Essential books to read to children

After listing my own favourite books, I started to think of the books that my children have read and loved and re-read. With the picture books, these are the ones they learn by heart - the ones I have heard them telling themselves in their cots late at night when I have thought they must have fallen asleep already (they were being so quiet). With the books for older children, they are the ones I have read to my older daughter and now find her taking down and re-reading to herself. With most of the books for over-sevens (as J is only just coming into that bracket) these aren't books we've read together yet but rather the ones I remember most vividly from my own childhood, and so I look forward to reading them aloud.

Most, perhaps all, of these books are just as good for either sex but, as I am raising only girls, there certainly a bias towards girly books or books with female characters. If I could deliver these forty books to every baby girl born in the english-speaking world, I would do so with love and die happy.

Top ten for under 3s

Orange, Pear, Apple, Bear - EMILY GRAVETT
The Baby's Catalogue - JANET & ALLAN AHLBERG
Peepo! - JANET & ALLAN AHLBERG
Moo, Baa, La, La, La - SANDRA BOYNTON
Where's Spot? - ERIC HILL
I Want My Potty - TONY ROSS
Dear Zoo - ROD CAMPBELL
The Very Hungry Caterpillar - ERIC CARLE
We're Going On a Bear Hunt - MICHAEL ROSEN
Where Does Maisy Live? - LUCY COUSINS

Three to Five

Pants - GILES ANDREAE
Rosie's Babies - MARTIN WADDELL
The Gruffalo - JULIA DONALDSON
All Join In - QUENTIN BLAKE
The Rascally Cake - JEANNE WILLIS & KORKY PAUL
The Hairy Book - BABETTE COLE
The Tiger Who Came To Tea - JUDITH KERR
Mr Gumpy's Outing - JOHN BURNINGHAM
I Am Not Sleepy and I Will Not Go To Bed - LAUREN CHILD
Slinky Malinki - LYNLEY DODD

Five to Seven

The Enchanted Wood - ENID BLYTON
The Twits - ROALD DAHL
Sheep-Pig - DICK KING-SMITH
Popular Folk Tales - THE BROTHERS GRIMM
Lion Boy - ZIZOU CORDER
Harry Potter & The Philiosopher's Stone - J.K. ROWLING
The Wind in the Willows - KENNETH GRAHAME
Flat Stanley - JEFF BROWN
Utterly Me, Clarice Bean - LAUREN CHILD
The Bad Beginning - LEMONY SNICKET

Seven to Nine

Just William - RICHMAL CROMPTON
The Secret Garden - FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT
The Just So Stories - RUDYARD KIPLING
The Happy Prince & Other Stories - OSCAR WILDE
Lorna Doone - R.D. BLACKMORE (Ladybird Children's Classics version)
Gulliver's Kingdom - JONATHAN SWIFT (Ladybird Children's Classics version)
Matilda - ROALD DAHL
The Ha Ha Bonk Book - JANET & ALLAN AHLBERG
Wolves - EMILY GRAVETT
The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe - C.S. LEWIS

Nine to Twelve

Anne of Green Gables - L.M. MONTGOMERY
Daddy Long-Legs - JEAN WEBSTER
The Dead Letterbox - JAN MARK
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 - SUE TOWNSEND
Over Sea, Under Stone - SUSAN COOPER
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret - JUDY BLUME
The Children of Green Knowe - LUCY M. BOSTON
Moondial - HELEN CRESSELL
Carrie's War - NINA BAWDEN
The Silver Sword - IAN SERRAILLIER

Enjoy.
Love A