Photograph: Graham Turner

With bright light burning on these short last days of the year, bookshops are piled high with choices, while publishers dream of overnight hits and rejoice (or despair) at the table selections/offers/recommendations. Just last week I was wandering in Foyles taking snaps of our first Christmas offer with a high street store. Oh, how the cheeks glowed - how proud we were of our first offer selection. And as a result of all this, a thought struck me. What do we actually read at Christmas these days?

Children's laureate Jacqueline Wilson made a plea earlier this year for parents to read aloud to their children, and Christmas, when families gather together, offers the perfect opportunity for this sort of activity. I began to think what I'd want to read out loud come Christmas Eve, or after lunch on Christmas day before everyone fades away in front of the Eastenders special.

As adults we all have our favourite films (It's a Wonderful Life, Fanny and Alexander) to watch on the TV, we all play those terrible Christmas-only games of Twister and charades. But what about books? If we all were to pick a book, story or even a poem to read out to our nearest and dearest, which would it be?

Here are a few of mine:

1. Anything by Dickens (Pip's arrival to London in Great Expectations is mesmerising)

2. We're Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen (guaranteed to get the whole room going)

3. Hiawatha by Henry Longfellow (captivating, with a perfect read-aloud rhyme and rhythm)

4. Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson - a treasure trove of delights short and long, such as this from The Land of Story-Books

At evening when the lamp is lit, Around the fire my parents sit; They sit at home and talk and sing, And do not play at anything.

5. The Moon Has Written You a Poem by Jose Jorge Letria (fascinating sequence on the joy of learning words and reading

What about you? What would you read out to your family?