Play book series in reading order

by Alyssa Satin Capucilli

by Lauren Child

William Shakespeare

49 books• 5 series

William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet and actor, born around 23 April 1564 and died on 23 April 1616. Shakespeare is widely ranked as the greatest writer in English and the leading dramatist in the world, and is called England's national poet and the Bard of Avon. The surviving works, collaborations included, number about 39 plays, 154 sonnets and 3 long narrative poems. The plays exist in every major living language and are staged more often than those of any other playwright. The catalogue sorts the plays into Comedy Plays, Tragedy Plays and History Plays, with titles such as King John, Richard II, Henry V, The Tempest and The Comedy of Errors.

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.

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).

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.

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.

Jane Yolen

237 books• 22 series

Jane Yolen (Jane Hyatt Yolen, February 11, 1939 to June 11, 2026) was an American author of fantasy, science fiction and children's books. The Devil's Arithmetic, a Holocaust novella, is the best-known Yolen work, and Owl Moon and The Emperor and the Kite are among the others. The short works Sister Emily's Lightship and Lost Girls both won Nebula Awards. The catalogue counts 237 books from The Witch Who Wasn't (1964) to Daddy Plays a Mean Guitar (2026). Series include Commander Toad, How Do Dinosaurs...?, Pit Dragons, the Young Merlin Trilogy, Books of the Great Alta and Tartan Magic. Yolen worked as an editor, collaborated most often with Adam Stemple, and in 2012 became the first woman to give the Andrew Lang lecture.

Chris Van Allsburg

20 books• 5 series

Chris Van Allsburg, born June 18, 1949, is an American author and illustrator of children's books. Jumanji (1981) and The Polar Express (1985), both written and illustrated by Van Allsburg, won Caldecott Medals and were later filmed, and The Garden of Abdul Gasazi (1979) was a Caldecott runner-up in 1980. Van Allsburg was the 1986 U.S. nominee for the International Hans Christian Andersen Award. The catalogue lists 20 books through The Misadventures of Sweetie Pie (2014), including The Mysteries of Harris Burdick (1984) and Two Bad Ants (1988).

Joan Aiken

125 books• 12 series

Joan Aiken (Joan Delano Aiken, 4 September 1924 to 4 January 2004) was an English writer of supernatural fiction and alternative history novels for children. The Whispering Mountain (1968) won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize and was commended for the Carnegie Medal, and Night Fall won an Edgar Allan Poe Award in 1972. Aiken received an MBE in 1999 for services to children's literature. The catalogue lists 125 books from All You've Ever Wanted (1953) to 2020, including The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (1962) and the Wolves Chronicles, Arabel and Mortimer and Felix Brooke series.

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.

Sebastian Barry, born 1955, is an Irish novelist, playwright and poet who served as Laureate for Irish Fiction from 2018 to 2021 and became a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 2024. A Long Long Way (2005) made the Booker Prize shortlist. The Secret Scripture (2008) won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and Costa Book of the Year and was also Booker shortlisted, and On Canaan's Side (2011) was longlisted. The 30 catalogued books run from Macker's Garden (1982) to The Newer World (2026), with McNulty Family and Days Without End as series.

Grace Lin

35 books• 4 series

Grace Lin, born May 17, 1974, is a Taiwanese-American writer and illustrator of children's books and a Newbery, Geisel and Caldecott honoree. Lin writes for young and middle-grade readers, often with young Asian and Asian American characters in everyday or fantastical settings, and advocates for Asian American representation in children's literature. The catalogue lists 35 books from The Ugly Vegetables (1999) to The Gate, the Girl, and the Dragon (2025), including Dim Sum for Everyone! (2001), Kite Flying (2002) and The Year of the Dog (2005). Ling & Ting and Pacy are Lin series. Subjects include Chinese Americans, Taiwanese Americans, twins, sisters and Chinese New Year.

Jill Paton Walsh, 1937 to 2020, was an English novelist and children's writer, born Gillian Bliss and later Baroness Hemingford. Knowledge of Angels, nominated for the Booker Prize, stands among the best known of the work, along with the Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane mysteries that continued Dorothy L. Sayers's series. The Imogen Quy mysteries follow, with the University of Cambridge among the catalogued subjects, beside a long run of children's fiction on history and the Second World War. The catalogue lists 48 titles dated 1965 to 2013, opening with Wordhoard: Anglo-Saxon Stories (1965) and taking in Fireweed (1969), The Dolphin Crossing (1970), Goldengrove (1972) and The Emperor's Winding Sheet (1974). The Late Scholar (2013) is the last catalogued title.

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.

Jacqueline Wilson

178 books• 15 series

Jacqueline Wilson, born Jacqueline Aitken on 17 December 1945, is an English novelist who writes for children. Adoption, abuse and divorce are among the realistic topics the novels take on. Wilson made a debut in 1969 and has passed 100 books; this catalogue lists 178, the earliest dated entry being Hide And Seek (1972) and the latest The Seaside Sleepover (2025). Tracy Beaker, Hetty Feather, Girls, Sleepovers and Stevie Day are among the series. Friendship, sisters, family life and schools appear in the subject records.

Penny Warner writes in two halves. One is mystery: the Connor Westphal books, with deaf women and women journalists in the subject record, plus the Party-Planning and Food Festival mysteries, the Code Busters Club for children and Troop 13. That work has taken multiple Agatha Awards. The other half is practical non-fiction, more than 50 titles on cooking, parenting, parties and children's activities, starting with Healthy Snacks for Kids (1983). Seventy-one books are catalogued through The Search for the Missing Mascot (2025).