We have a vast collection of books in our house. Mostly of the fun story variety. Edd has always been fantastic at hunting out those books that cause hours of hilarity at bedtime whilst I favour some of the more traditional tales that I enjoyed myself as a little girl so I thought I would share some of our favourites with you all.

Cats Ahoy

It all started with this book by Peter Bentley which Edd bought for Molly a few years back. It is a wonderful rhyming tale of some pirate cats who go to raid a haddock trawler aptly captained by Trelawney P Craddock. You get the picture on the rhyme. It really is a lot of fun and has wonderful illustrations.

The Great Sheep Shenanigans

The author Peter Bentley has now become a firm favourite on our bookshelves. His stories have such a wonderful tone but are immense amounts of fun to read. Nothing serious about them and as an adult you get a lot of laughs reading. The Great Sheep Shenanigans tells the story of a bunch of farmyard animals who host a talent contest whilst the farmer is asleep and has a hilarious portrayal of the X Factor judges. And The Great Dog Bottom Swap is the most bizarre but funny story you will read in a long time. Plus it solves the age old ‘why do dogs sniff each others bum?’ question.

The Day The Crayons Quit

We bought Molly this book before we went on holiday earlier in the year and it is such a clever and beautifully illustrated book. One that I think she will enjoy for many years. Each page has a different letter written from one of the crayons to its owner. The letters range from Green Crayon thanking him for all the lovely dinosaurs he draws to beige crayon feeling sad that he is only ever used to draw wheat.

The Jolly Postman

The Jolly Postman is a book my sister had as a child (I wasn’t jealous at all) and it is every bit as magical as I remember. Janet and Alan Ahlberg have that classic storytelling ability that is enchanting and engaging on every page. I’m sure most of you know this book but in short each page has a cute pocket with a letter in to various fairytale characters. Molly’s favourite is of course the letter to Cinderella. It’s all about the princesses!

Angelina Ballerina

This was my absolute favourite book as a little girl. There is something so charming about the story and illustrations of Angelina and her quest to become a ballerina. I remember vividly wanting to have that beautiful tutu that she wears and it seems Molly has the same dreams. She talks non stop about starting Ballet lessons and, despite having it a while, this book has grown in popularity with her in recent months as her desire to dance grows too.

The Scarecrow’s Wedding

We have a large collection of Julia Donaldson books. Mainly as Edd bought a bumper pack from The Book People. The stories such as the gruffalo and Room on the Broom are all favourites but I couldn’t not mention the Scarecrows Wedding (We do also run Rock My Wedding in case you didn’t know!) This is a lovely story of two scarecrows who set out to have the best wedding yet. Charlotte would be incredibly jealous of Mrs Scarecrows dress made from hundreds of feathers. So on trend.

Press Here

This book from Herve Tullet is brilliant. Such a simple idea but the girls get so engrossed in it and I adore the interactive nature. It encourages imagination and playfulness with the simplest of ideas. The book is basically a series of dots and on each page it asks you to do something different. For example press the yellow dot three times. Then when you turn the page something has changed so there would now be 3 yellow dots. Or you can tilt the page and as you turn the page the dots are all clustered in one corner. Hopefully you get the idea. Who knew that a simple white page with a dot on it would cause so many hours of enjoyment. I would definitely recommend checking out some of his other books. The Game In The Dark is a brilliant bedtime book. It glows in the dark!

Hairy Maclary

Molly adores dogs so the tale of Hairy Maclary was a great choice that I remember from my own childhood. A lovely rhyming tale about the adventures of Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy.

Remarkable Animals

We love animals in this house. Any sort of animal based book goes down a treat. The Remarkable Animals book is the most wonderfully illustrated book with names and descriptions for each animal. It contains a myriad of weird and wonderful creatures and you can flip parts of the picture to create a new animal by mixing and matching with the others in the book. As you flip parts of the page not only does the picture change but the name and description changes as well to come up with the most bizarre animals you will ever find. Molly has hours of fun with this book.

Animal Homes

This series of Usborne Books is one of Alice’s favourites. She adores lifting the flaps to find out what animals lives there and I love how it gives interesting snippets of information on the animals so that she can learn as we read. For example, she now knows that frogs lay frogspawn and these turn in to tadpoles. Or ‘Frogpoles’ as she calls them. Much better name I think.

What’s Hidden In The Woods

This book reminds me a bit of those Magic Eye posters that were all the rage when we were young. When you open the book it just looks like a series of simple line drawings all overplayed over each other. But give your child the special magnifying glasses and a whole new world appears. As you read the story it tells you which colour to look through and new pictures will jump out much to the girl’s delight. A truly magical and fun story to read together.
 
What books are you enjoying reading with your pre-schoolers? I’m always after some new recommendations so please do share.