Domestic animals book series in reading order

by Walter R. Brooks

by Eve Bunting

by Steven Kellogg

Freddy the Pig is the detective, politician and traveller at the centre of Walter R. Brooks's children's books, set among the talking animals of the Bean Farm in upstate New York. Brooks (1886-1958) also wrote the short stories about Mister Ed, a talking horse, which reached television after his death. The catalogue holds 32 titles, opening with Freddy Goes to Florida (1927) and running through Freddy Goes to the North Pole, Freddy the Detective, Freddy the Politician and Freddy and the Bean Home News. Volumes average 244 pages, and editions here carry dates as late as 2002.

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.

Alyssa Satin Capucilli

142 books• 11 series

Alyssa Satin Capucilli, born November 2, 1957, is an American children's author whose most notable work is the Biscuit series. Biscuit, the opening book, appeared in 1996, and the series had sold more than 21 million copies worldwide by 2016. Biscuit books belong to HarperCollins' I Can Read! line. The catalogue lists 142 books from Peekaboo Bunny (1994) to Biscuit's Puppy Sleepover (2025), and other series include Katy Duck, Tulip and Rex, This Bear and Library Fish.

Bear Snores On (2002) is the first of 60 catalogued books by Karma Wilson, a children's author whose subjects include stories in rhyme, board books, bears, mice, cats and forest animals. Bear Wants More (2003), Bear Hugs (2004) and Bear Stays Up for Christmas (2004) are among the titles, and Bear Feels Sad (2025) is the newest. Series credited to Wilson are Bear, Calico, Little Pip, Sweet Briar and Mortimer Mouse.

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.

Eve Bunting, born Eve Bolton, was a Northern Irish-born American writer of more than 250 books who lived from December 19, 1928, to October 1, 2023. Bunting wrote fiction and non-fiction, mainly novels for children and young adults, and also wrote the text of picture books. Many of the books are set in Northern Ireland, where Bunting grew up, while others range in subject from Thanksgiving to riots in Los Angeles. The Two Giants (1971) was Bunting's first book. Series in the catalogue include Frog and Friends, Horse Stories, Dinosaur Machines and Pirate Captain's Daughter, and subjects include animals, horses, stories in rhyme and mystery stories.

Steven Kellogg is an American author and illustrator of children's books, born in Norwalk, Connecticut in 1941. The catalogue lists 94 titles, including the Pinkerton books, the Jimmy's Boa series and A Tall Tale, at a median 32 pages each. Animals, friendship, folklore, dogs and fairy tales supply the recurring subjects. The University of Findlay in Ohio gave Kellogg an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters in 2011, and his original illustrations went to the Mazza Museum there.

Jarrett J. Krosoczka

36 books• 4 series

Jarrett J. Krosoczka, born December 22, 1977 in Worcester, Massachusetts, writes and illustrates graphic novels and picture books, and the Lunch Lady series is the work most closely tied to his name. The catalogue holds 36 titles, from Good Night, Monkey Boy (2001) to Sunshine (2021), with Punk Farm (2005), My Buddy, Slug (2006) and Lunch Lady and the Author Visit Vendetta (2009) along the way. Lunch Lady, Platypus Police Squad and Punk Farm are the three series on record, and Amy Ignatow is credited on 2 titles. Subjects include schools, school lunchrooms, comic books and humorous stories.

Elise Broach, born September 20, 1963, is an American writer of children's books. Broach earned undergraduate and graduate history degrees at Yale University and lives in Easton, Connecticut. Broach's novels include Shakespeare's Secret (2005), Desert Crossing (2006) and Masterpiece (2008). Her 25 catalogued books run to Duet (2022) and include shorter titles such as Wet Dog! alongside the Masterpiece Adventures and Missing on Superstition Mountain series.