Books About Being a Big Brother or Big Sister

Why it worksLilly is magnificently, unapologetically horrible about the new baby - she tells him the alphabet is wrong on purpose - and only defends him when a cousin insults him. Older siblings recognise that exact contradiction in themselves and laugh instead of being told off.

Worth knowingLilly's behaviour is funny rather than punished; some parents would rather not hand a four-year-old the material.

Why it worksPeter runs away with his old chair because everything of his is being painted pink for the baby - it is about property and displacement, which is what the jealousy is actually about, not about loving the baby. He decides to give the chair up himself, which is why it lands.

Worth knowingQuiet 1960s pacing and period domestic detail; it needs an adult to slow down for it.

Why it worksElmore Green had everything to himself, and the new small person licks his sweets and touches his things in precisely the order that enrages an older sibling. The turn comes at night, in the dark, when the small person says something kind - it is earned rather than announced.

Worth knowingElmore's resentment runs across a lot of spreads, and under-fours lose the thread before the reconciliation arrives.

Why it worksZa-Za is bored, ignored and cross for most of the book because the baby is feeding again - the Maisy-style flat colour keeps it cheerful while the text stays honest about how dull a newborn is for a toddler.

Why it worksStraight, factual and short: the baby cries, cannot play yet, and needs a lot of holding - and the older child is the one who can do things. Useful in the fortnight before the birth precisely because it is not a story, just an accurate briefing.

Worth knowingNo plot and no jokes. It does a job for a few weeks and then gets outgrown.

Why it worksBoard pages and one short rhyming line per spread make it usable with the two-year-old who is about to be displaced but cannot sit through a story - and it keeps saying 'I am' rather than 'you must', so it reads as a promotion.

Why it worksA handful of words a spread carry a whole year - bump, wait, arrive, crawl, walk - so a toddler gets the entire arc of a new baby in about a minute, which is exactly as much as they can hold.

Worth knowingSo short it is really a gift book; do not expect it to fill a bedtime.

Why it worksThe boy keeps asking what the baby will be - a cook, a gardener, a sailor - and each answer opens into a full-page daydream, so the long wait gets filled with something to do rather than something to dread. His grandad's line at the end, that he will be glad the baby came, is delivered without pushing.

Worth knowingForty-eight pages structured across a whole pregnancy; it works read in instalments over weeks, not in one sitting.