Pop-ups introduce children to the magic of books by having a story leap out at them. An all-time favourite, Paul and Henrietta Strickland’s Dinosaur Roar, is now a pop-up called Dinosaurs Galore! (Ragged Bears, £12.99; offer £10.39). Big and little dinos chomp, claw, pounce and lunge. Any toddler will be in bliss. Gentler ones will love Lara Jones’s Poppy Cat’s Christmas (Campbell Books, £14.99; £11.99), in which a cat, dog and rabbit get a flashing tree that, playing Silent Night, is guaranteed to drive you mad in minutes.

PICTURE BOOKS

Emma Chichester Clark is an inspired illustrator, and slightly older children will relish her version of Aesop’s Fables (Orchard, £12.99; offer £10.39), charmingly rewritten by the Children’s Laureate Michael Morpurgo. Daisy-crowned cows gazing at the dog in their manger and the traveller lying stock-still as a black bear looms over him are unique visions of gaiety and menace that will stay with a child for life. Helen Ward’s version of the same cautionary tales, Unwitting Wisdom (Templar, £14.95), is exquisitely illustrated, with dazzling details of exotic animals that children of 6+ will treasure.

Those of an optimistic bent might wish to educate their child over the holidays. Colin Hawkins’s Takeaway Monsters and Adding Animals (Mathew Price, £8.99; offer £7.64) are really funny and clever, and infants will love making monsters fall splat into their food while doing sums. Of course, you could just check they can count to 20 first, in which case Christopher Wormell’s Teeth, Tails & Tentacles (Running Press Kids, £12.99; offer £10.39) is sublime. Wormell is a leading English engraver, and the temptation will be to frame his dynamic images of animals for yourself. Ordinary kids prefer tricksters, however. The Gruffalo’s Child (Macmillan, £9.99; offer £8.49) isn’t as good as the original but will still make toddlers shriek with joy.

Nick Butterworth’s The Whisperer (HarperCollins, £10.99; offer £8.79) has a cunning rat outwitted by amorous cats. Scrumptious pictures and sardonic text make this irresistible. Francesca Simon’s hideously funny antihero Horrid Henry has all his worst school exploits collected in Horrid Henry’s Big Bad Book (Orion, £9.99; offer £8.49), which includes accounts of his best and worst lessons, school reports and coloured illustrations by the matchless Tony Ross.

BOOKS TO HOOK 6-8

On a more traditional Christmas theme, Kevin Crossley-Holland’s How Many Miles to Bethlehem (Orion, £9.99; offer £8.49) has each of the main protagonists take up the tale, as in a nativity play. The richly dramatic, majestic illustrations by Peter Malone produce a partnership made in heaven.

Rumer Godden’s The Story of Holly & Ivy (Macmillan, £9.99; offer £8.49), illustrated by Christian Birmingham, is about a little lost orphan who finds a lonely doll. Godden had a special feeling for the beauty and delicacy of childhood, as for the yearning to love and be loved. Hurrah for Macmillan reprinting this glowing gem, which no small girl could fail to adore.

Philippa Pearce, author of Tom’s Midnight Garden, makes a brief but captivating reappearance with a solitary girl who discovers an enchanted mole. The Little Gentleman (Puffin £9.99; offer £8.49) is over 300 years old and, bewitched by Jacobites to kill King William II, is now miserably tunnelling away from humans. Frothy sympathy and dead-pan comedy spout from Roddy Doyle’s The Meanwhile Adventures (Scholastic, £9.99; offer £8.49) in which hopeless Mr Mack has to be helped by his children and Rover the wonder-dog to overcome some persistent slugs. My son insisted on reading me all the jokes, and with chapters a page or two long it’s great for building confidence even if it sets adult teeth on edge.

UP AND AWAY 8-10

The Conch Bearer, by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (Chicken House, £12.99; offer £10.39) sees scholarly Anand, streetwise Nisha and a wise old man journey through burning Indian plains and jagged mountains, hunted by evil spirits. A wise fable about the acquisition of spiritual grace, it is something godparents could hand thoughtful 8+ children with complete confidence. So, too, are two new books by masters of storytelling. Cornelia Funke’s Dragon Rider (Chicken House, £10.99; offer £8.79) is every young boy’s dream. A dragon, Firedrake, a brownie and lonely Ben set off on a quest to find the mountains where dragons can live in peace — pursued by an evil golden dragon and his accomplice Twigleg, a spy. It’s perfect for curling up with on a winter day, although it does have its longueurs.

Not so Philip Pullman’s picaresque tale of The Scarecrow and His Servant (Doubleday £10.99; offer £8.79), in which a scarecrow carrying a legal document is magically brought to life and, assisted by his servant Jack, terrifies brigands, routs soldiers and eventually brings justice to the land. All the satirical gusto and imaginative zest of Pullman’s other classics for children leap off the page, as do the expressive line-drawings by Peter Benson.

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