Mother and child book series in reading order

by Eve Bunting

by Leslie Patricelli

by Kes Gray

Jonathan London has 141 catalogued books dating from 1992 to 2022, the Froggy series among them. Froggy Gets Dressed (1992) is the earliest title, alongside The Lion Who Had Asthma and Thirteen Moons on Turtle's Back from the same year. Other series include Duck and Hippo, Aaron's Wilderness, Shawn and Keeper and Brown Bear. Subjects include picture books, stories in rhyme, children's poetry, animals, wolves and imagination. Here Comes Truck Driver Hippo (2022) is the most recent title.

Karen Kingsbury is an American Christian novelist, born in Fairfax, Virginia, on June 8, 1963. Kingsbury worked as a sports writer for the Los Angeles Times and later wrote for the Los Angeles Daily News. Missy's Murder (1991), Kingsbury's first book, grew out of a murder story covered as a reporter in Los Angeles. Kingsbury is a #1 New York Times and USA Today bestselling novelist. The catalogue holds 115 titles, running to The Christmas Ring (2025), and the series include Firstborn, Sunrise, Above the Line, Bailey Flanigan, Red Gloves and Forever Faithful. Christian fiction and family life recur among the subjects.

Patricia MacLachlan (March 3, 1938 to March 31, 2022), born Patricia Marie Pritzkau, was an American children's writer. MacLachlan's novel Sarah, Plain and Tall won the Newbery Medal in 1986 and gave its name to a series. The catalogue holds 63 books for young readers, including the Barkus series, Arthur, for the Very First Time and My Poet (2022). Family life, dogs, grandparents, friendship and frontier life are frequent subjects.

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.

Laura Joffe Numeroff

60 books• 3 series

Laura Joffe Numeroff is an American children's author and illustrator, born in 1953, known above all as the author of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. The If You Give... books form her main series, with ...Do Best and Jellybeans beside them. The catalogue records 60 Numeroff titles between Amy for Short (1976) and Ponyella (2021). Animals, friendship and stories in rhyme recur as subjects, and the median book runs 32 pages.

V.C. Andrews was the name used by Cleo Virginia Andrews (June 6, 1923 to December 19, 1986), an American novelist best known for Flowers in the Attic (1979). That novel led to four sequels and two film adaptations. The publisher never classed the books as Young Adult, yet their young protagonists have drawn teenage readers for decades. After Andrews died in 1986, a ghostwriter first hired to finish two incomplete manuscripts went on publishing new books under the V.C. Andrews name. The catalogue carries 108 books under that name from 1979 to 2025, across series such as Dollanganger, Casteel, Cutler, Landry, Logan and De Beers.

Elizabeth Berg

35 books• 7 series

Elizabeth Berg, born December 2, 1948, is an American novelist and a former registered nurse. Family life and personal change are the core of Berg's character-focused fiction, which the American Library Association has recognized. The catalogue counts 35 books from Family Traditions (1992) and Durable Goods (1993) to Life: A Love Story (2026). Talk Before Sleep, Range of Motion and Open House are early titles, and Mason and Katie Nash are series. Subjects include female friendship, sisters, widows and mothers and daughters.

Margaret Yorke (1924–2012) wrote English crime fiction across five decades. 44 books are catalogued under the name, from Summer Flight (1957) to an edition of Cause for Concern dated 2014. Patrick Grant, an Oxford don who investigates, is her one recurring detective; the rest of the catalogue is standalone suspense about criminals, families and murder in England. Yorke was born Margaret Beda Larminie and wrote under the Yorke name throughout her career.

Paullina Simons, born in Russia in 1963 and writing from America, is best known for The Bronze Horseman (2000), which grew into a series with The Bridge to Holy Cross / Tatiana and Alexander (2003) and The Summer Garden (2005). Saint Petersburg and New York recur as settings, alongside historical romance and suspense. Her catalogue opens with Tully (1994) and takes in Red Leaves (1996), Eleven Hours (1998) and The Girl in Times Square (2004), reaching The Bell and the Blade (2025) at 21 books. The novels run long, at a median of 563 pages.

Fay Weldon

59 books• 9 series

Fay Weldon (1931-2023), born Franklin Birkinshaw, was a British novelist, essayist and playwright whose career ran fifty-five years and produced 31 novels. The Life and Loves of a She-Devil (1983) is the best known, televised by the BBC in 1986. The Bulgari Connection (2000), Puffball (1980), Wicked Women (1995) and The Cloning of Joanna May (1989) sit alongside it. Weldon was a feminist and described her subject as overweight, plain women. Fifty-nine catalogued titles, taking in novels, plays, short stories and nonfiction, run from 1967 to 2019.

Jack Canfield, born August 19, 1944, is an American author and motivational speaker. Canfield co-authored the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, which has more than 250 titles and 500 million copies in print across over 40 languages. The Success Principles, written with Janet Switzer, followed in 2005. The catalogue lists 182 books from Dare to Win (1988) to Everyday Catholicism (2020), with Mark Victor Hansen co-credited on 148 and Amy Newmark on 46. Chicken Soup for the Soul appeared in 1993.

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.

Kate McMullan, born Kate Hall on January 16, 1947, is an American children's author with more than 100 published books. Myth-O-Mania and Dragon Slayers' Academy are the notable McMullan series, and others include Fluffy the Classroom Guinea Pig, Pearl and Wagner and Lila Fenwick. Greek mythology, knights, dragons, guinea pigs and school life feature in the subjects. The catalogue counts 124 books from 1984 to This Is the Tree We Planted (2022).

Kes Gray is a British children's author, born in 1960. The catalogue lists 98 Gray books from The Get Well Soon Book (2000) to One Night Before Christmas (2025), and the median title runs to 32 pages. Subject tags include picture books, stories in rhyme, animals, frogs and a fictional character named Daisy. Eat Your Peas and Who's Poorly Too? also date from 2000. Series include Daisy Fiction, Nelly the Monster Sitter, Oi Frog and Friends, Get Well Friends and Jack Beechwhistle.

Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen is credited with 65 books from Chemotherapy (2003) to Princess Kira's Kiwi Jubilee (2024), catalogued for grades 1 to 3. Early titles include AIDS (2004), The Eiffel Tower (2005) and Last-Minute Science Fair Projects (2006). Subject tags cover mermaids, cats, princesses, pirates, magic and experiments. Bardhan-Quallen series include Purrmaids, Mermicorns, Adventures of Caveboy and Disney Princess: Merida.

Amy Krouse Rosenthal

58 books• 4 series

Amy Krouse Rosenthal (1965-2017) wrote for children and adults, made short films and hosted radio. Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life (2005) is the memoir; Uni the Unicorn, Cookies, Little Pea, Little Hoot and The OK Book sit among more than 30 children's books published from 2005 onward. Rosenthal is the only author to have placed three children's books on the Best Children's Books for Family Literacy list in a single year. The listing holds 58 titles dated 1998 to 2024, at a median of 40 pages.

Leslie Patricelli is an American writer and illustrator of board books for babies and toddlers, and of fiction for older children. The board books pair opposites and daily routines - Yummy Yucky (2003), Quiet Loud (2003), Big Little (2003), Baby Happy Baby Sad (2008), No No Yes Yes (2008) - with Potty and Toot! among her internationally recognised titles. Patricelli also wrote the Rizzlerunk Club series, including Best Buds Under Frogs and The Big Bad Lies, and illustrated the Mini Myth books. The catalogue holds 37 titles at a median of 26 pages.

Rowan Coleman writes contemporary fiction and children's books, and publishes the Bronte Sisters Mysteries as Bella Ellis. The Ruby Parker novels, about a child actor, run from 2005 to 2007 and take in Ruby Parker Hits the Small Time, Ruby Parker: Soap Star, Ruby Parker: Film Star and Ruby Parker: Hollywood Star. Motherhood carries the adult fiction, in The Accidental Mother (2005), Mommy by Mistake (2007) and The Baby Group (2007), and Sophie Mills is her other series. The 30 catalogued books open with Growing Up Twice (2002) and close with A Gift of Poison (2023).

Brendan O’Carroll, born 17 September 1955, is an Irish writer, actor, comedian, director and producer. O’Carroll plays the matriarch Agnes Brown on stage and in the BBC and RTÉ sitcom Mrs. Brown's Boys, and took the Irish Film and Television Academy's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015. Agnes Browne is O’Carroll's catalogued series, running from The Mammy (1994) through The Chisellers (1995), The Granny (1996), The Course (1997), The Scrapper (1997) and The Young Wan (2003), with Mrs Brown's Family Handbook (2013) and Call Me Mrs. Brown (2022) later. Recorded subjects include humour, Ireland, working-class life and widows.