To celebrate Children's Book Week, which runs throughout the UK until Friday 11 October, the reading charity Booktrust has drawn up its "definitive list" of the 100 best books to read "before you're 14". The list falls into four age groups – 0-5 years, 6-8 years, 9-11 years, and 12-14 years – and 25 titles have been voted into each.

Many of the Booktrust picks, alas, were published long after my 14th birthday, although I have notched up many of the titles since. In my view, the list does what it ought to. Scanning it, I felt an overwhelming urge to tackle the books I've not yet read, and to speak up loudly for those I thought were missing, recommending them with wild-eyed zeal to any handily passing child.

I'm a colossal children's-book geek and a sharp-elbowed parent, so my enthusiasm is probably unsurprising. But how will this list serve the small fry for whom it's intended? Does it accurately mirror current tastes; does it speak to children's reading habits, or just adults' view of them?

The list leans broadly more towards the classic than the contemporary (except in the 12-14 category, in which well over half the titles were first published after 2000). However, I can vouch, at least anecdotally, for the 0-5 oldies having stood the test of time: I cut my teeth on The Tiger Who Came to Tea, The Elephant and the Bad Baby, Each Peach Pear Plum and The Cat in the Hat, and my toddler, in turn, has clamoured for them again and again, "reading" them sneakily after lights-out. This slant towards titles published in the 80s and earlier probably reflects the inclination of purchasers – parents and grandparents – to stick with what they knew and loved the first time round. Well, if it ain't broke …

In the 6-8 section, perennially popular animals – Pooh, Paddington, Babar, Charlotte and Babe – are similarly well represented, although the traumatising Black Beauty is missing. But there are some more surprising omissions – no Mr Gum and no Captain Underpants. Similarly, in 9-12 and up, there's no Robert Muchamore and no David Walliams, despite his huge sales. Judging from this, I'd say the slapstick, snort-out-loud, "guilty pleasure" aspect of reading as a child is less well represented here than imaginative forays into different worlds.

There are some controversial inclusions, especially in the 12-14 age group: Melvin Burgess's Junk, which, with its clear, discomfiting look at heroin addiction and teen prostitution, is always guaranteed to get the Mail in a flap, and The Hunger Games, ramping the dystopic pain all the way to 11 by showing children killing each other in government-sponsored contests. Overall, though, the balance between old and new, cosily classic and red-hot contemporary has been nicely struck. There should be something here to appeal to anyone, in any age group (although more titles with black and ethnic minority protagonists would have been better still).

I do have a slight issue with the idea of a "must read" list for children, however enthusiastic it may be. In response to recent National Literacy Trust research suggesting that fewer children now read in their own time, Malorie Blackman, the children's laureate, said: "We've got to encourage children to read for pleasure and read whatever takes their fancy and not be ashamed of that." The Booktrust list is a fantastic starting point, but kids are already increasingly surrounded by prescriptions and "must-dos", school-mandated reading and deadlines. If it were up to me, I'd call this lovely lot "100 great books to read at any time, but especially as a child".

Here are 10 favourites, mostly oldies, I would like to have made the cut. What do you think has been left out?

• What-a-Mess by Frank Muir, illustrated by Joseph Wright, 0-5 (1977)

• The Baby Who Wouldn't Go to Bed by Helen Cooper, 0-5 (1997)

• The Pink Bicycle by Gill Lobel, illustrated by Richard Watson 0-5 (2011)

• Fairy Tales by Terry Jones, illustrated by Michael Foreman, 6-8 (1982)

• Tutti and the Magic Bird by Julia Boyd-Harvey, illustrated by Marjorie Bereza, 6-8 (1990)

• The Demon Headmaster by Gillian Cross, 9-12 (1982)

• Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones, 9-12 (1986)

• The Dark Is Rising Sequence by Susan Cooper, 9-12 (1965-67)

• The God Beneath the Sea by Leon Garfield/Edward Blishen, illustrated by Charles Keeping, 12-14 (1970)

• Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D Taylor, 12-14 (1976)

Lastly, as part of Children's Book Week 2013, you can vote here for your favourite children's book, from a pre-selected shortlist, until 15 November.