This is the kind of book that your children learn off by heart, and surprise you by “reading” back to you. An encyclopaedic list of the narrator’s favourite dogs and their doggy traits, cleanly illustrated in pencil and watercolor. The simple, repetitive text quickly captures a child’s attention and the pages come alive with the bounding energy of their canine characters. The perfect book for the dog lover.

I hesitated when my daughter first chose this book from the bookcase, I just assumed the block illustrations would be too abstract for a three-year-old, and with no obvious story to capture her attention that she would soon be frustrated and turn away. I learnt a little about pre-schoolers that day — they love the abstract, they love to find patterns and familiar shapes, they love to count, and they love you to make up little stories about unseen characters traveling to unseen places. Follow the Line is a beautiful book with stylish illustrations that reveal Ljungkvist’s Swedish heritage. The perfect book for the junior explorer.

This quirky tale about an avian pre-natal coffee group has a surprise ending that will make any veteran/survivor of such groups laugh. The illustrations are softly drawn, the characters expressive and lively. Several cut pages midway through create layers of illustrations that tell the story incrementally, comic style, building a nice sense of tension for that snappy ending. The perfect book for the ugly duckling.

The bright pink cover of this book ensures it never sits on the shelf for long. The bold colours continue within, complemented by a glossy paper stock, sparing use of wood-type slab serifs, and hand-painted characters. The part I like the best: the voices that Timmers has given each member of his animal cast. Vocabulary and a unique turn-of-phrase identify each, and it doesn’t take much imagination to add an accent when you read aloud… The perfect book for the royalist.

Fans of Rosen’s book We’re going on a Bear Hunt will love this. The story is sweet, simple and slapstick—and much less wordy (phew)—but still has the lilting lyrical style that is so much fun to read aloud. Waldron’s illustrations (created by digitally manipulating hand-drawn illustrations) are strong and have a contemporary feel—I have a particular fondness for the Hippo with its pink scarred and scratched hide. The perfect book for the underdog.

I like the cover of this book with its matte hardback and hand-drawn, spot-varnished titles. Opening the pages is no disappointment—the autumnal colours and falling leaves evoke a sense of the harvest, and the illustrations fill the uncoated pages with a matching sense of bounty. All of which mirrors the story nicely, although I don’t want to give away the punch line because there is quite a twist. Davey has a distinctive and original style that is very pleasing, and I can’t wait to see what he does next. The perfect book for a little fox, or owl.

Japanese pop artist Nara’s illustrations are arresting black lines and pastel shades that fill the page and speak of emotion and movement so beautifully that the text becomes secondary to them, in fact this book isn’t shy to present consecutive spreads with no words at all. The tale is a strange one, not unlike King Kong, but the telling is good and holds a sweet message. I love the little girl in this book—she cries, and smiles, and looks sideways from under knitted brows, charming her way into your heart. The perfect book for the hipster child within.

This is the great old story of a little owl who has lost its Mummy and the journey taken to find her, told many times before, but it is such a good one—a children’s thriller? The text is sparse and simple making it an engaging book for under threes. The illustrations and custom typeface are the real stars, and the behind-the-scenes look on author and illustrator Haughton’s blog is a worthwhile read. The perfect book for a pint-sized Sherlock.

There is a page in this book that I love: it is the page filled from corner to corner with the lament of a little boy who is having a very bad day. Sometimes I am tempted to insert my own grievances when reading aloud, but it could be considered bad parenting. Instead I’ll take my comfort in the joy of reading this delightful book again and again. The colour palette is a fashionable mix of pastel hues and the decorative slab typeface is set entirely in uppercase. Illustrations are sized and positioned on the page to reflect the emotions of the scene—something children seem to respond to instinctively. Interesting trivia: the author has won six Emmy awards for his writing on Sesame Street. The perfect book for your little monster.

This book is a favourite, I sneak it off the shelf and add it to the bedtime stack almost every night. The illustrations are warm and rich with detail, and rare for these times, the characters look lifelike—there are no mice wearing pants or purple lions sporting crowns. Where this book is unusual is that it has no text, the story comes from the images and from the reader’s knowledge of a fable heard maybe many years before. Don’t be put off by the small effort of imagination required to read this book aloud—the artist has given us a landscape of events and sounds that all but put the words in your mouth. The perfect book for David or Goliath.