Children's Books Picks - Christmas/Winter 2025

Here are our children's books picks for Christmas/winter 2025! Have a browse through to help focus your gift buying for this season, and beyond!

Spot's First Christmas (Eric Hill)

Celebrate Christmas with Spot in this new edition of a classic Spot tale - from the creator of the world's best loved lift-the-flap books. Join Spot as he helps Mum prepare the house for Christmas day - he helps wrap presents, decorates the tree and learns all about carol singing! Toddlers will love learning all about Christmas with Spot. With fun flaps to train fine motor skills and an adventure to encourage curiosity and exploration, this story is great for early learning and play.

The Scarecrows' Wedding (Julia Donaldson & Axel Scheffler)

 The best wedding ever, the best wedding yet, the wedding that no one will ever forget! Betty O'Barley and Harry O'Hay Were scarecrows (They scared Lots of crows every day.) Harry loved Betty, and Betty loved Harry, So Harry said, "Betty, my beauty let's marry!" Two scarecrows are planning the perfect wedding and set off to find everything on their list. But wicked cigar-smoking scarecrow, Reginald Rake, has other ideas and almost ruins their special day. Harry O'Hay must become a hero before he and Betty O'Barley can have the wedding of their dreams.

Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam: Jingle Bells (Tracey Corderoy & Steven Lenton)

Three hilarious read-aloud stories following the adventures of our favourite baking dogs! The much-loved picture book pooches appear here in a two-colour fiction format, ideal for children growing in confidence as readers and beginning to read alone.

Shifty and Sam have a lot on their plates! Someone has stolen all of Santa's presents! A sea monster is spoiling fairground fun day. And a weird cat has cursed Sam! Pass the buns, it's going to be a rollercoaster ride! Brilliant stories hilariously told by Tracey Corderoy and beautifully brought to life by Steven Lenton's illustrations.

Bunny vs Monkey: Intergalactic Monkey Business (Jamie Smart)

There's a new mischief-maker in The Woods - Little Monkey! A smaller, cuter, and even stranger Monkey than our beloved chaos-causer. But as Bunny and friends try to work out his motives, they are led far from the woods . . . into outer space. And on Planet Monkey, the laughs are positively intergalactic!

The First Unicorn Rider (A.F. Steadman)

A BOY WITH A DESTINY. A MYSTERIOUS ISLAND. A WORLD OF MAGICAL CREATURES.

George Penhaligon has only ever wanted adventure.

But when he finds himself shipwrecked and alone on a mysterious island, he makes an incredible discovery. Unicorns are real – and they’re bloodthirsty.

Slowly, George gains one unicorn’s trust and together they explore the island’s magical secrets. But there is a dark presence lurking in his new home, more deadly than any unicorn.

Can George fulfil his destiny and free the island from a terrible fate?

The Rose Field (Philip Pullman)

When readers left Lyra in The Secret Commonwealth she was alone, in the ruins of a deserted city. Pantalaimon had run from her – part of himself – in search of her imagination, which he believed she had lost.

Lyra travelled across the world from her Oxford home in search of her dæmon. And Malcolm, loyal Malcolm, too journeyed far from home, towards the Silk Roads in search of Lyra . .

. In The Rose Field, their quests converge in the most dangerous, breathtaking and world-changing ways. They must take help from spies and thieves, gryphons and witches, old friends and new, learning all the while the depth and surprising truths of the alethiometer.

All around them, the world is aflame – made terrifying by fear, power and greed. As they move East, towards the red building that will reunite them and give them answers – on Dust, on the special roses, on imagination – so too does the Magisterium, at war against all that Lyra holds dear. Marking thirty years since the world was first introduced to Pullman’s remarkable heroine Lyra Belacqua in Northern Lights, The Rose Field is the culmination of the cultural phenomenon of The Book of Dust and His Dark Materials.