William The Outlaw (Abridged)

He was banned from libraries. He was beloved by generations. Meet William Brown, an eleven-year-old who has never met a rule he didn't want to break. In these seven adventures, the leader of the Outlaws, a gang of neighborhood miscreants, tackles everything from imaginary courts to accidental arson with absolute conviction that the adult world is profoundly ridiculous. First published in 1927, Richmal Crompton's masterpiece captures the collision between childhood's magnificent chaos and the stiff-upper-lip respectable society that surrounds it. The humor remains startlingly fresh: William is vain, scheming, and occasionally brutal, yet his logic is so perfectly internal that you can't help but root for him. These stories work because they never condescend: William isn't a lesson in manners or a symbol of innocence. He's a force of nature, and the world had to make room.