Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | I Want a Pet | 1999 | Lauren Child | Buy |
| 2 | Beware Of The Storybook Wolves | 2000 | Lauren Child | Buy |
| 3 | My Dream Bed | 2001 | Lauren Child | Buy |
| 4 | Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Book? | 2002 | Lauren Child | Buy |
| 5 | That Pesky Rat | 2002 | Lauren Child | Buy |
| 6 | The Princess and the Pea | 2005 | Lauren Child | Buy |
| 7 | Goldilocks and the Three Bears | 2008 | Lauren Child | Buy |
| 8 | Who Wants to Be a Poodle, I Don’t | 2009 | Lauren Child | Buy |
| 9 | Maude: The Not-So-Noticeable Shrimpton | 2013 | Lauren Child | Buy |
| 10 | The New Small Person | 2014 | Lauren Child | Buy |
| 11 | The Goody | 2021 | Lauren Child | Buy |
This collection of standalone picture books by Lauren Child sits outside her main series like Charlie and Lola and Clarice Bean. These books show the full range of Child’s storytelling, from playful fairy tale retellings to original stories about animals, siblings, and fitting in. Each one features her distinctive collage-based illustration style.
Several of these books play with traditional stories in clever ways. Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Book? follows a boy who falls into a book of fairy tales and has to find his way out, while The Princess and the Pea and Goldilocks and the Three Bears give classic tales Child’s personal twist. Other books like That Pesky Rat, about a rat who desperately wants to be someone’s pet, and Maude: The Not-So-Noticeable Shrimpton, about a quiet middle child, tell their own original stories.
The books span over twenty years of Child’s career, from I Want a Pet in 1999 to The Goody in 2021. They can be read in any order and are suited to children of similar ages as the Charlie and Lola books, roughly 3 to 7 years old.