WHEN MY CHILDREN were very small, the biggest bag we would pack for holidays wasn't for clothes or nappies but for picture books. I got the idea from Somerset Maugham, who travelled around the Far East with a laundry bag full of every kind of book - the classics he always meant to read and hadn't, old friends, new ones, highbrow and middlebrow. On long, dull journeys, or rainy days, this bookbag was a lifesaver for him - and for our infants.

Finding picture books of this quality isn't easy if new to parenting (look on my website, www.amandacraig.com for the classics) but the new ones out this summer are almost as hard to discern. The latest Maisy book, for instance, is just no fun - no nice pullouts or pop-ups - but Emma Chichester Clark's latest in her Melrose and Croc series, A Hero's Birthday (HarperCollins, £6.99/offer £6.64) is as lovely as ever. Melrose and Croc have gone on holiday to one of those dream Babar-style villas; it's Croc's birthday, but when the yellow dog rows out to catch him a fish for a present, he runs into a storm. The exquisite gentleness and humour make it perfect for 2+.

There's more seaside fun for 4+ in Timothy Basil Ering's Necks Out for Adventure! (Candlewick,£10.99/£9.89). One brave wiggleskin is left in the mud when the rest of his clan is scooped up off the sea-bed by their “worst nightmare”, a horny scratcher. Only when the wiggleskins learn to shed their shells and stick out their necks can they save themselves from being eaten. It's a lovely, bouncy tale, swishing with gorgeous colours of sea and sand, and will foster eccentricity - though perhaps best not read before spaghetti alla vongole.

If the bath is the source of marine adventure, check out Oliver Who Was Small But Mighty (Hodder £10.99/£9.89) by Mara Bergman and Nick Maland. A deliciously funny portrayal of the way that a small child transforms a bath into an epic, it will remind you why keeping at least one pirate boat and a few plastic sharks and dolphins are essential.

Ian Beck's Tom and the Dinosaur Egg (Picture Corgi, £5.99/£5.69) is a sequel to another tale about the intrepid boy and his grandfather, whose marine adventures depicted in Beck's captivating command of colour and line make him the heir to Edward Ardizzone's Little Tim series. The dino egg hatches out, as they do, and soon Tom's friend is too big for the lighthouse.Pure fun.

The latest in Templar's bestselling Ology series, Monsterology (£10.99/£9.89), continues the format of maps, plastic jewels, booklets and lashings of solemn misinformation about “the evolution of fabulous beasts”. From unicorns to manticores, they're all here, and imaginative children of 6+ will enjoy the riddle booklets and surprise packages, which make it as much toy as book.

Zoos are another summertime lifesaver, and Kevin Waldron's Mr Peek and the Misunderstanding at the Zoo (Templar, £10.99/£9.89) is a winner. The zookeeper makes some unfortunate remarks that are overheard by the animals in his care, and taken personally. Witty, dramatic and clever, it's a good way of conveying the way that children, too, can misunderstand what adults say.

Margaret Atwood's Up in the Tree (Bloomsbury, £6.99/£6.64) would be a historical curiosity from the pen of a great adult novelist if it weren't also pretty good in the Dr Seuss mould. A brother and sister climb a tree and get stuck, until a friendly owl helps them to fly down. In 1978 picture books were in their infancy, and the whole story - illustrated and hand-lettered by Atwood - is printed in blue and red, with touches of brown.

Just how far we've come is shown in Gillian Wolfe's latest Look! book, Drawing the Line in Art (Frances Lincoln, £12.99/£11.69). Though Lucy Micklethwait's A Child's Book of Art remains the very best, these intelligent explorations are consistently helpful for arty kids. With chapters on every different kind of line, including the “emotional line” (Picasso's Cat Devouring a Bird) these are superb at getting children of 7+ to really see pictures in a new way, and will enhance museum trips.

I'm less impressed by Doring Kindersely's many offerings, though Wow! The Visual Encyclopedia of Everything (£19.99/£17.99) may entertain the curious and geeky with its excellent photographic montages. Some of these are plain confusing - showing animals on tins for “feeding” - but the pictures of plankton and prehistoric tools will fascinate. Like its predecessor, Pick Me Up, it is an intriguing twist on the concept of encyclopedia, which will encourage browsing by 9+ before bedtime.

The most innovative of all the picture books out this summer is in a sense the simplest. James Dunn and Helen Bate's ABC UK Frances Lincoln, £11.99/£10.79) is a celebration of all things British, from King Arthur to Zero Degrees Longitude. The lovely pictures are consistently unexpected - Robin Hood is a black silhoutte against a photograph of a wood, the Queen is a coloured drawing next to a painted corgi, V is for Vindaloo and so on. The opposite of jingoistic, it is the kind of thing I'd like to see turned into a poster for every primary school in the land; and if you're going on holiday abroad, will make you glad to be back home.

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