Squiggles, giggles

At last: a must-have list of children's books that is just the thing for aunts, uncles, godparents and friends - or anyone who wants to buy a book for a child but gets confused by the huge selection on offer. Before buying anything, dip into Quentin Blake's The Laureate's Party (Random House Red Fox, £3.99 in UK), a slim, gold-covered paperback that lists Blake's 50 favourite picture books and novels for children. Blake, who is probably best known for his illustrations of Roald Dahl's stories, is the first Children's Laureate of England. In The Laureate's Party he tells us why he likes each book, then gives a chunk of text and drawing to tempt us along.

Meanwhile, collections of stories make nice gifts for anyone who can't decide on any one story. My First Oxford Book of Stories (Oxford University Press, hb, £12.99 in UK) is a selection of traditional tales retold by the award-winning author Geraldine McCaughrean. It includes some lesser-known stories such as "The Bremen Town Musicians", "The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids" and, many a mother's favourite, "The Little Red Hen" - who does so much and gets so little help.

A shorter collection that's strictly for girls is A Book of Princesses, five favourite princess stories retold and illustrated by Sally Gardner (Orion). This delicious book tells its stories in a modern, matter-of-fact way, but the illustrations are brilliant. For instance, the Wicked Stepmother in "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" has magnificent gowns and a marvellously sinister Chippendale-style mirror, and in "The Princess and the Pea", each of the heroine's 41 mattresses is differently coloured and patterned. It's not a new book, but it's well worth tracking down.

Well-loved stories like these are rewritten hundreds of times - but in some countries, ancient stories are still passed on by storytellers around camp fires. When The World Began (Oxford University Press, £14.99 in UK) is a collection of tales from Ethiopia, gathered by author Elizabeth Laird. These are rich, dark stories of wild animals, cunning farmers, beautiful and clever women and lush, exotic fruits.

The Puffin Book of Five-Minute Stories (Puffin Books, £6.99 in UK) is a useful bedside book for very tired children. A glossy illustrated paperback, it has a good mix of traditional tales - "The Gingerbread Man", "The Three Billy Goats Gruff", etc - along with some terrific new stories such as "A Thousand Yards of Sea" about a sailor who catches a mermaid, then feels sorry for her and allows her to swim away. In return, she gives him a roll of beautiful blue-green sea that makes him his fortune.

Less satisfying is a new series of three-in-one books from Viking (£2.99 each in UK). Even big names like Dick King Smith (The Big Book of Animal Stories) or Jeremy Strong (The Big Book of Funny Stories) can't make these hardbacks with cheap paper inside more attractive, though they are very reasonably priced indeed.

Fans of Dick King Smith will get better value from More Animal Stories, a colourful paperback collection (Puffin, £6.99 in UK) with lots of cute characters like Dumpling the daschund, who can't seem to grow as long as he should, and Little Red Riding Pig, whose granny makes short work of a big bad wolf. Older readers with a taste for adventure might like two tales of the sea from Cork author Ellen Regan (a pen name). Mystery of the Ghost Ship Mary Celeste and Spanish John and the Great Armada (Mercier Press, £3.99 each) are a mixture of fact and fiction told in a lively style that holds the attention right to the end.

Plundering Pirates is the latest in the Where's Wally series (Walker, £2.99 in UK), and while it's a small paperback book it has a big fold-out map on the back page with a good long checklist of things to find in the chaos of pirate ships on the high seas. "Deadly," according to my eight-year-old.

Pop-up books are usually lovely to look at but short on words, with most of the effort going into visual effects. One exception is Robert Crowthers' Amazing Pop-Up House of Inventions, (Walker, £12.99 in UK) a compact, colourful book with fold-out sections that tell you lots of interesting things about the home.

Orna Mulcahy is an Irish Times journalist