What are your favourite kids books? (Not so well known ones)

[somanydevices]

Happy world book day everyone! (DD's school did it today. DS's tomorrow, still one to go...)

I thought it could be nice to share some book recommendations with each other, outside of the classics & really popular books we all know. My kids read loads and I know I can struggle to find decent new stuff online. I'd love to know abotu some more "hard to find" stuff.

What are your family's favourite kid's books that not everyone knows?

Here's some of ours.

Fox and the the Star The illustrations are stunning! This book feels magical!

Journey. The first of 3 books. If you have a young child who likes to get involved this is good. It's not got any words at all, so you make up the words as you go along. DD loved "reading" it to me. Again the pictures are beautiful.

The Problem with Problems Not strictly a favourite as I haven't actually read this yet, I just ordered today as I heard the author talking about it and it looks great.

Morris's Dissappearing Bag
We have a copy of this from when I was little! I loved it, the story's great. Lovely to see they still sell it.

Also I came across this podcast on children's books today, looks good. www.spellboundkids.com

For older kids:

Voyage to Magical North - the Accidental Pirates My eldest loved this chapter book. It's so beautifully written. The main character is a girl, and it's a swashbuckling adventure full of magic. I love that it's good for both girls and boys to have a book with a female main character in this kind of role & setting.

Cogheart A steampunk kids novel featuring a girl and a boy going on adventures to save their dad. The first in the series - DS loves these.

The boy at the back of the class is a lovely story about a refugee who has been separated from his family settling into primary school.

That looks great! I've ordered a copy, thanks :)

The ordinary princess by mm Kaye.

Really spoke to me as a plain 6 year old. Very much in the trad fairy tale genre but just gorgeous. V sad my dds didn't love it.

I also love the singing mermaid by Julia Donaldson. Think it's a bit overlooked.

Dds love the skulduggery pleasance books.

Goodnight Lulu - the story of a mother hen putting her babies to bed, and all the diversions they can think up! A hut like real babies....

The paper bag princess.

Love it ❤ my DD is still a baby but I've bought it already

No No Charlie Rascal - it's out of print now unfortunately and impossible to find, but it is a book of my childhood. So many fond memories

This will COMPLETELY out me!

The “Beware” stories by Tony Blundell, Beware of girls, beware of `boys and Beware of Teachers.

My two are almost 7 years, and 8.5 years old. Their favourites include...

The Adventures of Mr Penguin, by Alex T Smith. About a penguin who solves mysteries, pretty much accidentally.

Hotel Flamingo (plus sequels) by Alex Milway. Young girl inherited a rundown hotel, where all the staff and guests are animals.

Fabio, the Great Flamingo Detective

Hubble Bubble - about a witch Granny.

For slightly younger children, the Claude books by Alex T Smith. Genuinely funny, each story short enough to read at once (more than one in a book).

My favourite when I was about 8-10 was 101 Dalmatians (the book by Dodie Smith, not the Disney version)

Tomorrow is a stranger by Geoffrey trease.
I've got find memories of going to the library every week when I was about 10. There was a whole shelf of geoffrey trease and I loved them all but this was my fave. I've just bought it on Amazon and I'm going to read it again!

I like Sharing a Shell by Julia Donaldson it probably is well known but I haven't seen it mentioned much.

Oh No George! By Chris Haughton is very funny. I loved reading that with my dc. It's a really good one for them to join in.

A book my ds loved is called The Scaredy Cat. It is an Usborne first book and we've had it for a really long time but he still enjoys it. I used to read it to him and now he reads it to me.
I don't even remember where it came from now probably super cheap from a charity shop or something.

They’re quite well known but just love all the Oliver Jeffers books. The stories are lovely and the illustrations are beautiful

Oh the places you'll go by Dr Seuss. Brings me to tears every time and the dds love it. They also enjoy the 'you choose' books

Junk - Melvyn Burgess

Noughts and crosses - Malorie Blackman

Animals of Farthing Wood - Colin Damn

The Red Tree - Shaun Tan

Stargirl - Jerry Spinelli

Dann, not Damn!

The Brave beast by Chris Judge and The book with no pictures

Jon Klassens hat books ‘This is not my hat’ ‘I want my hat back’ and ‘We found a hat’. Lovely pictures, simple funny words and my dd always loves doing the different animals voices etc.

The Explorer, Katherine Rundell
Boy at the back of the class

Olivia - Ian Falconer (all the books in that series but the first one in particular)

Perks of being a wallflower - Stephen Chbosky

Freak the Mighty - Rodman Philbrick

I love the gloriously mad picture books by Colin Thompson and the beautifully detailed collage work of Jeannie Baker. Both write for older primary despite being picture books. Nicobobinus by Terry Jones has been out of print for years but is a rollicking great adventure story. More recently I loved Fortunately, The Milk... by Neil Gaiman which is a joy to read aloud.

The Mr Gumm series. The way it's written really lends it to doing voices. I loved reading them to my dcs. It's also the off beat sense of humour I like.

Astrid Lindgren books. Children of Noisy Village still hilarious

I loved Morris's Disappearing Bag too.
As a teenager I had a friend who had a theory it was about animal testing. Morris tries the make up and plays with the chemicals and then disappears! But he comes back - if I remember the end correctly.
Other books -
Mrs Hedgehog and Friends (published for Marks and Spencer)
The Giant Jam Sandwich
Lulu and the Flying Babies by Posy Simmonds
One about a pig - can't remember the title so I am going to Google it because it will drive me nuts.

The pig book was Small Pig by Arnold Lobel!
Also loved a picture book about American pioneers called Going West (which let to a life obsession with Little House on the Prairie)
My favourite books of all time are the Ramona Quimby books by Beverly Cleary. Best book character ever!

Oh and Brambly Hedge! Beautiful books.

Oh I remember a pig book from what I was little. The pig was the main character's imaginary friend. It was a flap book which was very exciting! Not so many flap books around then.

The girl had pigtails, the pig was clever but clumsy and did things like spill her ink, but everyone thought it was her IIRC.

Her gran I think, believed her that a pig was sitting next to her at school but no one else did.

What was it called? Gah!