The best bedtime stories books for kids

Picked by Alexandre Lacroix

Book cover of Blaze and the Castle Cake for Bertha Daye

What did I love about each book?

List by Alexandre Lacroix

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m the happy father of five children, born between 2000 and 2017. So in my adult years, I have quite constantly lived in the company of young children, and I’ve started inventing stories for them. I have now six albums published in France, all of which were originally imagined for my kids just before we switch off the light for sleeping. Born in 1975, I live in Paris, I’m the chief editor of Philosophie magazine (a monthly publication with 50 000 readers), and I’ve published twenty novels and essays alas not available in English. I’m the president and co-founder of a creative writing school located in Paris, Les Mots.

The books I picked & why

Fog Island

By Tomi Ungerer,

Why did I love this book?

I was a friend of Tomi Ungerer since he used to answer metaphysical or philosophical questions asked by children in Philosophie Magazine, each month, in a special chronicle. Fog Island is less famous than Otto or the Three Robbers, but it’s an ode to Ireland where he used to live. The magic island in his story actually exists: Tomi Ungerer has drawn the rocky “Evil’s Tooth” that was planted in the ocean, just in front of his house. A beautiful tale with a realistic background.

Fog Island

By Tomi Ungerer,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Fog Island as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A timeless story about a brother and a sister whose boat drifts onto a doomed and mysterious island

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Blaze and the Castle Cake for Bertha Daye

By Claude Ponti, Alyson Waters (translator),

Why did I love this book?

Claude Ponti is now in charge of the answers to the children's questions in Philosophie Magazine. Maybe less diffused in the Anglophone world than Ungerer, he’s clearly a great artiste, one of the biggest, with an extravagant and surrealistic imagination, and this album, in particular, is a masterpiece.

Blaze and the Castle Cake for Bertha Daye

By Claude Ponti, Alyson Waters (translator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Blaze and the Castle Cake for Bertha Daye as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 5, 6, 7, and 8.

What is this book about?

Claude Ponti’s nimble wordplay and punning, combined with his phantasmagorical and joyful illustrations, create an endearing gem of a book, bound to be a bedtime story favorite.

From one of the world’s most beloved children’s book authors comes a story of a high-spirited flock of friends building an unusual birthday cake.
A rabble of soft, golden “chicklets” are awoken one morning to a startling proclamation: they only have ten short days to prepare for their best friend Bertha Daye’s party. It’s time to get to work building a larger-than-life castle cake to house and feed the revelers. Made of chocolate…

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The Highway Rat

By Julia Donaldson, Axel Scheffler (illustrator),

Why did I love this book?

I have all the albums of Julia Donaldson, and I must say that I appreciate her work a lot, she plays with sonorities like in nursery rhymes. The Highway Rat is especially praised by my kids, and I think it’s because the hero is openly cruel and abominable, stealing the food of other animals with no pity at all… And, well, he’s arrogant and shameless but obviously punished at the end.

The Highway Rat

By Julia Donaldson, Axel Scheffler (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Highway Rat as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 4, 5, 6, and 7.

What is this book about?

The rollicking adventurous picture book from the number
one bestselling author and illustrator of The Gruffalo, Stick
Man and Zog.
'Give me your buns and your biscuits!

Give me your chocolate eclairs!

For I am the Rat of the highway,

and the Rat Thief never shares!'

Life is not safe for the other animals, as the villainous Highway
Rat gallops along the highway, stealing their food. Clover from
a rabbit; nuts from a squirrel - he even steals his own horse's
hay.

Will he finally meet his comeuppance, in the form of a cunning
duck?

Shiny foil highlights on the…

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The Tunnel

By Anthony Browne,

Why did I love this book?

What does happen when you get into a dark tunnel? When you quit reality to enter the realm of dreams and nightmares? A great story by the great Anthony Browne, which also deals with the relationship between sister and brother.

The Tunnel

By Anthony Browne,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Tunnel as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 4, 5, 6, and 7.

What is this book about?

Anthony Browne is at his most brilliant in a new edition of this profound picture book about sibling relations.

Once upon a time there lived a brother and sister who were complete opposites and constantly fought and argued. One day they discovered the tunnel. The boy goes through it at once, dismissing his sister's fears. When he doesn't return his sister has to pluck up the courage to go through the tunnel too. She finds her brother in a mysterious forest where he has been turned to stone...

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A House in the Woods

By Inga Moore,

Why did I love this book?

There are multiple possible interpretations for this very well illustrated story: it’s above moving from one habitation to another, but also on, a more symbolic level, about reconstituted families. At least, this is the sense it has for the adult because for children it’s much simpler, we see here sympathetic animals building a house in the forest.

A House in the Woods

By Inga Moore,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A House in the Woods as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 3, 4, 5, and 6.

What is this book about?

An alternative little pigs' tale which encourages friendship and team work, over self-centredness, Warm, rich and funny - a beautifully illustrated title from acclaimed picture-book maker Inga Moore.

When two little pigs leave their two little homes to go out walking one morning, little do they know that they'll come back to find their friends Bear and Moose have moved in. It's very nice to have your friends move in. Not so nice if they are so big that your homes end up collapsing! Can the little pigs find a way to build a house in the woods where all…

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The Open Road

By M.M. Holaday,

Book cover of The Open Road

New book alert!

What is my book about?

Head West in 1865 with two life-long friends looking for adventure and who want to see the wilderness before it disappears. One is a wanderer; the other seeks a home he lost. The people they meet on their journey reflect the diverse events of this time period–settlers, adventure seekers, scientific expeditions, and Indigenous peoples–all of whom shape their lives in significant ways.

This is a story of friendship that casts a different look on a time period which often focuses only on wagon trains or gunslingers.

The Open Road

By M.M. Holaday,

What is this book about?

After four years of adventure in the frontier, Win Avery returns to his hometown on the edge of the prairie and tracks down his childhood friend, Jeb Dawson. Jeb has just lost his parents, and, in his efforts to console him, Win convinces his friend to travel west with him―to see the frontier before it is settled, while it is still unspoiled wilderness.

They embark on a free-spirited adventure, but their journey sidetracks when they befriend Meg Jameson, an accomplished horsewoman, lost on the Nebraska prairie. Traveling together through the Rocky Mountain foothills, they run into Gray Wolf, an Arapaho…

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