An Advent calendar of picture books for little readers

Posted on November 17, 2016

Every November I like to plan our annual Book Advent. I started this Christmas tradition a few years ago and the children love it. On the 1st December quite a few things happen so I have to be super organised at this time of year.

Advent traditions

Most importantly our Elf arrives all the way from the North Pole. This is another tradition we started a few years ago. I know not everyone likes the Elf on a Shelf but my children do so he’ll be coming back again this year and making sure my children behave themselves in the run up to Christmas. Our Elf brings with him our homemade Advent sleigh which is stuffed full of things to start off our Christmas celebrations:

24 festive picture books for our Book Advent
Advent calendars – traditional chocolate ones as well as a Lego Star Wars calendar for my son and a Playmobil Pirate themed calendar for my daughter.
Advent candles

Today I want to tell you which books will be appearing in our 2016 Advent of picture books for little readers.

An Advent calendar of picture books

My two love to read and look at picture books so I think that festive books and Advent go perfectly. I’ve looked at all the books we read last year and took out a few which seemed a little young or they no longer played with the associated toy characters. That left some gaps which were easily filled as we’ve reviewed some lovely new festive books in the last few weeks.

Festive picture books for little readers (perfect for ages 4-6)

Father Christmas by Raymond Briggs
The Polar Express by Chris van Allsburg
Little Robin’s Christmas by Jan Fearnley
Mrs Christmas by Penny Ives
The Gruffalo’s Child by Julia Donaldson
Father Christmas needs a wee by Nicholas Allan
Bless You, Santa by Julie Sykes
Aliens Love Panta Claus by Claire Freeman and Ben Cort
The Night before Christmas by Clement C. Moore
Stick Man by Julia Donaldon and Axel Scheffler
The Christmas Bear by Ian Whybrow and Axel Scheffler
The Snowman by Raymond Briggs
The Jolly Christmas Postman by Janet and Allan Ahlberg
Miffy in the snow by Dick Bruna
Elmer in the Snow
The Gingerbread Man
Santa Claus has a busy night
The Nightmare Before Christmas by Tim Burton
A Dot in The Snow by Corrinne Averiss
Walking in a Winter Wonderland
The Mouse That Cancelled Christmas by Madeleine Cook
Winnie and Wilbur Meet Santa by Valerie Thomas
The Dinosaur That Pooped Christmas by Tom Fletcher and Dougie Poynter
The Elf on the Shelf: A Christmas Tradition by Carol V. Aebersold and Chanda A. Bell

The only thing I would love to add is a Christmas Star Wars book as my son is such a huge fan of anything Star Wars. So far I’ve been unable to find anything but I’m going to keep looking.

I’ve wrapped all the books up in red paper but I haven’t numbered them. Each day the children are going to take it in turns to pick a book which we can all read together.

Previous Book Advent reading lists can be found here: