Angels and daemons: Children’s books for Christmas

Sometimes I have to admit the reason I read children’s books with pleasure is that I’m essentially puerile —and look, that’s not a bad thing if it means getting to read The Steves by Morag Hood (Pan Macmillan, £6.99), aimed at three year olds. It’s about two puffins called Steve who keenly resent the claims of the other to be Number One Steve. It is the kind of infantile playground name-calling which makes me laugh, and I reckon young children will like it too, especially Steves.

Judith Kerr, the peerless, razor-sharp author of The Tiger Who Came to Tea as well as the tear-jerker My Henry has, alas, gone to her reward in heaven, but we still, thank God, have Shirley Hughes, whose picture books for small children are as engaging as ever. You have to share a child’s-eye view, looking from below, to draw like she does, and maybe as you get older, that gets easier.