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If a love of books is instilled in our children by reading aloud to them at an early age and then sharing books and listening to them read as they begin to learn, let's hope that books will still be a pleasurable source of entertainment for them alongside television, computers and games consoles as they grow older. I have chosen several authors here and focused in most cases on a particular book as an example of that author's work; each author writes for a certain age group, ranging from three- to four-year-olds through to early teenagers. Let's start with the youngest group.

BABETTE COLE
Young children will love the humor and colorful, lively illustrations of Babette Cole's 'The Trouble with Grandad'. Grandad gets into a pickle because of the enormous vegetables he grows: he wins all the prizes at the Vegetable Show and makes other competitors jealous. When a rival gives him a tomato plant that becomes taller than the police station, Grandad is put in prison for growing a dangerous vegetable. All attempts to destroy it fail, so Grandad is released to see if he can solve the problem himself. He discovers that an enormous caterpillar is hidden inside it, which emerges and devours the tomato. When the prisoners decide to escape, they are so frightened of the caterpillar that they run back into jail. The caterpillar turns into a chrysalis and crashes into the police station. Grandad and grandson manage to escape the wrath of the chasing policemen by flying off on the back a a giant moth that emerges from the chrysalis. On returning to his allotment, Grandad hollows out a huge cucumber complete with windows and a clock tower, presenting it as a new police station. The police are delighted, but they have to protect their station from marauding giant slugs.

There is plenty of fantasy and humor here to delight young readers, and illustrations fill the greater part of each page. I find the one of the huge caterpillar happily sleeping on the roof of the police station particularly attractive. If children enjoy this story, there are others in the series such as 'The Trouble with Mum', who is in fact a witch.

FRANCESCA SIMON
Once children become independent readers, there are few who will not appreciate the tales of Horrid Henry by Francesca Simon. Henry is the bane of his parents' life: he throws food, squashes pet beetles, and steals tent pegs to make a camp fire. His brother Peter is the exact opposite of him. When Henry decides to be the perfect angel for a change one

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