Books for Children

In an article in The New Yorker someone reflects on the books he read when he was a child. I thought: I can't remember a single author of a single book I read as a child. I read (or rather looked at the comic strips) kids' mags like Beano, Dandy, Film Fun and whatnot, but books with words and stories - I can't remember reading any.
Of course, in school you had to read certain books that were on the syllabus. Though I have to say I don't think I read any of those right through. "Treasure Island" I half read so that when a question in an exam was "What do you think is the most exciting scene in the book?", I wrote about the attack on the stockade (?) because that was as far as I'd got.
Then there was "Prester John" by John Buchan ( a book that I guess would not make it on to a modern, PC, syllabus) which I read bits of. "David Copperfield" I read bits of.... though the bits might have turned me into, later, a bit of a Dickens freak - someone once wrote "if a stranger calls at my house I ask him if he likes Dickens; if he answers in the negative I lock away my silver and phone for the police". Well I'm not that much a Dickens freak.... but not far off!
This New Yorker writer mentioned Maurice Sendak - never heard of him; Paul Galdone - never heard of him; William Sleig - never heard of him.
And here I am a published author of a novel for children and I never read such books as a child. But probably I'm not much good because the book has been remaindered or is lying in a warehouse somewhere in Wales.
I once picked up a book in the library that was about authors who wrote for children. I didn't recognise any names. So I looked for the name of one I knew by reputation. It wasn't there. Roaul Dahl!