Today I’m going to look at the 25 books for 0-5 year olds selected by Booktrust for their list of 100 books every child should read before they’re 14.
Here is the list in full, I’ve bolded all of the books I’ve read.
– Each Peach Pear Plum by Janet and Allan Ahlberg
– The Jolly Postman or Other People’s Letters by Janet and Allan Ahlberg
– The Snowman by Raymond Briggs
– Gorilla by Anthony Browne
– Would You Rather? by John Burningham
– Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell
– The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
– I Will Not Ever Never Eat a Tomato by Lauren Child
– Princess Smartypants by Babette Cole
– Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy by Lynley Dodd
– Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler
– Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes by Mem Fox and Helen Oxenbury
– Little Mouse’s Big Book of Fears by Emily Gravett
– Where’s Spot by Eric Hill
– Dogger by Shirley Hughes
– Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers
– The Tiger Who Came to Tea by Judith Kerr
– I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen
– Not Now, Bernard by David McKee
– Meg and Mog by Helen McNicholl and Jan Pienkowski
– We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury
– I Want My Potty! by Tony Ross
– Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
– The Cat in the Hat by Dr Seuss
– The Elephant and the Bad Boy by Elfrida Vipont and Raymond Briggs
I’ve read 17 out of the 25, which is actually a few more than I’d expected. I think this reflects the relatively broad nature of the list – there are plenty of books here that were around when I was younger so I either read them as a young child myself, or to younger family friends. Of the books I haven’t read I had heard of most of them, I just haven’t come across them on one of my visits to the picture book section of the local library.
What do you think of the list? Are there any surprise inclusions or omissions?
Juniper's Jungle 
Ramona is terrified of I Want My Hat Back (she has a bit of a bear thing, though Bear Hunt is apparently okay), which is a shame as it’s quite one of the most brilliant kids’ books I’ve ever read. She also prefers Zog, The Highway Rat and Tiddler to Room on the Broom, but I think when it comes to Donaldson / Scheffler you can’t really go wrong, even if you pick at random.
Strongly recommend any and all Oliver Jeffers, and Lost and Found is brilliant, but I’d also add Chris Haughton’s A Bit Lost to this, as it is beautiful and very sweet.
Aw, I hope she comes round to I Want My Hat Back in time, it’s so brilliant. I’ve read Stuck so far from Jeffers, but that was enough to convince me of his genius 🙂
(Also, looking at older kids, Jon Klassen has done the illustrations for the The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place series, which is great fun.)
I’m very surpirsed that “Peepo” and “Guess How Much I Love You aren’t on there, also I’d have expected “The Gruffalo” to make the list based on its popularity.
I would have expected them to choose The Gruffalo as Donaldson’s contribution to the list too. There are definitely a few I’d expected to see that were missing – I don’t envy them the task of narrowing the list to this.