WILDEST BOOKS FOR CHILDREN

HOW do you keep the kids entertained when they’re trapped indoors if you don’t want them in front of a screen all day? Encourage them to love reading with our guide to the best books for all ages. We’ve chosen individual titles that stand the test of time, rather than long-running series such as Harry Potter and The Narnia Chronicles. So from Winnie The Pooh to The Gruffalo, there’s a story to suit even the pickiest child...

PICTURE BOOKS

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE by Maurice Sendak

A surreAl flight of imagination, this follows young Max who, banished to his room for bad behaviour, sails away to the land of the Wild Things.

There, as their newly crowned king, he enjoys a rumpus. But the pull of home calls him back in this stunning, dreamlike adventure. NOT NOW, BERNARD by David Mckee

All children love shouting out the refrain from this story of little Bernard, whose perpetually preoccupied parents fail to notice he has been eaten up by a monster who then takes his place.

( The moral is even more relevant in an era of adults glued to mobile phones...) THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR by Eric Carle

FroM the moment the caterpillar hatches, he is ravenous. on each page, with perfectly sized holes for inquisitive small fingers, there’s a daily growing feast of one delicious apple, two pears, three plums to nibble — until he transforms into a beautiful butterfly.

Carle’s wartime memories of hunger inspired this incredibly vivid bestseller. EACH PEACH PEAR PLUM by Allan Ahlberg, illustrated by Judith Ahlberg

This timeless book combines i spy with favourite nursery rhymes and fairy tales (Cinderella, Mother hubbard etc) as children are asked to spot the famous characters hidden in the busy, intricate pictures.

each reading reveals more in this family favourite. THE TIGER WHO CAME FOR TEA by Judith Kerr

When sophie and her mum open the door to an uninvited visitor, they soon learn that a huge, hungry tiger will gobble up all their food and drink. Kerr’s signature bold pictures and simple repetition never wear thin. Wartime refugee Kerr always denied this had any Gestapo symbolism — he was simply a hungry tiger . . . DOGGER by Shirley Hughes no one reassures the anxieties of children with more warmth and understanding than shirley hughes. When Dave loses his much-loved toy dog, Dogger, he’s inconsolable. The drama intensifies when Dogger is found for sale at the school fair — but all ends well before bedtime. HAT BOX SET by Jon Klassen i CheATeD by including three linked books in this fabulous box set: i Want My hat Back, This is not My hat and We Found A hat.

Klassen’s dark, dead- pan humour and powerfully expressive illustrations make these apparently simple stories worthy of endless re-readings. THE GRUFFALO by Julia Donaldson, illustrated by Axel Scheffler

one of many classics by this pair, The Gruffalo celebrates using your wits to defeat your enemies.

A little mouse wards off predators by warning them that a terrible monster is coming, one he has created in his imagination. except there’s a double twist in the tale . . . PUMPKIN SOUP by Helen Cooper

This beautifully illustrated book is the ideal read for children cooped up and squabbling. squirrel, Cat and Duck live in perfect harmony, making pumpkin soup every day.

But when Duck demands to be head Cook, there’s a terrible row before they all realise that friendship trumps everything. OWL BABIES by Martin Waddell, illustrated by Patrick Benson

The ultimate bedtime read to snuggle up with young children, this gentle, touching book looks at three baby owls who wake up to discover their mother has gone missing and they’re alone.

Their worst fears dissolve into relief as she swoops back to the nest.

YOUNG FICTION

WINNIE THE POOH by A. A Milne, illustrated by E. H Shepherd

GenerATions have warmed to the adventures of hunnyloving Pooh, eager Piglet and Christopher robin because the perfectly pitched dry humour appeals to adults and children on different levels.

What shines from every page is a loving appreciation of friendship and loyalty, charmingly depicted by e.h. shepherd’s drawings. Tiddely Pom. Age 4+ CHARLOTTE’S WEB by E. B. White

This deeply affecting story of Fern, who lives on a farm where she rescues Wilbur the piglet from the slaughterhouse, really revolves around Wilbur’s friendship with Charlotte, a wonderfully wise and kind spider.

if you don’t end up in tears at some point, you are made of stone. Age 6+ MATILDA by Roald Dahl hoW impossible to choose just one Dahl title — but this has all his special ingredients: a magical child prodigy, crass, neglectful parents, a wicked, cruel headmistress in Miss Trunchbull and a kind supportive teacher, Miss honey. Dahl’s excessive glee in portraying the awfulness of Miss Trunchbull never fails to entertain. Age 7+ THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS by Kenneth Grahame

There’s something so quintessentially British about this tale from the riverbank where Mole, ratty, Badger and the irrepressible Mr Toad have their adventures. Class war, modernisation ( Toad in his motor car: Poop Poop!) and spiritual musings mingle with lyrical evocations of the everchanging countryside. Age 7+

Don’t miss our free Wind In the Willows audiobook featured on Page 32. THE STORY OF TRACY BEAKER by Jacqueline Wilson

JACqueline Wilson’s depiction of troubled ten-year- old Tracy, brought up in a children’s home she calls The Dumping Ground, introduced a fresh and realistic new voice that has stood the test of time. Angry, frustrated and temperamental, her spiky diary entries reveal her sadness and longing for a family as well as her wit and humour.

Age 8+ JOURNEY TO THE RIVER SEA by Eva Ibbotson

The lush, rich backdrop of the Amazonian rainforest in 1910 sets the tone for this hugely rewarding journey taken by orphaned Maia, sent with her governess on a boat down the Amazon to live with appalling relatives.

The family insist on living an english lifestyle, immune to the natural world around them, so Maia teams up with two orphaned boys to change all their futures.

Age 9+ GOODNIGHT MR TOM by Michelle Magorian oF All the excellent wartime stories for children, this moving account of Willie, evacuated to a tiny english village where he is billeted with gruff, grieving widower Tom, stands out. Willie, whose own mother is abusive, gradually makes friends but it is the healing, protective relationship between the old man and his young charge that brings a lump to the throat.

Age 9+

SKELLIG by David Almond

DaviD almonD challenges his readers and never more so than in this poignant book in which tenyear-old michael, consumed with anxiety about his premature baby sister, discovers an ailing, winged man in the garage of their new home, whom he nurtures.

He shares his secret with newfound friend mina, and forms a bond that changes both their lives. Extraordinary. Age 10+ THE EXPLORER by Katherine Rundell

RunDEll is an astonishing young talent and her books combine old-fashioned, edgeof-your-seat adventure with richly imagined characters.

a trip she took down the amazon inspired this story of four children who find themselves alone in the rainforest after a plane crash. They not only learn to survive but discover a lost city and an eccentric missing explorer. Read everything she writes.

Age 10+ THE GRAVEYARD BOOK by Neil Gaiman

THis has one of the most chilling openings to a children’s book as ‘the man Jack’ creeps into a house and murders a family, but cannot find the toddler son who has wandered into the night. The little boy ends up in a graveyard, where two ghosts adopt nobody, as they call him, and vow to keep him safe.

as the years go by we watch ‘Bod’ grow, shielded by spectres, until he can take his revenge and rejoin the living world. a fantasy thriller like no other. Age 11+

TEEN AND YOUNG ADULT

REVOLVER by Marcus Sedgwick

Don’T be misled by the slimness of this volume — it crackles with more razor-sharp tension and tightly coiled plotting than books twice its length.

Fifteen-year- old sig finds his dad frozen to death on the icy arctic lake outside their cabin just before a violent stranger arrives with the disturbing truth about sig’s father’s past.

all the boy has to defend himself with is the old revolver his dad gave him — but will using it destroy his own moral values? Bang on target. THE OWL SERVICE by Alan Garner

THis gripping fantasy set in an eerie Welsh valley in the 1960s is based on a folk legend about a woman made of flowers who is turned into an owl as a punishment for conspiring with her lover to kill her husband. Here, three teenagers, Gwyn, alison and her stepbrother Roger, spend their summer in a big house where they find in the attic an old dinner service on which alison sees not flower patterns but owls. Has the curse returned? menacing and tense throughout. THE LIE TREE by Frances Hardinge

THE overall winner of the 2015 Costa Book of the Year award, this superb victorian melodrama traces teenage Faith’s rebellion against the hypocrisy and female repression of the era.

When Faith’s beloved naturalist father is accused of faking his fossil research, he takes the family to a remote island where his body is soon found in suspicious circumstances.

she then discovers his hidden precious plant, a trance-inducing lie Tree that feeds off human falsehoods and reveals powerful secrets, and uses it to unravel the mystery of his death — with tragic consequences. THE SKYLARKS’ WAR by Hilary McKay mcKaY is a superb writer for any age range but this is something special. Clarry’s mother died just after she was born in 1902, and her father effectively abandoned her and her older brother, Peter, to be raised by relatives and servants — the only bright spot being holidays in Cornwall with their charismatic older cousin, Rupert.

We follow them through 16 years of social change, culminating in Rupert’s enlistment in World War i. That the reader knows what the future holds makes the story all the more heartrending.

Funny, moving and emotionally insightful, it should be read by everyone. A MONSTER CALLS by Patrick Ness, illustrated by Jim Kay nEss made his name with his Chaos Walking trilogy, but it’s the intensity of this story, originally conceived by terminally ill author siobhan Dowd, that continues to haunt.

Thirteen-year-old Conor wakes from a nightmare and hears a voice calling him. it belongs to a towering ‘human tree’ that says it will tell Conor three stories then the boy must confess one truth of his own. at its heart is Conor’s terror of his sick mother dying and his unspoken longing for her not to suffer. a raw and powerful exploration of grief and fear. always choose the edition with Jim Kay’s breathtakingly atmospheric

illustrations. HOW I LIVE NOW by Meg Rosoff

RosoFF’s exceptional first novel has a timely grimness to it — it looks at what happens when an unidentified enemy separates you from those you love most. Fifteen-yearold Daisy is sent from new York to live in a rural English idyll with her four cousins, one of whom, Edmond, she falls in love with. When war breaks out and England is invaded, she is forced to unleash survival skills and a resilience she didn’t know she possessed. I CAPTURE THE CASTLE by Dodie Smith sEvEnTEEn-YEaRolD narrator Cassandra lives with her bohemian, impoverished family in a dilapidated castle, but their lives change when two wealthy american brothers become their new landlords.

older sister Rose holds the family’s future in her hands when she attracts the brothers’ attentions but, as Cassandra records in her diaries, this is not a conventional romantic plot.

it is her funny, spirited and relentlessly chipper voice that remains long after the last page. THIS DARK ENDEAVOUR by Kenneth Oppel a DisTuRBinG Gothic prequel to mary shelley’s Frankenstein, this introduces 16-year-old victor Frankenstein and his desperately ill twin, Konrad. Having discovered ancient alchemy books containing the forbidden Elixir of life in their father’s library, he persuades his beautiful cousin, Elizabeth, to help him find the alchemist who might save Konrad.

at the same time, victor recognises a deep jealousy of his brother, with whom Elizabeth is in love.

it’s this battle between good and evil that torments victor — who will go on to create the monster... A GATHERING LIGHT by Jennifer Donnelly

BasED on the real murder of Grace Brown in upstate new York in 1906, this award-winning debut set the standard for Young adult literature.

mattie Gokey lives with her widowed father on a struggling farm but loves books. Her closest schoolfriend is Weaver, a poor black boy who aspires to be a lawyer.

When Grace, a guest at a local hotel, entrusts mattie with a bundle of letters but is found drowned the next day, mattie turns detective. Beautifully written. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee

THis classic of the american south broadens the mind and expands the heart. in atticus Finch, a 1930s liberal, compassionate lawyer, lee created a role model not just for his own sparky, endearing children scout and Jem, but for a town living with segregation and a lack of basic human rights. When Finch defends a black man accused of raping a white girl, he exposes the ugly face of injustice. Read and re-read.