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

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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.

Home by Carson Ellis - beautiful, whimsical book, one of those where you spot something new every time you read it.
One Gorilla by Anthony Browne. My older son included macaque and colobus monkey amongst his first words due to his love of this book.
Books I am looking forward to sharing with my children when they are a bit older include The Wolves in the Walls by Neil Gaiman, The Rabbits by Shawn Tan and Holes by Louis Sachar.

The Ramona books by Beverly Cleary.

Absolutely no idea why they are no better known in the UK.

My favourite book(older child) was A Traveller in Time by Allison Uttley. It's the story of a girl who is staying in an old house for the holidays and she slips back in time and finds herself in Elizabethan England and involved in the Babbington plot to kill the Queen. The BBC also did it as a TV series. My love of Tudor history stems from that book. I really wish I could see the TV programme again. I think the book might be now out of print.

I've enjoyed all of these as much as my children:
Peter in Peril by Helen Bate;
Once Upon an Ordinary Schoolday by Colin McNaughton;
The King of Capri by Jeanette Winterson;
The Emperor of Absurdia by Chris Riddell;
The Mr Gum series by Andy Stanton;
The How To Train Your Dragon series by Cressida Cowell.

BikeRunSki the Ramona books were hugely popular in the 80s but then sort of disappeared. They were all republished in 1999 when the final book came out but then seem to disappear again. It's such a shame. There were some editions published when the film came out a few years back but you rarely see copies on the shelves in bookshops. I absolutely love Ramona. Travelling to Portland, Oregon is on my wish list of things I (unfortunately) probably won't get to do. I found some American copies of the books in a charity shop. I didn't need them because I have all my copies but I bought them so I could donate them to my daughter's primary school library. I have got to admit I felt so proud when I saw a child reading one!

"The Great Show-and-Tell Disaster" by Mike Reiss.
The "Alistair" books by Marilyn Sadler.
The "Poppleton" books by Cynthia Rylant.
Books by Robert Munsch.
"Mary Engelbreit's Mother Goose: One hundred best-loved verses"

So many good memories reading these with my sons when they were little.

I love Morris's Disappearing Bag! Can't go wrong with Rosemary Wells.
And Jon Klassens' hat books!
And the Olivia books!

'To Be Like the Sun' by Susan Marie Swanson, illustrations by Margaret Chodos-Irving.
A gorgeous book about nature and growing a sunflower.

'Lost in the Library: A Story of Patience & Fortitude' by Josh Funk, illustrated by Stevie Lewis.
Entrancing story about the two stone lions outside the New York Public Library.

'Building Our House', written and illustrated by Jonathan Bean. A family builds a house for themselves out in the countryside.

'Catkin' by Antonia Barber, illustrated by P.J. Lynch. A story of the wee folk. My DCs loved it and I read it nightly for a few years.

The books of Irish children's author Patricia Lynch, many of which may be out of print now. In particular 'Orla of Burren', and the Turf Cutter's Donkey series. Also 'The Grey Goose of Kilnevin'.
Lots of history, lots of magic. Set in a rural Ireland that is long gone.

@fedup2017 - I read every book by Geoffrey Trease in my local library as a child (pretty much all his titles). Loved them all.

'Owl at Home' and 'Mouse Tales' by Arnold Lobel.
Owl is the most original and delightful character of any children's book imo.

The worst princess

@bookmum08 - I know! I read them in the 1980s (well those which had bern published), and have just finished reading them to DD (8). (Tbh 11 yo DS usually sneaks in too). I bought them mostly second hand from eBay and they are available new on Amazon, but I’ve been met with blank faces when I have asked about them in bookshops and libraries. They have stood the test of time very well and are not so American that my Yorkshire-country-mouse children didn’t understand them. What they do understand is that they are well written, funny stories of everyday life seen through the eyes of a child more than a bit like them.

Ivy and Bean
It is a series of chapter books for 7yo. There are about 12. The pictures alone are lovely. Ivy and Bean are two little girls. Just beautifully written.

@Bloodybridget i loved the Saturdays. Thanks for reminder.

And Patricia Lynch

These are really old and might not be easy to get, but I loved the Beverly Nichols stories: The Tree That Stood Still and The Stream That Sat Down.

Of course, Arnold Lobel not Arthur, duh!

Marianne Dreams - I forget the author but it's really good!

Cops and Robbers, think it's by the Aahlbergs? It's old but I loved it as a kid and my own DC love it now

A Pinch of Magic
Nevermoor
The House with Chicken Legs
The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

@adaline Catherine Storr wrote Marianne Dreams, a brilliant but scary book!

Abe books is your friend for tracking down old favourites.

We’re reading DS1 The Bagthorpes series by Helen Cresswell (those of my age may remember Moondial that was on the BBC?)

Looking forward to reading him Rosemary Sutcliffe. Am also a huge Geoffrey Trease fan. And Diana Wynne Jones for slightly offbeat science fiction and magical worlds.

@Mylittlepony374 'The Tiger Who Came to Tea' has in no way "just been re-released".
It's been a bestseller since being published, never gone out of print and never dropped in popularity.
It's one of the most well known picture books and stocked in every bookshop!

@bobbybluecat - wrong choice of words I guess. I just bought the special 50 year anniversary edition, that's what I meant by re released. .. Thanks for the clarification.

Hurray for Bread is a funny picture book by I think the Allbergs? Found it in the library and have borrowed it a few times. Nice mundane story about the day in a life of a loaf, really nicely illustrated and lots to look at on every page

BikeRunSki I read the Ramona books to my daughter when she was about 5. She was fascinated by the bit in Ramona the Pest when the mothers decide that Ramona and Howie are old enough to walk to school by themselves - at age 5!
She also wanted to know when she could go on a train by herself - like in My Naughty Little Sister (and that child is aged about 4!)

For older kids, i’d say 13 plus, Children of the Dust by Louise Lawrence. Unbelievably thought provoking about the effects of nuclear bomb on several generations.

Also, Mallory Towers and Little House on the Prairie.

I am David by Ann Holm