Potter driving you potty? Try something new ...
Photograph: PA
Kids are enough trouble, even without Christmas presents to think of. While giving books is a must, it can also be a minefield, so we asked Guardian columnist and children's book expert Dina Rabinovitch for her advice. Here's her list of the children's books she would happily give - or receive - this Christmas.
The Princess and the Pea, by Lauren Child (photographs by Polly Borland) Puffin £12.99. All ages Lauren Child's covetable version of the uncomfortable bedtime tale is one that all real-life princesses will want to hoard beneath their pillows. Cut-out dolls, lovingly dressed and located in a real doll's house with their very own carefully sourced furniture and fittings. Buy it here
The Fairy Tales, by Jan Pienkowski (translated by David Walser) Puffin £14.99. All ages Favourite fairy tales in a book edged with gold, and sharp illustrations faithful to the stories' original spirit, but sharp-edged enough to keep modern attentions. A gift book in which every detail delights. Buy it here
Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel, by Virginia Lee Burton Frances Lincoln £10.99. Age 2-5 For all who cannot face reading another boring book about cars, trains or trucks to small males, this is an object lesson in how brilliantly it can be done. An engaging story about four wheels that doesn't substitute horsepower for narration. A real find, and I speak as someone who has already read it aloud a modest 32 times. Buy it here
Loch Ness Ghosts, by Jacques Duquennoy Frances Lincoln £9.99. Age 4-7 Henry, a ghost with a really nice bathroom, takes his three other ghostie friends, Lucy, George and Edward, out for a spin in his gorgeous red convertible. They're on the trail of the Loch Ness Monster - but will it all end in disappointment? Buy it here
Mixed Up Fairy Tales, by Hilary Robinson and Nick Sharratt Hodder £6.99. Age 4-8 A "tops and tails" fairy-story book, with the familiar elements broken up into parts, to be reassembled by the reader in droll ways. So, for example, "Goldilocks was bossed around by two horrid stepsisters, and fell asleep for a hundred years to be woken by a bowl of porridge." Each page is divided into four, and the parent and child can flip over any of the four sections to change the story. Good fun. Buy it here
The Wizard, The Ugly and the Book of Shame, by Pablo Bernasconi Bloomsbury £10.99. Age 5+ "Seventeen thousand, two hundred and nine: that's how many steps there were up to the wizard's castle." From the opening sentence, you know you are in the hands of an author who both understands the minutiae that fascinate small children, and who also does not underestimate them. Leitmeritz is a wizard completely in control of his magic, until his apprentice, Chancery, is unable to resist tampering with the Book of Spells one fateful day. Witty, gorgeous, detailed illustrations. Buy it here
Encyclopedia Prehistorica, Dinosaurs, by Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart Walker Books £17.99 Winter's Tale, by Robert Sabuda Simon and Schuster £19.99. Age 5+ Sabuda crafts the most intricate pop-up books, his paper creations marvellous to behold. Probably too valuable to let very tiny hands loose on, but he knows his market - he doesn't just provide one astounding work of paper artistry per page, but folds more tiny intricacies into extra pockets. There's also a perfectly-judged touch of kitsch at the very end. Buy it here
I Believe in Unicorns, by Michael Morpurgo (illustrated by Gary Blythe) Walker Books £7.99. Age 7-10 Although Tomas doesn't like school, his interests are aroused when his mother takes him to the library to hear the Unicorn Lady. With her hand resting on the most beautiful carved unicorn, she tells wonderful tales of how Noah forgot to save the unicorns, and others that illustrate the power of stories and the evils of war. A beautiful edition to curl up with and read aloud. Buy it here
Useful Idiots, by Jan Mark Random House £6.99. Age 9-12 I'm told by a friend who is writing a thesis on this very topic, that most science fiction for kids is deeply unimaginative, and further, that it doesn't manage to see any distance into the future. Astonishing, really, given how fast both things and children's minds move. Jan Mark does well to show how language, patterns of thought and the relations between people will all change fundamentally by the year 2255. Buy it here
The Outlaw Varjak Paw, by SF Said (illustrated by Dave McKean) David Fickling £10.99. Age 9-12 West Side Story for cats, and so well-written you'll believe you can eat mouse. Dave Mckean is an exciting illustrator that makes this one to buy in hardback, and to cherish. Which, after all, is the point of a gift book. Buy it here
Clay, by David Almond Hodder Children's Books, £10.99. Age 12+ There are many different voices in David Almond's work, and not one of them ever sounds false, or inconsistent. This is rarer than you might think in children's literature. His writing has literary quality, emotional intensity, truth, and sentences like these: "I inspected the Sellotape in my bedroom. The dust and fragments of Christ's body were still stuck to it." Fiction of the highest order. Buy it here
Ithaka, by Adele Geras David Fickling £12.99. Age 12-16 The story of the women who wait for Odysseus to come back from Troy. Of the many versions of Homer's epic, this is the first to do justice to the women in the story. It's a home, rather than a homecoming, narrative. Touching and engaging. Buy it here
