Picture books book series in reading order

by Jane O’Connor

by David McKee

by Steven Kellogg

by Judith Kerr

by Eve Bunting

by Jonathan London

by Lauren Child

by Alyssa Satin Capucilli

by Michael Bond

by Bernard Waber

by Atinuke

by Leslie Patricelli

by Laura Joffe Numeroff

by Sue Hendra

by Bill Cotter

by Gerald Durrell

by Kenneth Grahame

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.

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.

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.

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.

Judith Kerr

48 books• 3 series

Judith Kerr (14 June 1923 to 22 May 2019) was a British writer and illustrator, born in Germany, with more than 10 million copies of the books sold around the world. Born in the Weimar Republic, Kerr came to Britain with family in 1935 to escape Nazi persecution. Kerr's picture books include The Tiger Who Came to Tea (1968) and the Mog series, which includes Mog the Forgetful Cat (1970). For older children Kerr wrote When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit (1971), a semi-autobiographical novel that shows escape from Hitler's persecution through a child's eyes. The catalogue lists 48 books, with series Mog the Forgetful Cat and Out of the Hitler Time, and Mog's Birthday is dated 2020.

Michael Bond, an English author born on 13 January 1926 who died on 27 June 2017, is best known for children's books about Paddington Bear. Sales of the Paddington books passed 35 million worldwide, and the characters moved into animated television, a film series and a stage musical. The catalogue records 217 books under the name, including A Bear Called Paddington, More About Paddington (1959) and Paddington Helps Out (1960). Olga Da Polga, Monsieur Pamplemousse, Parsley and Mouse Called Thursday are further series, and guinea pigs and private investigators appear among the subjects.

David McKee

119 books• 6 series

Elmer, Mr. Benn and King Rollo are among the series created by David McKee (1935–2022), a British writer and illustrator of children's books and animations. McKee was the UK nominee for the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2006, in recognition of the illustration work. The catalogue lists 119 titles from Mark And The Monocycle (1968) to Elmer Opposites (2020), including 123456789 Benn (1970), Two Admirals (1977) and the Melric books. Subjects include elephants, monsters, magic, and kings and queens.

Enid Blyton

957 books• 42 series

Enid Blyton (11 August 1897 to 28 November 1968) was an English children's writer and one of the best-selling authors of children's literature, with more than 600 million copies sold and translations into ninety languages. Blyton wrote on education, natural history, fantasy, mystery and biblical stories. Noddy, the Famous Five, the Secret Seven, the Five Find-Outers and Malory Towers are the best-remembered Blyton books, and St Clare's, Mary Mouse and Toyland Stories are also listed. The catalogue opens with The Enid Blyton Book of Fairies (1924), and The Naughtiest Girl in the School (1930) and The Adventures of the Wishing-Chair (1937) follow. Titles dated after Blyton's death also appear, up to Stories of Wonders and Wishes (2023).

Mo Willems

89 books• 9 series

Mo Willems makes picture books and early readers, funny and animal-led: the Pigeon books, Elephant & Piggie, Knuffle Bunny, Cat the Cat, Unlimited Squirrels and Leonardo. Friendship and emotions are the recurring subjects, and the books are short, a median of 57 pages. Ninety catalogued titles run from 1994 through Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! (2003) and Knuffle Bunny (2004) to The Pigeon WON'T Pick a Color!, with another title scheduled for 2027.

David Walliams

56 books• 6 series

Born David Edward Williams on 20 August 1971, David Walliams is an English actor, comedian, writer and television personality. Walliams rose to fame with Matt Lucas on the BBC sketch shows Little Britain (2003–2006) and Come Fly with Me (2010–2011), judged Britain's Got Talent from 2012 to 2022, and wrote and starred in the sitcom Big School. Walliams's children's books have sold more than 50 million copies. The catalogue lists 56 titles from Inside Little Britain (2006) to The World’s Worst Superheroes (2025), including The Boy in the Dress (2008), Mr Stink (2009), Billionaire Boy (2010), Gangsta Granny (2011) and Awful Auntie (2014).

Cynthia Rylant, born Cynthia Smith on June 6, 1954, is an American author and librarian who has written more than 100 children's books across picture books, short stories, novels, nonfiction and poetry. Missing May took the 1993 Newbery Medal, A Fine White Dust was a 1987 Newbery Honor book, and two further titles are Caldecott Honor Books. The catalogue records 229 books from When I Was Young in the Mountains (1982) onward, with series including Henry and Mudge, Mr. Putter & Tabby, Poppleton and the Lighthouse Family.

Charles M. Schulz was an American cartoonist, born in Minneapolis in 1922 and working until his death in 2000. Schulz created the comic strip Peanuts, whose cast includes Charlie Brown and Snoopy, after developing an earlier strip called Li'l Folks from 1947. United Features Syndicate renamed the redeveloped strip Peanuts and began publishing it in October 1950. The book catalogue holds 781 titles, from More Peanuts in 1954 to Snoopy, the Story of My Life in 2025, gathered into collections such as The Complete Peanuts and Peanuts Every Sunday.

Jane O'Connor is the writer of Fancy Nancy, a children's picture book series begun in 2005 and illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser. The first Fancy Nancy book stayed on the New York Times Best Seller list for nearly 100 weeks, and the series grew past 100 titles and 50 million copies sold, with translations into 20 languages including Hungarian and Hebrew. Nancy moved into chapter books in April 2012 with Nancy Clancy: Super Sleuth. The catalogue lists 134 O'Connor books from Yours Till Niagara Falls, Abby (1979) to Besties for Eternity (2025), across series such as Lulu the Witch, Sir Small and Miranda Bookman.

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.

Dr. Seuss

95 books• 4 series

Dr. Seuss is the pen name of Theodor Seuss Geisel (1904–1991), an American children's author, illustrator, animator and cartoonist who adopted it as a Dartmouth College undergraduate. Geisel wrote and illustrated more than 60 books as Dr. Seuss, and sales passed 600 million copies by 1991. The catalogue lists 95 Dr. Seuss titles, beginning with And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street (1937) and including Horton Hatches the Egg (1940) and Bartholomew and the Oobleck (1949); releases continue after Geisel's death, through 2026. Stories in rhyme, nonsense verse and picture books dominate the subjects, and Cat in the Hat and Horton the Elephant are among the series.

Sue Hendra, born Suzanne Francis Hendra on 15 August 1973, is a British writer and illustrator of more than 100 children's books. Many of those books were co-written with Paul Linnet, among them Barry the Fish with Fingers. Supertato and Wanda and the Alien have both been adapted for television. The catalogue lists 86 books from Oliver's Wood (1996) to Mean Green Time Machine (2023), with a median length of 16 pages. Subjects include picture books, toy and movable books, animals, cats and Halloween. Series include Supertato, Wanda and the Alien, Dave, Mad About..., Pop It In The Pocket, Lift the Flap and I Spy Island.

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.

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.

Lauren Child

100 books• 4 series

Lauren Child is an English children's author and illustrator, born 29 November 1965. Child created Charlie and Lola, introduced in 2000, and won the Kate Greenaway Medal for the illustration in that book; a later anniversary panel named it one of the ten best winners of the Medal's first fifty years. Her other series are Clarice Bean, Ruby Redfort and Hubert Horatio. The catalogue holds 100 titles published between 1999 and 2022, most of them picture books at a median of 32 pages.

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.

Giles Andreae is a British writer and illustrator, born 16 March 1966. Andreae created the stickman poet Purple Ronnie and the artist-philosopher Edward Monkton, and wrote Giraffes Can't Dance. The children's series under his name take in Captain Flinn and the Pirate Dinosaurs, Billy Bonkers, Sir Scallywag, Nat Fantastic and the Pants books, most of them picture books in rhyme at a median of 32 pages. The listing holds 86 titles dated 2000 to 2021.

Rebecca Elliott writes children's fiction and picture books, with catalogue subjects such as owls, diaries, friendship, loneliness, brothers and sisters and elementary schools. The catalogue lists 56 books, starting in 2007 with Count with Me Five Ducks, Spot with Me! and Who Ate All the Lettuce?. Elliott's series are Owl Diaries, Unicorn Diaries and Pretty Funny. Eva Saves the Day (2025) is the newest title, and The School Dance is due in 2027.

Jan and Stan Berenstain wrote picture books about the Berenstain Bears. The run begins with The Big Honey Hunt (1962) and reaches 400 titles by The Berenstain Bears: Father's Day Blessings (2018). Family life, school, brothers and sisters, scouting, Christmas and Christian life supply the recurring subjects, and many of the books are told in rhyme. A median length of 32 pages places them with early readers. Publication peaked in the 1990s and the catalogue is likely complete.

Tracey West, born October 1, 1965, is a children's author who writes for licensed series such as Pokémon and SpongeBob SquarePants. The catalogue lists 356 titles from 1988 to 2027, reaching Heart of the Ruby Dragon (2026), with Claw of the Diamond Dragon due in 2027. Named series include Pokémon chapter books, novelizations and readers, Naruto Chapter Books, LEGO Ninjago Reader, Bakugan Chapter Books, Pixie Tricks, Pet Vet Club and Scream Shop Pick Your Path. Dragon Masters and Heroes in Training appear as recurring lines. Ninja, dragons and plot-your-own stories appear among the subject headings.