Domestic animals book series in reading order

by Walter R. Brooks

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.

Michael Morpurgo

171 books• 5 series

Sir Michael Morpurgo, born 5 October 1943, is an English author, poet, playwright and librettist best known for children's novels such as War Horse (1982). Morpurgo served as the third Children's Laureate from 2003 to 2005 and is President of BookTrust, a children's reading charity. Recurring themes include outsiders who triumph, survival and bonds with nature, set in places such as the Cornish coast and the First World War trenches. The catalogue holds 171 books from It Never Rained (1974) to Down Burrow Lane (2026), including the Mudpuddle Farm series.

James Herriot wrote about veterinary practice in the English countryside, mixing memoir, anecdote and animal stories. The catalogue holds 39 titles published between 1970 and 2023, among them All Creatures Great and Small (1972), All Things Bright and Beautiful (1974) and the 2023 collection The Wonderful World of James Herriot. All Creatures Great and Small is the best known sequence, and Herriot also wrote children's books such as Bonny's Big Day. The books are short at a median of 180 pages, and the catalogue is closed.

Kwame Alexander

35 books• 3 series

Kwame Alexander, born August 21, 1968, writes poetry and children's fiction. The catalogue holds 35 books from Just Us (1997) to The Mighty Macy (2026), including 360° A Revolution of Black Poets (1998), Crush (1999), Do the Write Thing (2001) and Acoustic Rooster and His Barnyard Band (2011). Door of No Return is an Alexander series. Subjects include African Americans, American poetry, stories in rhyme, musicians, high schools and authorship.

Lois Lenski

75 books• 8 series

Lois Lenski (1893-1974) wrote and illustrated books for children and won the Newbery Medal. Lenski published 98 books, several of them posthumously: picture books, illustrated chapter books, songbooks, poetry, short stories, essays on children's literature and the 1972 autobiography Journey into Childhood. The Mr. Small picture books, the American Regional novels and the Roundabout America, Davy and Debbie series carry most of the work. Seventy-seven titles are catalogued here, starting in 1928.

Jon Katz

36 books• 1 series

Dogs and farm life fill the later part of Jon Katz's catalogue; crime fiction fills the earlier. Katz, born in 1947, is an American journalist and photographer who wrote for HotWired, Slashdot and Slate, and whose first books include the Suburban Detective novels and the character Kit Deleeuw. Writing on geek subculture followed, then a long sequence on the relationship between people and animals, closing with Gus's Year in 2020. Thirty-six titles in all.