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!

What a great list! Thanks everyone. A gratifying mix of things we have on our own bookshelves, and things I hadn't heard of and can now seek out in the name of research

Also makes me realise how dull most of the things we already have at toddler group are - definitely time for an overhaul. I'm not sure about flaps and textures, though - possibly too much scope for wanton destruction ...

If you're happy and you know it
We're going on a bearhunt
The gruffalo & gruffalo child

Firm favorites in our house

Great thread btw!

All the ones that have been said and

How to catch a star

Harry and his dinosaurs

Snore

any book about tractors, diggers, machines etc

Goodnight Moon
The Tiger That Came To Tea
Peepo
Each Peach Pear Plum
Big Red Bath
Guess How Much I Love You
Where the Wild Things Are
Gruffalo & Gruffalo's Child
Dear Zoo
Mr Brown Can Moo - Dr Seuss
Bear Hunt
Hungry Caterpillar
Hug
Hairy McClarey & Zachary Quack

I also love Bamboo and Tiny, as kids can make up their own stories to the pictures...

I have to add that I think the Meg and Mog books are a bit dated now. We got one out of the library recently that had dad watching The Fight on the TV (try explaining what that is to a 2.5 year old DD) and Mog disturbing burglars who had broken into Meg's house in the middle of the night! I did some judicious editing as I read, as you can imagine...

You Choose is a must, as is the Gruffalo.
Are You My Mother?

Day Monkey/Night Monkey.
Maisy Books - All of Them

I like it when
Goodnight Moon
Dr Seuss - The cat in the Hat or One Fish Two Fish or Green Eggs and Ham
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Brown Bear, Brown Bear

Charlie and Lola books are good, at the top of the age range maybe, but ds has loved them for ages and he is 3.4 .Especially I Will Not Ever Never Eat A Tomato. Good for food recognition, coaxing difficult eaters etc.

Bedtime Bear
K is for Kissing a Kool Kangaroo good for vocab and pre-reading
any of the Dora adventure books as they encourage participation
Lost and Found/The Way Back Home/Catch a Star

Calm Down Boris
Hairy Maclairy series
Thats not my dolly, fairy, snowman etc.
Anything that rhymes well while you read it seems to go down well.

Yes and Dr Zeus, although we rarely get through a full story due to their length!DD has loved these from being months old but still doesn't have the attention span for the whole thing without trying to skip pages

Pants (mentioned above) is all time favourite.

(all together now...small pants, big pants, giant frilly pig pants, new pants, blue pants 1-2-3; rich pants, poor pants, swinging-on-the-door pants, how many more pants can you see?)

Fairy Pants, Hairy Pants, Run away from scary pants, how many more pants can you see????

Oh yeah - Pants. DD2 is in love with that book. Tonight she made up a new bedtime song:

"Scary pants, scary pants
Up on the roof, all afternoon"

She's 2.5. Do you think she has a promising career in showbusiness

And I read it to the toddlers last week - one of them announced "that was a VERY silly book".

Probably been said already but here goes:

The Bear Under the stairs
The Paperbag Princess
Peepo
Winnie the Witch
Lifetimes

Peace at last is my ds fav book. He' 2.2 and knows all the words.

Lots that have already been mentioned (Snail and the Whale, Lost and Found, Hairy McLary) plus:

Olivia (and all the Olivia books)

Don't think anyone's mentioned Shirley Hughes? A bit retro, but ds1 adores 'Alfie's Feet' and there's so much to talk about in the illustrations.

Richard Scarry if you don't need just stories

Melrose and Croc (the stories are a bit lame, but ds1 seems to like them - same writer as Blue Kangaroo)

Sleepy Places

I Love You Little Monkey (I think that's what it's called - it's about big monkey and little monkey)

Katie Morag books

Lydia Monks - Aargh Spider, No More Eeyore, Oooh Gorilla