Best books for 4-year-olds

With its gruff hero, vibrant, strong colours, bold design and spare text, this story about looking beyond appearances has a satisfying punchy simplicity and jazzy feel.

Underpants are a source of humour whatever your reading age, even, it appears, when it comes to aliens!

When Sally and her brother are left alone on a rainy day, they think they are in for a dull time – but then the Cat in the Hat appears.

Although he looks small and ordinary, Tiddler is a fish who loves to tell tall tales. But one day he is swept up in a fisherman’s net and then thrown back in to an unfamiliar part of the sea.

This book is fun! It’s got counting, singing, rhyming and repetition. Pete’s ​‘don’t sweat the small stuff’ life philosophy is engaging and the vibrant, almost perspective-less illustrations are strangely beautiful.

Meet Bear: the rebel hero of the forest. This charming and anarchic picture book celebrates a mischievious and loveable character.

With bright bustling illustrations fizzing with quirky details and insect jokes, this cheery, rhyming introduction to starting school from a unique bugs-eye point of view is reassuring and fun.

This delightful picture book about Peggy, a lovable, mischievous and sometimes smelly rescue dog, is full of warmth and gentle humour, and perfectly captures the joys of living with a beloved canine friend.  

This is a wonderful, inventive and playful picture book about two naughty bunnies and their magic tricks, which will delight young readers and their parents alike.

Rabbit loves carrots so much that his whole burrow is full of them, and there’s no room for him to sleep! Katy Hudson explores the themes of friendship and sharing in this charming and beautifully illustrated picture book.

Billy and her friend Fatcat are enjoying a walk in the woods when they notice that the bunnies and mice have gone missing – and a hungry Beast is collecting ingredients for a terrible soup. An empowering story, full of humour and humanity. 

An alien family crash into the house of Mr and Mrs Li and insist they are human.