Listen: no shade. Ours is a Julia Donaldson house, just like ours is a Taylor Swift house. You can be both a genius and incredibly popular, unfair as that is. But with JD accounting for 10% of every picture book sold (she also surpassed J K Rowling as Britain’s all-time bestselling author last year), plenty of parents yearn for something different, if only because they’re hearing The Gruffalo in their dreams.

Try to branch out, and you can very quickly find yourself in the slipstream of some other kids’ book behemoth – your Potters, your Kerrs, your Milnes. Again, nothing wrong with them. But sometimes it feels good to find a picture book that’s a little less well-known, in the same way it’s satisfying dropping six quid on a flat white and cake in a local coffee shop instead of Starbucks.

So I thought I’d share five picture books that are tried and tested in our house. They aren’t just loved by Olive, who will sit rapt through all of them over and over (and over) again, they’re loved by us, which is to say my partner and I, who can read them out loud several times a day without wanting to jump out the window.

The criteria

Writing about books is something Jessie and I both do as part of how we make a living, and we are both literature geeks. I mention it not as some special claim to authority in picture books, just to help anyone reading get a sense of whether their tastes might align with ours or not. I personally have zero tolerance for any book that has been written primarily to teach my daughter a lesson, no matter how well-meaning or valuable, rather than having a lesson that emerges naturally from a good story. She will learn empathy, tolerance and about her big feelings elsewhere. I want stories that will thrill, absorb and entertain her.

How fun the books are to read out loud is another important factor, which is why I’m particularly fond of books that rhyme. Then there’s the power of the illustrations to draw you in. Otherwise, I judge kids books by the same criteria with which I judge adult books: the quality of the language, the intrigue of the plot and whether it feels surprising and memorable.

A quick note on reading ages

Feel free to skip this part, but I find it fascinating... Olive is only 18 months old, but she’s mostly bored of board books now and likes to settle in for a proper picture book-length story, even though they are technically aimed at children aged 3-7. I don’t believe this is because she is a genius (although I could be too dumb to tell); in fact, I believe it is very common.

It does lead you to wonder though: how much of a picture book can a toddler really take in? The answer is more than you probably think. Everyone knows toddlers understand more individual words than they can say – in fact, comprehension is often several times larger than verbal ability. While they understand more words than you realise, you’re also helping them acquire more. The work of Adriana Bus and others has shown that shared book reading is strongly associated with children’s language development, and picture books in particular are effective when images are clear, labels are repeated and adults point and interact with the child as they go.

In terms of how much of the story Olive is following at 18 months old, this is where adults sometimes overestimate things. Toddlers can follow very basic narratives – the monkey is looking for its mum, the giant is sad, the cat is sleeping – with the illustrations helping enormously to make these connections. But these little fragments of cause and effect don’t add up to a clear sense of the book’s overall plot or themes. Save that for a little later.

Anyway, without further ado – the books!

The Giant of Jum by Elli Woolard, illustrations by Benji Davies (2015)

The story: A giant sets out to eat some children, as is his birthright, but finds himself making friends and eating cake with them instead.

Why it’s great: Jack and the Beanstalk updated for a gentler age sounds like weak sauce, even for children. But The Giant of Jum doesn’t feel forced or sanitised. Instead, the giant’s insistence on old-fashioned fairytale violence and the way the smart, modern children refuse to quite take him seriously is played brilliantly for laughs. But the best thing about Woolard’s book is the superb rhyming text, in particular a repeated twist on the famous ‘Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum’ refrain that makes it so fun to read out loud and has a hypnotic effect on my daughter (useful for bedtimes), while the emotional resolution feels both earned and restrained. Benji Davies, meanwhile, is one of the superstars of children’s illustrations to emerge in the past ten years and his rich, expressive style is in full flow here.

The Cafe at the Edge of the Woods by Mikey Please (2024)

The Story: A chef called Rene opens a cafe on the edge of an enchanted wood where she plans to serve a menu of sophisticated fine dining. The problem is her clientele are all monsters who want disgusting dishes made of bats and slugs and maggots. Luckily her oddball waiter, Glumfoot, finds a cunning solution.

Why it’s great: A throwback to when children’s authors weren’t afraid of grown-up themes, The Cafe at the Edge of the Woods is about the way our dreams can come crashing into reality and the importance of compromise. More importantly, the sophisticated rhyming verse is full of pungent imagery and wicked, grotesque humour – i.e. what kids love the most. Olive is far, far too young to understand this book but she finds its gothic, almost graphic novel-esque illustrations absorbing even at her age. Overall this book feels like the product of a singular imagination rather than a publishing trend; it asks a lot of children, and they rise to meet it. No wonder it won the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize last year.

Six Dinner Sid by Inga Moore (1990)

The story: A greedy but industrious cat called Sid lives a secret sextuple life, adopting a different name, personality and – crucially – plate of food in each house in the same street. Then one day, he gets busted.

Why it’s great: Many kids’ books anthropomorphise animals to make them wacky or absurd; Moore’s book just describes what cats actually do. Not only is Sid a sneaky glutton, he has absolutely zero loyalty to his human ‘owners’ and, in the book’s triumphant last pages, just moves into another street and starts again after his scam is discovered. This authenticity gives the book a deep, timeless charm, as do Moore’s realistic illustrations of Sid and his round belly. There are small, funny details for adults in the classical allusions and Sid’s owners’ personalities, and possibly some sort of message in there somewhere about wealth distribution. Six Dinner Sid won a Smarties Award in 1990 and has been in print ever since, so it’s definitely approaching ‘classic’ status already.

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat by Edward Lear, illustrated by Louise Voce (1991)

The story: An owl and a cat fall in love, set sail around the world, buy a ring from a pig, get married by a turkey, and celebrate by eating some mince.

Why it’s great: There have been countless editions of Lear’s famous Victorian nonsense poem since it first appeared in 1870 – meaning this seems like an odd choice for this list of underrated gems – but it is Voce’s version specifically, from the early 90s, that is in my opinion the GOAT. The reason is that she ignored the deliberate meaninglessness of the poem and drew its characters with real heart: the Owl is earnest, bashful and besotted; the Pussy-Cat is gregarious and rather pleased with herself, and their love feels entirely real. So children get a double-whammy: words that are silly and surreal and pictures that tell a heartfelt story. It’s hard to think of a better way to introduce your kid to classic poetry.

You Choose by Nick Sharratt and Pippa Goodhart (2003)

The story: The one you make up as you go along.

Why it’s great: The American psychologist Michael Tomasello identified that around one year old, children start to engage in something called ‘shared intentionality’. This is when they spot something – a toy or an aeroplane, for example – and point at it, then look back at you. This isn’t merely to say “I want that” or “look at that”, it is to invite you into a shared mental experience, something more like saying “what does this mean?”. In other words children aren’t just information sponges, they crave and thrive on connection and collaboration.

That’s why I’ve included Nick Sharratt and Pippa Goodhart’s You Choose on this list, even though it has very few words and no linear story. It’s basically page after page of things – people, actions, foods, animals – the idea being that you let your kid point to the items they are drawn to, then use that as the basis of a conversation with them. It’s hard to overstate how much Olive loves this book, and it’s fascinating seeing which items she points to and how that changes over time. Fans of Jacqueline Wilson will know Sharratt’s deceptively simple flat, bright style and how it pulls you in, which is absolutely perfect for an exercise like this.

What are some of your favourite picture books beyond the modern classics everyone knows? And why do they work so well? I’d love to hear in the comments.

Speaking of kids reading, last week I recorded this podcast with Saira Aspinall, from the School Library Association, in which we dig into the reading crisis among young people and how parents can encourage a lasting love of books at home.

My book is out in paperback! It’s called Good Anger: Why We Shouldn’t Fear Our Rage and it’s a blend of psychology, history and memoir about how embracing a taboo emotion can help people pleasers, conflict avoiders and anyone suffering with anxiety.

There is also a new chapter on parenting I think you’ll love.

Good Anger was named a book of the year by The Independent, GQ, Glamour, Esquire and The Next Big Idea Club and featured in the Guardian, Observer, Sunday Times, Mail on Sunday and more.

It can be ordered online at Amazon or Waterstones.

Olive has discovered the tiger. You know: the one who turns up uninvited asking for tea, then never comes back. Written by Judith Kerr – who also created the Mog series (overrated imo) – it’s been a staple of childhoods around the world since 1968. As is the way of toddler life, I’ve probably read it 30 times in the last month.

A great children’s book is…

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This holiday I put my phone in a drawer. I didn’t want to spend my daughter’s first Christmas feeling that constant, nagging impulse to look at a screen, so aside from WhatsApping pictures of Olive trying Brussel sprouts for the first time to my family and the obligatory ‘year in review’ Insta post, my iPhone has been stashed away like a guilty packet o…

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We’ve fallen into a routine at bedtimes. This, they say, is good. Propped up under our arm in her sleeping bag like a little slipper, O listens intently as we read her the same two books by the glow of her night light. The first is a perfectly nice picture book about a mouse who finds a strawberry and has to eat it before a hungry bear comes along. The …

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I have concluded recently there are two types of kids books. There are those that are actually written for children. They tend to be silly and, if they’re good, a little bit wicked. Then there are those that look like they are written for children but are really written for adults. They tend to be gentle and cautious and revolve around some perfectly re…

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Yesterday was publication day for my first book, Good Anger. I visited various shops in central London, sheepishly asking if they’d like me to sign a copy (it turns out those ‘signed author copies’ you see on shelves are, more often than not, enthusiastic authors contacting book shops rather than other way around). …

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Someone once said writing a book is like telling a joke and then waiting three years to find out if anyone laughs at the punchline. This, I have discovered, is painfully true.

But thankfully the wait is now over. Good Anger hits the shelves on Thursday, and this weekend it was reviewed for the first time. Writing in The Independent, Martin Chilton gave it a full 5 stars and some lovely words: “packed with insight”, “powerful and engaging” and “a potent defence of a vilified emotion”. One story from my own struggles with anger even made him “snort with laughter”, which is oddly healing to read.

To Martin’s kind and thoughtful appraisal, I’ll quickly add a few more early reactions, since reluctant horn-tooting is very much my job this week:

“Enlightening and compulsory”
Dr Aaron Balick, psychotherapist and author of The Psychodynamics of Social Networking

“Wise and quietly revolutionary”
Kate McCann, Times Radio

“A marvellous book which enhances our understanding of ourselves and others”
Irvine Welsh, author of Trainspotting

To celebrate it finally being here, I am sharing a free extract from Good Anger. It comes at the very beginning of the book, and describes the moment when, after a hopeless period chasing the promises of the wellness industry – and a lifetime of people-pleasing and avoiding conflict – I had my first, accidental glimpse of the upsides of rage.

If you enjoy it and would like to read more, the full fat version can be ordered from Amazon or Waterstones or, if you’d like to hear me strain to pronounce the names of some long-dead saints, Spotify and the other audiobook platforms.

Chapter 1 - The other anger problem

In the far corner of a gym in north London, past people pounding running machines beneath silent daytime TV, beyond the doors of the yoga studio where limbs are bent in shaky salutation, away from the weights floor where arms strain metal to the sky, a black bag filled with sand hangs crookedly from the ceiling.

I make my way over to it in a tatty old pair of running shoes, some shorts and a T-shirt I usually wear to bed, and perform warm-up exercises I remember from PE lessons in 1997: swinging my arms in wide circles, circling my hips to an imaginary hula-hoop, touching my toes (read: lower kneecap) with the tips of my fingers. Then I pull out the gloves.

The gym was always busy, but I’d only seen one other person use the punch bag. Like me he was in his 30s, perhaps a little older, and he stepped around it in slow, easy movements, his head rocking left to right like a metronome, releasing small flurries of punches that carried the unmistakable ring of accuracy you hear in all sports when they’re done properly: a golf ball hit cleanly, a tennis serve destined to go unanswered, a free kick whipped into the top corner of the net. He stepped back and gave me a small nod that meant I could share the bag with him, then watched with pity as I planted my feet squarely and began slapping at it like a bear cub trying to catch a salmon.

‘Get some lessons, bro,’ he said to me with a gentle pat on my shoulder. And so I did. Every Tuesday at 7 a.m., I went to a class in my local park and learned the basics of boxing. How to throw a jab, hook and cross, straight and true at the wrist, pivoting from good anger 2 1 0 1 the feet and hips. How fighters angle their bodies sideways, stay on the balls of their feet and keep a hand up to protect their chin at all times. I progressed from the clueless stage to someone who at least understood the theory of what he was doing.

Back at the gym I never saw the man again, or anyone else in the corner at the punch bag, but even though the runners and the yogis and the weightlifters never gave me a second glance, I always felt awkward and self-conscious when I made my way over there. Maybe it was the fact that I kept catching sight of my stomach in the mirror, quivering over the hem of my shorts like a toddler’s lip in the seconds before they cry. Maybe it was the fact that I was boxing, a sport I’d barely taken an interest in before and doing it made me feel like a cliché: a sporting mid-life crisis from a man who had barely been in a fight in his life. But I also knew I was in a fight – with myself.

I had been in a dark and desperate place for months. My career had stalled and was starting to fall apart. Key relationships in my life had broken down completely. Anxiety, something I had battled with since I was a child, was back, making each day a duel with doom and panic. I wasn’t eating or sleeping properly, couldn’t hold a conversation with my partner that didn’t involve outlining all the catastrophes forming in my head. My confidence – in myself, in life – had faded to almost nothing.

More than anything, I just wanted to relax. And so I spent months following the call of the wellness industry and its soothing social media gurus. I tried meditating in my bedroom on a small cushion next to an open window, gently bringing my panicked thoughts back to the rhythm of my own breath. I journalled each morning, listing the multitudinous reasons I had to be deeply grateful. I practised mindfulness as I went about my day, focusing on the wind as it brushed my cheeks and the birds chirping in the trees. Deep breathing exercises of various lengths and formations. Cold showers. Reading to calm my thoughts. Listening to music to lift my thoughts. Running up and down the road to tire my thoughts out. Reframing my thoughts to myself as though I was my own best friend. All of it just felt like cosplaying a person with inner peace. The moment I took off whatever costume I had on, I was back to being me again: the most anxious man in the world.

Boxing had been just one more random roll of the dice. If nothing else, I thought it might tire me out and force my mind and muscles to sleep. And then, around the ninth or tenth time, something strange happened. Like most days, I woke up not wanting to get out of bed, but I dragged myself to the gym and set about the punch bag in my usual, sheepish way, trying to be disciplined with the shape of my arms and feet, trying to throw my fists as cleanly as I could.

About 10 minutes into the routine, I began to feel a strange sensation rise up from the pit of my stomach, travel down my arms and into my hands. I started punching, not with any greater accuracy, but with a strength and energy I’d never felt before. The more I hit the bag, the more I had a sense of myself growing taller and wider. My swings got bigger. I was throwing my entire body into them now, aiming not at the bag but through it, grunting each time my gloves hit the leather. I must have looked strange – ridiculous, even – to anyone who had bothered to look over. But for the first time, I didn’t care. I just punched and punched, barely pausing for breath until almost an hour had passed. When I stopped I realised my eyes were wet with tears.

Bent over, gasping for breath, I could still feel the sense of power tingling all over my body. In my mind’s eye I saw with sudden, perfect clarity the problems making my life a misery. Conversations I had to have to put it all right were blossoming and unfurling perfectly in my thoughts. Bent over in that lonely corner of the gym with a crooked bag of sand swinging inches from my head, I realised for the first time in months I wasn’t sad or anxious. I was furious.

Good Anger: how rethinking rage can changes our lives can be pre-ordered at Amazon or Waterstones.

“Just please don’t make it red.”

That’s what I said at the very beginning. When it comes to books about anger, you tend to see the same things repeated: flames and fists, traffic lights and ranting silhouettes. Most of all, lots of crimson and scarlet, the colours of blood and danger.

These cliches have been around a very long time. In the late 6th century, Pope Gregory the Great – one of the architects of The Seven Deadly Sins, the early code of Christian ethics that helped commingle our idea of anger with shame – used fire as a metaphor to describe different types of temper. Since then the idea of it as a roaring blaze that overpowers us has stuck.

For my cover, I was determined to have something different. Good Anger is about the upsides of anger, when you engage it deliberately and listen to it calmly. Going anywhere near flames or red felt like it would betray the book’s counterintuitive spirit, not to mention make people feel embarrassed to pull it out on the tube. No one wants to be seen to have anger issues, even though we all do.

I originally envisioned something pastel, even beatific... perhaps the word ‘Anger’ set in rolling hills, entwined in flowers and basking in sunshine… Thankfully, one of the many humblings you receive in the course of writing your first book is that your idea is not the only one that counts, and rarely the best. There are editors and publishers and marketing teams with wiser heads all feeding in on the process.

We tried covers in greens and blues but, in my agent’s wise words, it created a dissonance that was unsatisfying. I also realised that, on a metaphorical level, it wasn’t particularly honest. I haven’t learned to love anger because it feels pleasant or joyful (it can, thanks to an amphetamine-like hormone called epinephrine, cause a temporary feeling of invincibility); it’s because the power it has to alert us to profound truths and spark us into action.

When a round of fluorescent covers with big, bold typeface came in, I initially balked. Too loud, too brash. Confident in a way I didn’t quite feel in the lonely trenches of edit five (or was it six?). We tried it paired back in neutral colours and got something that felt… fine. Safe. Reassuringly ‘smart non-fiction’. If I’d pushed for it, that would have been my cover. Cream with a little red snuck in. Respectable but forgettable. I could have stood by that cover and felt respectable but forgettable too.

Then I thought: fuck it. I haven’t spent the better part of a decade deconstructing my relationship with anger – then three more researching and writing about it – just to go all aw-shucks at the end. The more I thought about it, the more fluorescent yellow captured what Good Anger is really about. Meeting the noisy energy of rage head on and transforming it into something electrifying and useful.

Anger, above all else, allows us to tap into our willingness to be disliked, and in my head that’s what this cover represents. It is, I think, both unmistakable and unapologetic. Plus someone (my agent again – thanks Imogen!) said it looked like a lo-fi rave poster or something by Jeremy Deller, which is more than good enough for me.

I hope you like it too.

Good Anger: how rethinking rage can changes our lives can be pre-ordered at Amazon or Waterstones.