Brilliant Children’s Christmas Books (That Adults Will Love Too)

Read About Our Favourite Children’s Christmas Books

Children’s Christmas books! Combining books, Christmas, reading and childhood nostalgia; what’s not to love? Here’s some ideas for brilliant children’s books for Christmas that grown-ups will love too.

While I’ve temporarily misplaced my love of reading books for myself, there’s always time for more children’s books and Christmas books are a big part of the festive season for us.

Growing up we always read The Night Before Christmas on Christmas Eve so it’s something we do now and I’ve just ordered this childhood favourite – and this slightly younger version – to start a new / old tradition from this year.

We’ve been sent four books that would be great to give as gifts or read on or around Christmas. So here’s four brilliant children’s books for Christmas (that adults will love too).

Make sure you also read my posts on the hidden perils of picking the bedtime book and everything I learned from Judy Blume.

Personalised Christmas Books For Kids

My Kingdom children’s books are really clever interactive books where the story is personalised to your child’s name, for Christmas.

And in a clever technological twist, come alive with the help of your iPad:

The book tells the tale of a Princess – or Prince – who lives in a kingdom where a wicked witch has stolen all the fun *shock horror*. She has to go on a quest to get it back, meeting characters along the way who spell out ‘her’ name (you child’s name).

And using the My Kingdom iPad app the story is animated and  props, building, characters and letters come alive. It uses the same technology as Pokemon Go, another massive favourite in our house, so this has been a big hit.

Children absolutely love anything with their name in, don’t they? So the personalisation aspect is lovely (and also helps younger children with spelling). At the moment the only aspect you can personalise is the name and choice of prince or princess, but being able to change the appearance, especially skin colour, would be a good future addition to the story to make it inclusive for everyone.

The story really works and would be brilliant for children who are more into technology than reading as a way to hook them in, as it really adds an extra dimension. What’s also good is that it doesn’t rely totally on the iPad and works as stand-alone story too.

Definitely one for gadget-loving mums and dads (and their children).

V&A Fashion Mash-up book

A Christmas book for older kids – spoiler alert, I LOVE this book, possibly more than my children do, and they love it an awful lot. It is many, many things, all of them fashionably brilliant. If you’re a fan of The September Issue then you will love this.

The Fashion Mash-up book is a history of fashion (with images from the V&A museum archive) along with stylish quotes, photos, push-out paper dolls that you can colour in or dress up to play with and millions of stickers.

There are also Instagram backgrounds for you (*ahem* your child) to pose your dolls in front of and take photos.

Written by fashion blogger Isabelle O’Carolle and illustrated by Daisy Villeneuve, it looks fantastic and is fantastic and works for so many different ages on so many different levels. It costs  around £15, buy it here.

Otto the Book Bear in the Snow (by Katie Cleminson)

This is a Christmas book about the magic of books and reading, which is pretty magical.

It’s about a book bear called Otto who lives with his book in the library, along with fellow book bear Ernest (!). They love nothing more than their book being read, but when it – and they – gets taken out of the library pretty close to Christmas they worry that they will miss the library Christmas party.

What follows is a quest of epic, LOTR proportions wrapped up in a wintery-themed children’s book with beautiful illustrations as they battle against fate and the elements to make in time for the party.

We thought this was really brilliant. To quote the Manic Street Preachers (because why not), libraries gave us power – and Otto is a total hero for the modern day and being wrapped up in this story is an anecdote for currently wordly woes. Buy it here. I’m also going to get the first Otto book for the girls (/ me) for Christmas.

Classic Children’s Christmas Book – The Snowman

And finally, it wouldn’t be Christmas without The Snowman would it?

This is the classic of all children’s Christmas books. We watch the cartoon every Christmas (and the slightly cheerier Snowman and the Snowdog) but the book is no less beautiful and doesn’t age at all.

I always forget that it’s pictures-only, no words, which make it more imaginative.

Warning: the ending doesn’t get any less brutal the older you get and no matter how frozen your heart is.

We were sent all these books for the purpose of this review, all options are my own. Contains affiliate links. More posts – easy children’s Christmas decorations, how to toddler-proof Christmas and an alternative gift guide for mums