Generally a more peripheral inlcuision on the lists of best children’s books, Michael Bond’s The Tales of Olga da Polga is nevertheless a charming episodic canter through the fantasy world of a pet guinea-pig. One feels that the author of the Paddington Bear series had no idea where the saga was going to take him (or the guinea-pig) when he started out, but the make-it-up-as-you-go-along approach enlivens rather than hinders the story. Hans Helweg’s illustrations are endearing but sufficiently unintrusive on the reader’s imagination and the author’s mystery tour delivers an appropriately moving climax. While not as slapstick as Paddington, Olga remains one of the more memorable domestic pets to be found in the best childrens’ books.

Philip Pullman’s Clockwork is on many lists of the best children’s books. It’s Grimm-influenced narrative and pursuit of a dark heart certainly has touches of the macabre. But  it ultimately appears to unwind to no purpose.  It also fails to chill and while this may not have been the author’s ambition, the subject matter of some of the plotting suggests that it was.  What is fascinating, however, is the novel’s prescience and promotion of the age of entrepreneurialism that was to come. No where is this more evident than in Pullman’s treatment of Fritz. Pullman criticises Fritz for his fear of failure and later punishes him for his opportunism. The inescapable conclusion is that if you’re not an entrepreneur, you’re a loser and to this extent, the novel captures the coming zeitgeist chillingly.

Any list of the best children’s books would have to include Jacqueline Wilson’s Story of Tracy Beaker.  Its popularity amongst young girls is perhaps partly surprising given its account of a child in care.  After all, it isn’t just read by them.  But then, as the Duchess of Malfi points out in John Webster’s eponymous play, “To hear of greater grief would lessen mine”.

The Bed and Breakfast Star is more dangerous.  Its unflinching account of a family’s descent into joblessness, poverty and eventually DWP bed and breakfast accommodation through the eyes of pre-teen Elsa (who has similarities to Tracy) raises the spectre of Prefab’s Sprout’s Venus of the Soup Kitchen (on From Langley Park to Memphis) who stands over us all.  The book seems to be written for adults just as much as children: a Dickensian social indictment for our times.  It’s a visceral account of what it really means for a family to be sucked into the poverty trap through forces beyond their control and forced to live in one room.  The narrative has additional resonance as the UK strides inexorably into double-dip recession.  Perhaps the real spectre in the book is David Cameron or even George Osborne: pasties are implicitly one of the staples of the Star Hotel’s residents (or, as Elsa describes it, the Str Htl following the establishment’s decline and loss of characters on its sign).

In truth, Elsa is a bit irritating.  To grown ups up least.  Her jokes are terrible; she always chooses the wrong moment to try and cheer people up. But my daughter thinks she’s great.  And that seems to be Jacqueline Wilson’s skill: to create simple modern heroes that children identify with but who their parents might loathe.  This is probably a book that children are intended to read themselves.  But the critical eye that the author directs at Elsa’s parents seems to have been intended for adult readers. It’s surprising that Jacqueline Wilson’s stories are not more controversial in the UK at least, but that perhaps is one of the many factors that makes the Bed and Breakfast Star one of the best children’s books.

It’s useful to be able to do a good Scottish accent for Elsa’s step-dad if this book is going to be read aloud.  Mine sounded like Sean Connery which lent the narrative a surreal air.

Few books aimed at primary school children appear brave enough to address the experience of the death of a close family member.  Linda Newbery’s novel Lob has no such difficulty.  It depicts loss without sentimentality and as simply a fact of life that children will have to deal with at some time or another, yet in a gentle and ultimately moving way.

The principal theme of the book is not death but a secular interpretation of rebirth and continuity. We follow young Lucy as she grills her green-fingered grandfather about an unseen helper in his cottage garden, Lob.  But is Lob merely the grandfather’s tease or something real?  As Lucy becomes obsessed with encountering the real Lob, glimpsing him out of the corner of her eye or on the carving of a church, he gradually emerges as a manifestation of the numinous ‘green man’, seen only by those with a certain gift.

The story celebrates the inquisitive minds of young children and how, properly nurtured or mentored, their curiosity and inquiry can be developed into real skills.  It also explains how in a secular society, children will have their own way of coping with bereavement.

The calendar format enriches the horticultural context.  The year-as-cycle also conjures up other depictions of the ‘green man’, in particular, the Green Knight of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Birtwhistle’s opera. Perhaps the poetic introductions to the Lob segments can be a bit awkward, at least when reading out loud. But Pam Smy’s illustrations, together with the appealing New Baskerville text, complement the narrative well.

There is nothing brash about Newbery’s verdant storyline; some readers might consider it too subtle.  But as metaphor for continuity through the human cycle, it could gain status as one of the best children’s books.

Arabel’s Raven-creator Joan Aiken’s early novel, The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, is frequently cited when best children’s books are discussed. That is unsurprising given it is an episodic romp with plenty of cliffhangers that will keep a primary school child demanding more before lights-out. But the story has problems. It is difficult to believe that a man with Sir Willoughby’s resources would set sail on a plainly unseaworthy vessel. And given his undoubted local reputation, one would not expect dark Miss Slighcarp’s audacious chicanery in taking possession of Willoughby Chase to fly from the outset. The opening chapters benefit from some atmospheric scene-setting, particularly in Sylvia’s train journey north through a parallel England of the early nineteenth century. However, the fairly linear battle of wits between the children and the villains which ensues suggests that the author did not have a strategy in place in terms of plot devices to deliver on that initial promise. The book’s title in particular becomes something of a misnomer.  And why the story needed to be set in an England that never existed remains unresolved. The feeling persists that the author made up the story as she went along – by no means a criticism in itself, but it betrays an overall lack of structure.  On the other hand, this is likely to bother adults more than children.

Still, Sylvia’s recollections of her recent departure from poor Aunt Jane are nearly Tolstoyan in their poignancy. And the treatment of the pupils in Mrs Brisket’s appalling school is well observed. In fact, the provocative school chapters ensure that narrative momentum is maintained towards the denouement. That tension ultimately assures the story’s place in the pantheon of best children’s books.

The narrative is complemented by Pat Marriott’s spectral drawings. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase was originally published in 1962 and forms the first story in a sequence.

Charlie and Lola creator Lauren Child’s interpretation of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Princess and the Pea is one of the best.  Lauren Child’s perhaps occasionally self-consciously knowing and detached narrative is almost commentary on the Andersen original and fairy tales generally (a theme that reappears in some of her other books such as Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Book?).  The problem with this approach is that, while some of the jokes might tickle the parents, it can diminish the warmth that Child undoubtedly feels towards such stories and which she clearly wishes to convey to the reader.

What ultimately allows this version of The Princess and the Pea to triumph is photographer Polly Borland’s “capturing” of Child’s well-known illustrative style in three-dimensions by the use of cardboard cut-outs of the figure drawings and their location in miniature sets, again realised by Child.  The result is a tableau of captivating – if somewhat underlit – images which breathes life into the drier parts of the narrative and transforms this modern take of a classic story into one of the best children’s books.

Charlie and Lola recall other pre-school books and one of the best is Emile Jadoul’s Look Out! It’s The Wolf.  The story follows Mr Rabbit, Bear and other friends of a Mr Deer as they seek refuge in his wonky house on the hill following news that “the wolf is coming”.  The book’s board format is similar to the Very Hungry Caterpillar:  it comprises simple sentences facing the action set out in a series of enchanting watercolours, which gradually disclose clues to the clever denouement.  The call-and-response-style narrative encourages group reading, with perhaps different family members taking on the various creatures’ roles. That may explain why the story has been such a hit with my daughter; it’s probably below her age range now (although it’s useful material for the new reader) but she nevertheless calls for a performance now and again.

Writing a diary on best children’s books invariably results in the inclusion of only the most recent reads.  So it’s worth delving behind the bookshelves occasionally for some neglected favourites. My daughter is probably beyond Lauren Child’s Charlie & Lola series now (sadly), but still remembers I will not ever NEVER eat a tomato and I am TOO absolutely small for school fondly.  The stories follow precocious Lola from pre-school as her older brother guides her through these and other (sub-)rites of passage using various gimmicks derived from his own sci-fi-driven weltanschauung. The concept of course evolved into a successful TV series but Lauren Child’s 70′s Habitat-influenced cut-and-paste graphics and exuberant font mixtures work equally well in glossy paperback.  And believe it or not, they got my daughter over her tomato-phobia, although another story was less successful in restraining her from attempts at appropriating birthday presents neatly wrapped  and intended for friends.  Nevertheless, tomatoes are still occasionally referred to as moonsquirters and who isn’t partial to ocean nibbles with cloud fluff once in a while?

Charlie Cook’s Favourite Book is another winner for adults and children alike.  Julia Donaldson’s characteristic comic rhyming style takes us through a gradually shrinking world of books within books and is complemented once more by Axel Scheffler’s insightful illustrations.  The subtly poignant denouement makes it clear that this is a further celebration of well-trodden subject matter – the childhood imagination – but its perspective is refreshing.  Donaldson and Scheffler are better known for the Gruffalo, but Charlie Cook’s Favourite Book is perhaps ultimately more moving.

Mortimer and the Sword Excalibur is one of the later in the series of adventures of Arabel and her unnerving pet raven, Mortimer, immortalised on BBC television in the 1970s by master storyteller, Bernard Cribbins, on Jackanory.  By now Joan Aiken’s formula had become well settled with unassuming Arabel struggling to cope with Mortimer (who rather resembles a boy toddler) and his various obsessions with grown-up gadgetry, on this occasion a cutting-edge lawnmower.  The adventure is still enjoyable but the classics in the series are probably the introduction, Arabel’s Raven, and the by turns moving Mortimer’s Bread Bin. Quentin Blake’s illustrations (of the bird in particular) are memorable once again, but the key to Mortimer as a storytelling exercise is to get the raven’s diction right; and memories of Cribbins’ performances are useful here.

Happy new year!