ALEX MAYALL

Pure fun. Beautiful artwork. Lots of chances to do voices. Coherent narrative about overcoming an obstacle. Excellent prose. No lecturing, just a crocodile causing chaos and making a friend. Joy in picturebook form. The pinnacle of the genre. Check out the sequel Solomon and Mortimer too.

Deeply funny picturebook that takes the child through the evolution of technology as two cavemen compete for status. Walks up to the moral lecturing line without crossing it. Excellent artwork with a clear narrative. Prose is tight and musical, and the cavemen talk in a funny caveman way.

Truly excellent picturebook about dedication, hard work and competence. Brilliant and engaging artwork in a lovely Cornish coastal setting. Text is strong with recurring themes, and is structured neatly as a flashback which is rare for a children's story. I cherish my signed copy.

I have read this maybe a hundred times and I've only just stopped crying at the final line. Beautiful and engaging story about a young crab being rewarded for stepping outside of their comfort zone on a day out with their parent. All of Chris Haughton's books are great with unique artwork. I really recommend them all.

A classic that robustly lives up to its reputation. Full of depth and subtle worldbuilding. A lovely lilting picturebook that still tops the leaderboard for soporific bedtime aids. I'm still finding new things to love about both the text and the artwork.

The overlooked sequel to Goodnight Moon that I think deserves equal attention. Takes you through more of the rabbit's day. Very interesting poetry that is more abstract than most picturebooks and ends on a wistful and thoughtful note. Hard to read at first but very much grows on you.

A masterpiece in landing a moral message without a lecture. Ticks the rest of my boxes too: artwork on point, story arc over the course of a train journey to the beach, solid prose. But I must stress, an incredible work of messaging that brought me to tears on first and subsequent reads.

Starts with the single greatest opening sentence in the entire artform and rolls masterfully from there. Solid poetic delivery of a story about problem-solving through engineering and co-operation. Love the classic artwork and utter absence of message. They're just solving their wasp problem. So fun.

I'm told this is critically acclaimed and a future classic and I agree, it deserves much more attention than it gets. 100% flawless poetry with no compromises, delivering a strong instructional narrative on the Christmas tree putting up process. Not a hair out of place in this feat of technical perfection.

It's hard to separate the books in this series, though perhaps Oi Aardvark stands out the most. Regardless, they're all wonderful pieces of rhythmic prose, with lots of engaging vocab and pictures for the kids. Narrative is loose but always there. Absolutely no moral message, just language.