2-6

Spring has sprung after a bitter winter and a crop of picture books celebrates the renewal of the year. Two of the best, inevitably, are about eggs. Ed Vere's Chick (Puffin, £7.99) plays with pop-ups and poop and will charm those in nappies. First the Egg by Laura Vaccaro Seeger (Frances Lincoln, £10.99) is a creative, colourful, charming first reader about transformations - egg to chick, tadpole to frog, caterpillar to butterfly.

For 2+, Eric Carle's famous Very Hungry Caterpillar (Puffin, £14.99) gets a superb makeover as a pop-up book. The vigour of its art is even more glorious as leaves, flowers and enticing foods spring off the page. As our hero gets sick, small fingers will make him go round and round; and the final metamorphosis with holographic butterfly wings is even more breathtaking than before.

Those who prefer their eggs in cakes will adore Maisy Bakes a Cake (Walker, £8.99), which is a science book in disguise. Lucy Cousins's celebrated mouse heroine is so familiar that her inventiveness, responsibility and cleverness gets overlooked, but this is a feast. If baking gets out of hand, try Jeanne Willis and Tony Ross in their anti-obesity tale, Flabby Cat and Slobby Dog (Andersen, £10.99), who lose weight on an epic journey to discover why their sofa keeps shrinking. It will make 4+ shriek with laughter.

HarperCollins reprints Dr Seuss's far-sighted book about The Lorax (£7.99) struggling to save the Truffula Trees exploited by the greedy Once-ler to the point of extinction. The ebullient pictures and rhymes are here suffused with gloom; it's a book to make kids think, sigh and plant seeds. Also for 5+, Sally Pomme Clayton's Persephone (Frances Lincoln, £11.99) is deeply affecting. How Persephone is stolen by Hades and carried to the Underworld, causing her mother to plunge the world into winter, is brilliantly illustrated by Virginia Lee, with monsters, meadows and marvels dramatically described in visionary pictures as well as words.

7-10

For 8+, Cervantes's Don Quixote (Walker, £16.99) gets a thoroughly refreshing treatment from Martin Jenkins and Chris Riddell. Coming after their version of Gulliver's Travels, this should introduce thousands to one of the funniest and oddest tales of companionship as the idealistic knight sets forth, accompanied by the faithful Sancho Panza, to realise his chivalric dreams. No child could resist Riddell's horse Rosinante, and his send-ups of Velasquez will amuse parents as well.

There is a voyage, too, for Tumtum and Nutmeg, Emily Bearn's dauntless mouse spouses in The Pirates' Treasure (Egmont £5.99) as they go downriver with the impetuous General and further bemuse the children whom they help. A lovely, lively addition to a burgeoning series for 7+, it's sunnier than Marcus Sedgwick's entertaining new series for the same age, Flood and Fang (Orion £7.99), which has the eternally popular idea of describing an eccentric family living in a castle. Derek Landy's latest Skulduggery Pleasant caper, The Faceless Ones (HarperCollins £12.99), has the detective and his sidekick, Valkyrie, on the track of a killer and the “Faceless Ones”. Hard-boiled detective wisecracks mixed with magic will not suit every 9+, but it's fast and funny.

There's something just as sinister brought back from the Mexican jungle with Steve Voake's Blood Hunters (Faber & Faber, £6.99). When Joe's scientist father is arrested for murder nobody else makes the connection with a trail of gruesome attacks. Bound to be popular with 10+ boys and fans of the television series Primeval, this is a skilful, intelligent thriller.

Jonathan Stroud is back with a murky tale about a more magical kind of predator, in Heroes of the Valley (Doubleday, £12.99). A farming community lives in fear of Trows - troll-like creatures waiting to spring on those who come near their cairns. Will Halli become a hero, as he dreams? Twisty tales and Celtic lyricism make this an unusual and enjoyable adventure. Older children may prefer Michael Grant's Gone (Egmont, £12.99), which is heavily influenced by TV series such as Lost and Heroes. When all the adults disappear in the blink of an eye, the Californian town of Perdido is left to children and under-15s. The survivors develop strange powers, but their ability to heal or harm is compromised by class hatred that Sam and Astrid must overcome. Clever but a little too predictable, it ends on the usual maddening cliffhanger.

11+

Fears of imprisonment are a strong strain for older readers, and Alexander Gordon Smith's Furnace: Lockdown (Faber & Faber, £6.99), a prison “where death is the least of your worries”, is an adrenalin-packed thriller for teens that grumpy boys will gulp down as escapism. Shannon Hale's The Book of a Thousand Days (Bloomsbury £6.99) takes a little-known Grimms' tale and dramatises it, as the Lady Saren is imprisoned with her humble maidservant Dashti in a tower for seven years. Will their food last, and will they be rescued? The Tudor heroine of Marie-Louise Jensen's The Lady in the Tower (OUP, £5.99) is trying to save her mother, cruelly imprisoned and accused of witchcraft by her greedy, ambitious husband, who wants to murder her. Each is a perfectly sweet, dreamy romantic fantasy for countering the stress of revising for summer-term exams. However, the best of all remains Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games (Scholastic, £6.99), with its moving, vivid and consistently well-written dystopian adventure about the ultimate Reality TV game in which two teenagers from each district are released into an arena full of natural and unnatural dangers and must kill each other to survive - and entertain their audience. With its unforgettable heroine, Katniss, using her skills as a hunter and trapper but failing to notice true love, this is an outstanding book for both genders that grips like a man-trap. Let's not forget that spring involves death as well as life.

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