Preschool Books About Family

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 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 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 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 worksOne image does the whole job: a string of love running from your heart to everyone you miss, which stretches to an uncle who has died and equally to the nursery door at half past eight. Families end up using the phrase daily at drop-off long after the book goes back on the shelf.

Worth knowingIt mentions heaven, and the idea is restated rather than dramatised - some children experience it as a lesson rather than a story.

Why it worksBill says 'I want my mummy!' and nothing else, on nearly every page, so the smallest listener has one line to shout while the two older owlets do all the reasoning for them. The mother comes back with no drama and no explanation, which is the exact shape of a nursery day.

Why it worksThe same question is asked eight times to increasingly unlikely things, so a child joins in on the question and gets to say no to a cow, a plane and a digger. Around a hundred different words in the whole book, which is why new readers can hold it.

Worth knowingThe baby bird is lost and alone for most of the book, and the Snort scene worries some three-year-olds.

Why it works'I'm Stick Man, I'm Stick Man, I'M STICK MAN, that's me!' comes back every time he is mistaken for a twig, and the misunderstanding is one a four-year-old can spot before the characters do - dog fetches him, a child uses him as a flag, and the reader is in on it every time.

Worth knowingStick Man spends most of the book separated from his family and nearly burnt on a fire; some children find the middle stretch genuinely upsetting.

Why it worksTommy's great-grandmother is tied into her chair upstairs and his grandmother works downstairs, and he loves visiting both; when the older one dies he is told plainly that she will not be back. Very few picture books show the relationship at that length before they show the loss, which is what makes the loss mean anything.

Worth knowingAutobiographical and quietly paced, with two deaths in one short book. Children who want a plot will not stay with it.

Why it worksIt is a competition - each hare tries to out-measure the other's love with arms, hops and hills - so the child has something to beat rather than just a soothing sentiment, and most families end up inventing their own escalations at bedtime.

Worth knowingThe Little Nutbrown Hare always loses the contest, which a few children mind more than adults expect.

Why it worksOne rhyming couplet per animal mother and baby, all of them settling, and the metre is deliberately slow - it is almost impossible to read this book quickly, which is exactly what you need at 7pm. Ends on a human child, so the handover to sleep is explicit.

Why it worksCounting backwards from ten toes to one girl in bed gives the wind-down an obvious finish line, and the child can find and count the objects on each page - a job that gets quieter as the numbers get smaller. A father does the bedtime, which is still rare.

Why it worksSwishy swashy, splash splosh, squelch squerch - every obstacle has a noise and an action, so the whole book can be done with hands and feet, and the run home is read at double speed with the child shouting the sequence backwards. It is closer to a game than a story.

Worth knowingIt winds children up rather than down. Not a last-book-before-lights-out choice.