There are a lot of good books for children to be found in bookstores and libraries today. The task of making a short enough shortlist of the best ones to present here could seem almost impossible. But at a closer look some books do tend to stand out and tend to be evergreen favorites with the children they are read to. A shortlist of the best children's books should really consist of books chosen by children themselves. I have decided to present just such a shortlist, consisting of eight books that children seem to love above the rest.

The first one is The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, written in 1969. The illustrations are beautiful and the text content amusing and very educational. The story presents the process of a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. The vocabulary also covers the days of the week, common fruits and food items and counting up to five. As the content of the book is very well thought through the book is also suitable for young learners of English as a second language.

The second book is The Blue Balloon written by Mick Inkpen, written in 1989. It is a sweet story with cute images about a boy who finds a blue balloon and has an imaginative adventure with it.

The third book is The Magic Bed by John Burningham, published in 2003. The book tells the story about a boy who has a magic bed he can travel in at night. It invites to personal interpretation and imagination but still the fantasy is true to reality as everyone has a kind of magic bed.

The fourth book is The Tiger Who Came to Tea by Judith Kerr. It was written in 1969 but any mum today with slightest sense of imagination would still recognize how this story came in to being. A lovely tale about a tiger that is very, very hungry.

The fifth book is Room On the Broom written by Julia Donaldsson and illustrations by Alex Scheffler, first published in 2001. It is a wonderful story about the adventures of a witch written in rhyme. The text flows very easily and invites to interaction.

The sixth book is Cockatoos by Quentin Blake, first published in 1992. It is a counting tale telling the story of a man who has a bunch of mischievous cockatoos. The illustrations are absolutely brilliant and invites to interaction, searching for the cockatoos and counting them.

The seventh book is The Magic Paintbrush by Julia Donaldsson and illustrated by Joel Stewart, first published in 2003. The rhyming text tells the story of a girl with a magic paintbrush who is strong enough to use the paintbrush only for good deeds.

The eighth book is The Sneetches and Other Stories by Dr Seuss, first published in 1961. The stories in the book are written in the wonderfully whimsical rhyming way of Dr Seuss and are accompanied by his imaginative illustrations. There is a strong moral to each of the stories but without making them any less fun to read.

Learn more about this author, S-C Sterner.
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