The best children’s books of 2025
A new read-aloud favourite, doughnuts with world-conquering ambitions, high fantasy from Katherine Rundell, and moreThis year’s standout works for children include joyous picture books, gloriously bizarre nonfiction and stories of...
By Imogen Russell Williams · The Guardian Culture
A new read-aloud favourite, doughnuts with world-conquering ambitions, high fantasy from Katherine Rundell, and more This year’s standout works for children include joyous picture books, gloriously bizarre nonfiction and stories of courage, companionship and rapturous flight – testament to the human need for connection, justice and freedom. In picture books, Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury, the author-illustrator team behind We’re Going on a Bear Hunt , collaborate again on the exuberant Oh Dear, Look What I Got! (Walker), in which a shopping trip is beset by rhyming errors (a parrot for a carrot, a snake for a cake). It all results in an ever more despairing refrain: “Do I want that? No I do not !” Oxenbury’s joyfully expressive huddles of animal and human characters heighten the sense of mayhem in this bouncy, cumulative delight, boasting all the ingredients of a perennial read-aloud favourite. Continue reading...