It’s World Book Day and we have listed 22 of the best books for children.
We asked Fife librarian Pauline Smeaton for her recommendations for picture books for young children and novels for primary school-age children and young teens.
Her personal favourite is Eat Your Peas! by Kes Gray.
And as Fife Cultural Trust’s libraries service development supervisor for young people, Pauline knows a thing or two about what stories appeal to children.
It’s her job to promote libraries and reading for babies through to teenagers.
Here are her other top choices:
Picture books
Solomon Crocodile by Catherine Rayner
Monkey and Me by Emily Gravett
Shark in the Park by Nick Sharratt
Eat Your Peas! by Kes Gray
Farmer Clegg’s Night Out by Peter Bently
Junior fiction (around mid primary)
Baby Aliens Got My Teacher by Pamela Butchart
The Boy Who Grew Dragons by Andy Shepherd
The Sheep-Pig by Dick King-Smith
Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
Junior fiction (upper primary)
The Boy at the Back of the Class by Onjali Q Rauf
Wonder by R.J. Palacio
A Kind of Spark by Elle McNicoll
When the Sky Falls by Phil Earle
Melt by Elle Fountain
Owen and the Soldier by Lisa Thompson (dyslexia-friendly)
Illegal by Eoin Colfer
Teen fiction
A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
The Maze Runner by James Dashner
Girl Missing by Sophie McKenzie
One by Sarah Crossan
Life on the Refrigerator Door by Alice Kuipers
My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece by Annabel Pitcher
On the 25th annual World Book Day children all over are being encouraged to embrace reading as a lifelong habit.
Schools and nurseries across Tayside and Fife will be running book-themed activities throughout the week, with many inviting children to dress up as literary characters.
Read more on World Book Day:
GALLERY: Your World Book Day photos from across Tayside and Fife
WATCH: Our World Book Day reading with author Chae Strathie and Victoria Park Primary School
Children’s reading habits in numbers and why reading is so important
OPINION: Please don’t stop reading to your children just because they’ve started school
