Potter’ stories: The way to get to Hogwarts, all of the different ideas about how to cast spells, children being the individuals who are responsible for saving adults — all of that is setting a standard for saying, ‘I want to do something new,'” he said.
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‘The Little Prince’ by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Harcourt, Brace, & World
“The Little Prince” is the story of a stranded pilot that meets a young Prince from outer space. It is an allegorical tale of the author’s real life experiences when fleeing to North America during World War II.
Robert Grimminck of List Verse reported that actor “James Dean deeply identified with the book and took it with him any time he moved.”
Grimminck said that the book was so important to Dean that his good friend and biographer William Bast wrote about it in an inscription on Dean’s memorial near his crash site.
The inscription includes Dean’s favorite line from the book: “What is essential is invisible to the eye.”
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‘Goodnight Moon’ by Margaret Wise Brown
Harper Festival
Brown’s poetic story of a bunny saying goodnight to all of his inanimate belongings is one that inspires blessings and gratitude.
“I just love the idea of blessing everything that’s near and dear to you before you go to sleep with a simple ‘Goodnight,'” Gwyneth Paltrow told Oprah Magazine.
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