Japanese animation film studio, Studio Ghibli, has produced gems such as Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle (based on the novel by Diana Wynne Jones), My Neighbour Totoro, Ponyo and Arrietty (based on The Borrowers by Mary Norton).

Studio Ghibli’s latest film, When Marnie Was There, from the 1967 novel of the same name by Joan M Robinson, will have limited release in cinemas from 14 May to 27 May.

Below is a list compiled by Japanese film director, producer, screenwriter, animator, author and manga artist Hayao Miyazaki (who co-founded Studio Ghibli) of his 50 favourite children’s classics.

1. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1943)
2. Il Romanzo di Cipollino by Gianni Rodari (1956)
3. The Rose and the Ring by William Makepeace Thackeray (1854)
4. The Little Bookroom by Eleanor Farjeon (1955)
5. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas (1844)
6. The Secret Garden by Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett (1909)
7. The Treasure of the Nibelungs by Gustav Schalk (1953)
8. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (1865)
9. The Adventures of Sherlock Holme by Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (1891)
10. A Norwegian Farm by Marie Hamsun (1933)
11. The Little Humpbacked Horse by Pyotr Pavlovich Yershov (1834)
12. Souvenirs entomologiques (a series of texts on insects and arachnids) by Jean-Henri Casimir Fabre (1879-1907)
13. Toui Mukashi no Fushigina Hanashi-Nihon Reiiki by Tsutomu Minakami (1995)
14. Ivan the Fool by Leo Tolstoy (1885)
15. Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff (1954)
16. Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne (1926)
17. Les Princes du Vent by Michel-Aime Baudouy (1956)
18. When Marnie Was There by Joan G Robinson (1967)
19. The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder (1940)
20. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame (1908)
21. The Ship That Flew by Hilda Lewis (1939)
22. Flambards by Kathleen Wendy Peyton (1967)
23. Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce (1958)
24. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain (1876)
25. The Restaurant of Many Orders by Kenji Miyazawa (1924)
26. Heidi by Johanna Spyri (1888)
27. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne (1870)
28. The Borrowers by Mary Norton (1952)
29. Nine Fairy Tales by Karel Čapek (1931)
30. Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome (1930)
31. The Flying Classroom by Erich Kästner (1933)
32. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (1719)
33. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (1883)
34. Twelve Months by Samuil Marshak (1943)
35. Tistou Green Thumbs by Maurice Druon (1957)
36. The Man Who Planted the Welsh Onions by Kim Soun (1953)
37. Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio by Pu Songling (1740)
38. Doctor Dolittle by Hugh John Lofting (1922)
39. Journey to the West by Wú Chéng'ēn (1500~?)
40. Little Lord Fauntleroy by Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett (1886)
41. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by Elaine Lobl Konigsburg (1968)
42. The Children Of Noisy Village by Astrid Lindgren (1947)
43. The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien (1937)
44. A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin (1968)
45. The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge (1946)
46. We Were Five by Karel Polacek (1969)
47. City Neighbor: The Story of Jane Addams by Clara Ingram Judson (1951)
48. The Radium Woman by Eleanor Doorly (1939)
49. The Otterbury Incident by Cecil Day-Lewis (1948)
50. Hans Brinker or The Silver Skates by Mary Mapes Dodge (1865)