Your top five books for under 3s?

[Smithagain]

I run a toddler group and I'd like to upgrade our book collection.

If you had to draw up a list of the five all time greatest books for children aged about 18 months to three years, what would you include?

I'd like to have some things that the mums (first timers in particular) might not have come across yet, but should have on their bookshelves!

CS - you're right!

The Gruffalo (and all the others by HER! - especially The Whale and the Snail)

Dear Zoo

The Hungry Caterpillar

Where the Wild Things Are

The Big Big Sea

The Jolly Postman
Peepo
Can't You Sleep Lttle Bear
A Million Chamelions
If you Give A Pig a Pancake

In no particular order of preference...

The very hungry caterpillar

The very lazy ladybird - not mentioned so far from what I saw but my two love this and do all the actions

The tiger who came to tea

Tiger (Nick Butterworth)

Gruffalo / Gruffalo's child

This is what is pulled off our bookshelf most often when it comes to bedtime

also Emler and Mr Men series too but you only wanted a top 5

No, I think a 4.5yr old would like it. It's about a biscuit who comes to life, and bakes himself lots of friends. The pals come to a sticky end but Biscuit Bear is ok!
Habbibu bought it for DD, and we love it.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Each Peach Pear Plum

Peepo

Where the Wild Things Are

The Elephant and the Bad Baby ("he never once said please!")

We're Going on a Bear Hunt is numero uno in this house for my 2 and 6 yr old.

Duck in the Truck, Duck's Key etc

Eric Carle books - Hungry Caterpillar, The Seahorse etc

The Snail and the Whale

DS1's current favourites are two books I hadn't heard of before -

Big Black Dog
The Biscuit Bear

He also loves -

The Tickle Monster, Bedtime Bear, Christmas Bear....but these are totally impractical books for children as the tabs are instantly broken by little hands

Oh, Meg and Mog books too

Dear zoo
Each peach pear plum
peepo
gruffalo
hairy mclary

Peterduck - dd has just got 'you choose' in her aged 3 book start pack and she adores it. We are reading it over and over again. Its great because you can really leave her with it and she can just talk about it. Genius.

Shame we got each peach pear plum as our other one which dd has loved since 1. But a great book nonetheless.

I think our faves have been mentioned over and over in this thread, so will just add the Knight books by Davis Melling - 'Good Knight, Sleep Tight' and 'The Kiss That Missed' are both lovely.

The Grumpalump! No one ever seems to have heard of it and it's absolutely fabulous.

The Large Family

The Gruffalo

A squash and a squeeze

Room on the Broom

The big red bath

DDs (3 yrs) recent favourites
Six Dinner Sid
Mrs McTat And Her House Full Of Cats
Giraffes Can't Dance
Very Hungry Caterpillar
Baxter Bear Goes To The Farm

Peepo
Each Peach Pear Plum
The Gruffalo
Duck in the Truck
Slinky Malinki

I can never understand why the Ahlberg stuff is so popular. My mother bought them for dd1, she never took to them and I found them revolting, unoriginal and badly illustrated.

dd2 is keen on:
Beatrix Potter
a highly coloured Finding Nemo book
Bugs And Slugs
Miffy

Our fav's have pretty much all been mentioned:

Guess How Much I Love You
Owl Babies
The Hungry Caterpillar
We're Going on a Bear Hunt

One book I ended up having to renew in the library about six times was "Baby's New Shoes" but can't remember who wrote it.