Adventure books for kids: bed time stories to share
Do your little travellers enjoy snuggling up for a story before bedtime? I love the idea that the last thing they read with you could send them off to sleep with a head full of adventures. Here’s six adventure books for kids to inspire those wanderlust dreams, including some of our favourites and others that are new on our book shelf.
*This post contains affiliate links. If you click and buy something, I may earn some commission. This is at no extra cost to you but helps me cover the costs of running this website. See my privacy policy and disclosure policy for more information.*
Want more ideas for family holidays and days out? Read my tips for smashing family travel and sign up for my newsletter.
Contents - jump to what you'd like to know
6 books for adventurous kids
Some of these adventure books for kids have been around a while and others are brand new. We have also been sent some to review.
Scroll to the bottom of this post and you can enter my giveaway to win a bundle of some of these books for the young adventures in your family.
If you have older children you might also like to check out these books for 8-year-olds with wanderlust.
The Snail and the Whale by Julia Donaldson
We just love Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler books and this one comes with a great adventure.
The tiny snail is fearless as it sets off across the seas with its friend the whale. And when they return they inspire their other snails to join them exploring the world.
I Saw It First…in Salcombe by Julia Craig
This book is inspired by one of our favourite South Devon towns, Salcombe, and the gorgeous little ferry that takes people between the harbour and beautiful South Sands Beach.
The plot is set around a family holiday and gives you lovely insights into what there is to see from the busy little South Sands Ferry as well as a heartwarming ending.
The Traveling Toddler: The Day Beary Went Missing by R.N Boumah
Any family with a special teddy will relate to this tale. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been left with sweaty palms and the fear that we have misplaced our own VIP bunny on our travels.
Young adventurer Justyn loses his teddy on a trip to Hungary, but will he find his favoured toy again? Find out while taking a trip around Simontornya.
This is the latest book in the Traveling Toddler series about the real life adventures of Justyn and his Momma around the world. My girls love it and even more so that it’s based on a a real life adventure.
The Flying Adventures of Two Penguins by Peter Hayward
This beautifully illustrated story is about a pair of plucky Antarctic birds who won’t let evolution stand in the way of a great adventure.
They are inventive, fearless and, incredibly, not flightless.
The author has left the story wide open for a sequel. And with a donation from each book sale going to the Parkinson’s UK we can wait to find out what Pen and Gwyn have planned next.
A Walk in Paris by Salvatore Rubbino
This has to be one of my favourite adventure books for kids when it comes to fun facts. A Walk in Paris is a charming account of a grandfather and granddaughter’s day in Paris is beautifully put together with plenty of facts to intrigue young travellers and leave them itching to travel to Paris.
Paddington and the Grand Tour by Michael Bond
Every time I pass through Paddington Station in London I pick up a book at the Paddington Bear gift shop. This plucky bear is a legend in our house.
Anyone with an ambition to explore London or a passion for the English capital will love reading Paddington and the Grand Tour with their kids. In this characteristically tall tale, Paddington unexpectedly finds himself acting as a tour guide and takes a group of tourists on a sightseeing trip like no other.
Looking for new adventure books to kids to share with your family? Why not save this post on Pinterest.
Room on the Broom is our favourite book
The gruffalo
Peter Pan. Love all the magic and adventure
The Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton
The Scarecrow’s Wedding
Peace At Last by Jill Murphy
My favourite children’s book is The Tailor of Gloucester. I love the story and the beautiful watercolours.
The Tiger who came to tea – loved it as a child and it’s even better sharing it with my two daughters now
three little pigs
Charlie and the chocolate factory
Percy the Park Keeper by Nick Butterworth
Hairy MaClary!
We love The Gruffalo, but as a child I loved the Faraway Tree books from Enid Blyton
The Gruffalo
The Jolly Postman! Its still a treasured possession!
Our favourite book at the moment is a book called the cave. We also love the faraway tree books.
The Velveteen Rabbit
I love the Narnia books by C S Lewis and my daughter loves them too.
The Twits by Roald Dahl.
The secret garden
Each Peach, Pear, Plum
I’m keeping an eye out for when we can watch the live show of Snail in the Whale as we love that! Some brilliant suggestions here to look at.
Goodnight Mister Tom
Some lovely books there. My favourite children’s book is Jim, Who Ran Away from His Nurse and Was Eaten by a Lion – Hilaire Belloc.
anything from Winnie The Pooh, have always loved him
I loved Charlottes Web. My daughter loves it too. @tara1966
Room on the Broom my grandson is loving The Goodnight Train at the moment
The Dogger books
The favourite in our house is What the Ladybird Heard by Julia Donaldson – my boys love it!
In our house our favourite book is shark in the park i bought it for my son when he was about 5 and he would want us to constantly read it,we still have the book and I read it to my other 2 boys now.
I used to love Matilda by Roald Dahl
Lovely prize
I always loved The Railway Children.
My own favourite was Enid Blyton’s Six Cousins at Mistletoe Farm. So loved it. I always wanted to live in a farm. As a family with two boys our favourite is The vey Hungry Caterpillar. We would read it over and over again.
The tiger that came to tea
Puck’s Peculiar Pet Shop. It’s a tongue twisting story ….. “Then, how about a Twisted Tretzel? The Tretzel’s twisted like a pretzel. His wrists’ll twist. His whiskers twister. He lives on wisps of twisted crispers. Forget all pets like Yatz and Gletzels. Your best bet’s to get a Tretzel!”
A favourite for me as a child and my own children – Dear Zoo.
I loved Enid Blyton, especially Five go to Smugglers Top xx
I love the paper dolls by Julia Donaldson
James and the Giant Peach – Roald Dahl
We love Alice In Wonderland!
Goodnight Mister Tom
The Very Hungry Caterpillar!
Five Go Off in a Caravan.
Heidi x
Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
The tIger who came to tea – we love it
Beautiful books, all so special. Our favourite is The witch on the broomstick.
The Gruffalo
George’s Marvellous Medicine
ENID BLYTon. The famous 5
Flat Stanley
We love Winnie The Pooh
It would have to be the Hobbit.
I love George’s Marvellous Medicine
Enid Blytons Mr Meddles mischief
The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Can’t beat a classic.
The Gruffalo is their favourite book.
love to read a Walk in Paris
We love The Wonky Donkey in our house!
Winnie the Witch
Charlie and the chocolate factory!
Enid Blyton The Magic Faraway Tree
My kid’s favourite is Oi Frog but for me it has to be Matilda.
Peter Rabbit books
Hungry caterpillar
Delightful giveaway
Love the bfg
My youngest children absolutely love the hungry caterpillar and my 8 year old loves to read the Tom gates books
The Gruffalo is our family favourite.
Enid Blyton The Magic Faraway Tree
There’s a Tiger in the Garden
The Chronicles of Narnia
I’ve got nephews and nieces who would love these
The gruffalo books
The twits
Room in the broom and hungry Caterpillar
The Dinosaur that pooped the bed it has my grandson in stitches
I loved Mr Pink Whistle by Enid Blyton
Alfie and Annie Rose – Shirley Hughes
We love to read together in the evening before bed, I usually read a chapter of something like the famous five, the hobbit or the chronicles of narnia xx
STICK MAN!
the gruffalo
My granddaughter loves Max the Brave
The Secret Garden
The Tiger Who Came For Tea
My 8 year old grandson adores David Walliams books his favourite is Gangsta Granny!
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett is my favourite
Treasure Island – a classic!
I love the Hairy Maclary books, cleverly written and beautifully illustrated
I loved the Hungry Caterpillar as a child and so did my children
mine is the Jolly Postman but as a family its Cave Baby
THE LION THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE
The Gruffalo
Monkey PUzzle
Winnie the Witch series of books
The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
My favourite children’s book is The Very Hungry Caterpillar
I love Julia Donaldson books especially What the ladybird heard book
I love reading David Walliams books with my daughter
There’s a book called Moving Molly that I loved as a child, but I’m also really fond of the Alfie and Annie-Rose books
My favourite book is The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton.
Charlie and the chocolate factory
I loved Roald Dhal books when I was young. The Witches was my favourite.
When I was a child I used to love reading the enchanted wood, i’m hoping some day my daughter will read it too.
Im a great fan of the very hungry caterpillar too and its one of the first books I purchased for my children.
The Gruffalo
For sure it has to be the very hungry caterpillar
The hairy caterpillar
Has to be the Gruffalo
we are reading `The Bear and the Piano` at the moment so that is the favourite.
I loved the Tale of Georgie Grub as a child. Sadly it is out of print, but I managed to find a second-hand copy for my nephew and he loves it too!
Love the Gruffalo and ‘Jack and the flum flum tree’
We’re going on a bear hunt
The tiger who came to tea
Would love to win these to add to my daughters collection
I like Sharing a Shell and I also like the faraway tree books but there are so many fantastic books I also like the Hairy McClarey books
‘Please Mr Panda’ by Steve Anthony was recommended by a friend and is now a firm favourite in our house.
I love the hungry caterpillar!
I’m so lucky that Daisy brings home books from school so I get to find out about books that I would have missed. My favourite that she has brought home lately was the first in Phillip Pulman’s ‘his dark materials’ series. It’s encouraged me to watch the series on TV.
Leo on the other hand is just starting his reading journey and I don’t think you can beat the Very Hungry Caterpillar for his age group.
The Jolly Postman
the tiger who came to tea
The Tiger Who Came to Tea
The VERY Hungry Caterpillar
We love room on the broom!
These are all great books my son would love the Paddington and penguin one
we love the gruffalo
We love ‘Is your Mama a Llama?’
My favourite books as a child were the Chronicles of Narnia.
The fairytale hairdresser books
Peter Pan
My favourite children’s book is the Magic Faraway Tree
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
shadow the sheepdog Enid Blyton
We all love The Gruffalo
We’ve always been huge fans of DOGGER and fortunately the modern meaning is lost on our grandchildren
My boys love dinasours rescue
I loved all the Enid Blyton books when I was younger, especially the Famous Five and the Faraway Tree. I am loving reading them to my children and reliving them all again!
I like the tiger who came to tea and matilda
We love Peace at Last
the jolly postman
The Gruffalo has to be my best! Great books for the kids.
My favourite is Enid Blyton’s The Magic Faraway Tree. Such magical adventures!
The gruffalo is my daughters favourite book
my fave as a child was Charlottes Web – the first book to break my heart lol
Lovely books! I do really love the Paddington book ❤
The BFG
We are enjoying the Mr. Men series at the moment, all time favourite is The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
I like the tiger who came to tea
All my 3 children have loved Room on the Broom, I know all the words by heart from reading it so much
Harry Potter is my fave collection of kids books but before he came along, The Faraway Tree series was my favorite 🙂
I love the Paddington books!
The Hungry caterpillar
Paper dolls by Julia Donaldson
My favourite book is the gruffalo x
Dear Zoo
The Water Babies is a family favourite..
the gruffalo
my favourite is Roald Dahl’s Matilda
The current favourite in our house is ‘The Day the Crayons Quit’, my daughter loves to read it to her younger brother and do different voices for each crayon.
I love The Snail & the Whale, and Dogger by Shirley Hughes
We love reading The Gruffalo together.
Love reading Pig the Pug with my son
My fav children’s book is Each Peach Pear Plum!
We love all Thomas the Tank books
mine was enid blyton books and ladybird books, cannot remeber specifics
Giraffe’s can’t dance.
For toddlers, my favourite book is the Very Hungry Caterpillar.
The Tiger who came to tea
the gruffalo
My fav children’s book is the hungry Caterpillar. But the the most read at the moment in our house is 10 little dinosaurs.
I love The Gruffalo
The hungry caterpillar was always a fave.
mine was Richard Scarry books, so funny
The GRUFALLO – all books are fab
The BFG
The Gingerbread Man.
So many books out there, we do like Julie Donaldson, our favourite at the minute is The way Back Home by Oliver Jeffers
Each peach pear plum
Would love to win this great prize
Harry the Happy Mouse is a favourite in our house.
We love reading the Gruffalo
The BFG
That’s very hard as there are so many we love. At the moment one of our favourites is Monkey Puzzle by Julia Donaldson
The gruffalo is a firm favourite for us
there are some lovely children’s books but I think our family favourite is The Tiger Who Came to Tea
I love all the Julia Donaldson books, makes reading to my little one so much fun! We love room on the broom!
My favourite is We’re going on a bear hunt
There are so many books that we love but a couple of favourites at the minute are ‘Charlie Cook’s Favourite Books’ and ‘Guess How Much I love you in the Summer’
The Gruffalo
I’d love to read a walk in Paris. It’s probably the closest I’ll get this year.