Color book series in reading order

by David McKee

Daisy Meadows is the name on the Rainbow Magic children's books, a fantasy line whose subjects include fairies, goblins, Jack Frost and two girls, Kirsty Tate and Rachel Walker. The catalogue opens in 2003 with colour-fairy titles such as Ruby the Red Fairy, Amber the Orange Fairy and Fern the Green Fairy, and runs to Nur the Vlogger Fairy (2023). Sub-series include the Weather, Jewel, Party, Pet Keeper, Dance, Ocean and Showtime Fairies. Magic Animal Friends appears under the same name.

Eric Carle

165 books• 6 series

Eric Carle (25 June 1929 to 23 May 2021) was an American author, designer and illustrator of children's books. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, a picture book first published in 1969, has sold more than 55 million copies in over 70 languages. Carle illustrated more than 70 children's books and wrote most of them, and sales across the Carle books exceed 170 million copies. Catalogued titles begin with 1, 2, 3 to the Zoo (1968), followed by The Very Hungry Caterpillar (1969), Pancakes, Pancakes! (1970), The Tiny Seed (1970) and Do You Want to Be My Friend? (1971). Subjects include board books, counting, color, animals and caterpillars.

Drew Daywalt, born January 5, 1970, is an American author and filmmaker. The Day the Crayons Quit (2013) and its sequel The Day the Crayons Came Home (2015), picture books illustrated by Oliver Jeffers, are Daywalt's best-known work. Daywalt has also written scripts for American television and Hollywood studios and made short horror films for the internet. The catalogue lists 38 books from 2013 to 2026, with Happy Birthday from the Crayons due in 2027; series are Crayons, Monkey & Cake and No Sam!.

Julia Donaldson

349 books• 14 series

Dame Julia Donaldson, born Julia Catherine Shields on 16 September 1948, is a British writer and playwright who served as Children's Laureate from 2011 to 2013. Rhyming stories for children made Donaldson's name, above all those illustrated by Axel Scheffler, such as The Gruffalo, Room on the Broom, Stick Man and Superworm. Donaldson first wrote songs for children's television; the lyrics of A Squash and a Squeeze became a picture book in 1993, and books have been the focus since. The catalogue carries 349 entries, from Tim's Bad Mood and Other Stories (1970) to The Tooth Fairy and the Crocodile (2026), including Tales from Acorn Wood, Princess Mirror-Belle and Zog.

Margaret Wise Brown (May 23, 1910 - November 13, 1952) was an American writer of children's books, among them The Runaway Bunny (1942) and Goodnight Moon (1947), both with illustrations by Clement Hurd. Brown has been called the laureate of the nursery. Brown also published as Golden MacDonald for Doubleday, as Timothy Hay for Harper & Brothers, and, with Edith Thacher Hurd, as Juniper Sage for William R. Scott. The catalogue lists 166 books, opening with When the Wind Blew (1937), then I Like Bugs and The Steam Roller (1938). Stories in rhyme, rabbits, bedtime and sound recur in the subjects.

William Joyce

50 books• 6 series

William Joyce, born in 1957, is an American writer, illustrator and filmmaker who has produced more than 50 children's books, translated into over 40 languages. Rolie Polie Olie, the Guardians of Childhood and Dinosaur Bob are his main series, working with robots, dogs, adventure and the contest of good and evil, often in rhyme. Joyce started in film as a concept artist on Toy Story (1995) and took credits on A Bug's Life (1998) and Robots (2005); his A Day with Wilbur Robinson (1988) became the Disney film Meet the Robinsons (2007). The catalogue runs from William Joyce's Mother Goose (1984) to Scarecrow and the Nightingale (2020), at a median of 40 pages a book.

Jaclyn Moriarty is an Australian novelist known above all for young adult fiction. Moriarty has taken a Davitt Award, and an Aurealis Award for Best Children's Fiction. The Ashbury/Brookfield books start at Feeling Sorry for Celia (2000) and continue through The Year of Secret Assignments (2003), The Murder of Bindy Mackenzie (2006), Dreaming of Amelia (2009) and The Ghosts of Ashbury High (2009). The Colours of Madeleine trilogy follows from A Corner of White (2012), and the catalogue holds 19 books reaching 2026.