Top Picture Books - A great read!

The festive season is a wonderful excuse to curl up with a good book. From new books based on old classics to stories celebrating the winter season, we round up some of the best reading material this Christmas, as well as some of the highlights of the last year which you can continue to enjoy into 2020 and beyond.

CHRISTMAS CLASSICS

Hans Christian Andersen’s festive tale inspired Christopher Corr to retell the story of The Little Fir Tree, about a young tree that longs to see the world but soon finds out it is not quite what he expected. Corr’s colourful, folk art-inspired illustrations help bring the story to a new young audience.

Three Christmas classics, The Night Before Christmas, Jingle Bells and The Nutcracker, feature alongside stunningly intricate silhouette illustrations by Natee Puttapipat in The Night Before Christmas and Other Festive Favourites.

Inspired by Clement C Moore’s classic poem, Kes Gray and Claire Powell’s The Night Before the Night Before Christmas is a hilarious, rhyming picture book about Father Christmas’s frantic preparations for the big day.

In Carys Bexington’s debut picture book with illustrations by Kate Hindley, The Night Before Christmas in Wonderland, instead of Alice, it’s Santa’s turn for an adventure down the rabbit hole. There, he joins the Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter and a reindeer for a tea party and race to put the ‘merry’ back into Christmas in Wonderland.

POETRY AND RHYMING

The Shortest Day by Susan Cooper celebrates the shortest day of the year in a poem capturing the magic behind the returning of the light, the yearning for traditions that connect us with previous generations, and the hope for peace that we carry into the future. Illustrated by Carson Ellis, this beautiful book evokes the sense of joy and community found in the celebration of light, thankfulness, and festivity.

Four bunnies set off on a jolly Christmas lift-the-flap adventure to find ten little elves in Martha Mumford and Laura Hughes’ We’re Going on an Elf Chase.

There are a variety of different-sized editions available of Pick a Pine Tree, Jarvis and Patricia Toht’s bestselling festive story with a rhythmical, read-aloud narrative accompanied by warm, joyful art celebrating all the familiar rituals of decorating the tree – from digging out jam-packed boxes of trimmings and stringing tinsel to turning on all the twinkly fairy lights.

Pick a Pine Tree by Jarvis and Patricia Toht celebrates the familiar rituals of decorating the Christmas tree

FAMILY AND FRIENDS

In Janine M Fraser’s Sarah’s Two Nativities, two cultures come together. Grandmother Azar tells Sarah stories from the Holy Koran, while Grandmother Maria tells her stories from the Bible. At Christmas time, Sarah snuggles in each of her grandmothers’ laps and listens to two nativity stories about the birth of baby Jesus. They are the same in some ways, and different in others, but the book, illustrated by Helene Magisson, explains that both can be Sarah’s favourite.

Renowned children’s author Michael Morpurgo has teamed up with bestselling illustrator Jim Field in Grandpa Christmas, a story about protecting the environment to help children inherit a better world. Every Christmas, Mia and her family read a letter which her Grandpa wrote to her, remembering the times they spent in his garden finding frogs and worms and planting seeds and asking Mia to continue to care for and protect our world for the future.

In David Lucas’s A Letter for Bear, poor Bear is hard at work delivering the post to all the animals of the wood but never receives anything himself, until one day he decides to write a few letters of his own, inviting all the animals to a party.

It is Christmas Eve, and a lonely mouse who lives in the grandfather clock is the only one awake to help Santa when he gets lost in a blizzard, in Tracey Corderoy’s Mouse’s Night Before Christmas. With the help of Sarah Massini’s illustrations, children will love seeing the pair embark on a magical sleigh ride, delivering presents all around town and sharing Christmas Day with a new friend.

A lonely young snowball stuck at the top of a mountain decides to visit the local town for a bit of fun in Sue Hendra and Paul Linnet’s hilarious Snowball. On his way he trips, and falls, and as he rolls down he picks up not only snow, but plenty of other odd things too, including a sheep, a line of washing and a bicycling bear.

WORDLESS

Richard Johnson’s wordless picturebook Once Upon a Snowstorm tells the story of a father and his son who live by themselves in a cosy cabin in the woods. One day, the boy gets lost in the snow, but a group of friendly woodland animals helps him home.

A girl and a wolf cub get lost in a snowstorm in Matthew Cordell’s stunning wordless picture book, Wolf in the Snow, which won 2018’s Caldecott Medal.

WINTER

Celebrated Dutch illustrator Erik Kriek introduces children to animals’ winter habits and the dazzling beauty of the Northern Lights in Mika: The Bear Who Didn’t Want to Sleep.

From breakfast to dinner, dusk to dawn, children will love spending the day with the curious Adélie, a penguin chick who sets out into the vast Antarctic ocean, while learning all about the world we live in, in Ella Bailey’s One Day on Our Blue Planet: In the Antarctic.

Holly Surplice’s Snow Still features a little fawn who wakes up to discover that the world outside has changed after a fall of snow, and takes his first faltering steps into this exciting snow-white world.

BEST OF THE REST IN 2019

The Boy Who Loved Everyone by Jane Porter and Maisie Paradise Shearring features Dimitri, who tells everyone, from his friends at nursery to the big tree in the playground, that he loves them. But when no-one says it back, Dimitri worries no one loves him, until he finds out there are lots of different ways love can spread through the world.

Heather dreams of going to outer space, and when a spaceship lands at Cotton Rock, in Lights on Cotton Rock by David Litchfield, it seems all of her dreams have come true. But soon the alien has to leave.

In The Girl and the Dinosaur, Marianne is often seen foraging on the beach. But she isn’t playing with children her own age. Instead, Marianne is alone, and digging for dinosaur bones to build a special sort of companion. Hollie Hughes’s words and Sarah Massini’s pictures will take children on a magical journey far beyond the page.

A baby giraffe learns about the world from her mother and grows stronger every day under her guidance in Chitra Soundar and Poonam Mistry’s gentle and reassuring read You’re Strong With Me, complete with sumptuous illustrations.

From the creators of Oi Frog!, Jim Field and Kes Gray, comes a hilarious new sequel, Oi Puppies!, with clever rhymes and boisterous illustrations.

Don’t Worry, Little Crab by Chris Haughton is great to read aloud. Big crab and little crab go exploring but is little crab brave enough to go into the sea?

MORE INFORMATION

• With many thanks to The Alligator’s Mouth, Richmond, www.thealligatorsmouth.co.uk, and The Children’s Bookshop, Muswell Hill, www.childrensbookshoplondon.com, both in London.
• The Alligator’s Mouth is an independent children’s bookshop which stocks books from baby to late teens and runs events, including storytimes, a book club, comics club and author visits. It also has close links with local schools.
• Follow The Children’s Bookshop on Twitter (@childrensbkshop) or instagram (@childrensbookshoplondon) for the latest reads, offers and news of its events, or get in touch for personalised advice.