The best children's books: 5-7 year-olds

From Roald Dahl's bestselling Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to Jill Murphy's The Worst Witch, Julia Eccleshare picks her top reads for 5-7 years.

The Sheep-Pig: Dick King-Smith

Brave Babe, born a runty little piglet, who is brought to the farm for fattening-up, cheats his destiny by learning new skills from his adoptive mother Fly, the sheepdog. Babe's sheep-working skills are all his own and soon his unique technique of speaking respectfully to the sheep brings him fame as well as saving Farmer Hogget's sheep from harm. Funny and touching.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: Roald Dahl

Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory is one of fiction's most tantalising locations and Charlie Bucket's adventure a mouth-watering rollercoaster of a ride. Along with four other children, Charlie wins a golden ticket to be shown around. While Charlie blossoms on the trip, his four companions reach suitably sticky and disgusting ends as punishment for their revolting behaviour. Mr Willy Wonka dispenses prejudiced and violent justice, which children adore.

The Legend of Captain Crow's Teeth: Eoin Colfer

The sometimes horrible but always fascinating way in which brothers treat one another lives on in this hilarious story of how Will's older brother Marty spooks the daylights out of him with a terrible tale of the deadly pirate Captain Crow. The thought of what the bloodthirsty pirate might do sets off a chain reaction of disasters for Will but also a just and delightful comeuppance for Marty.

The Adventures of Captain Underpants: Dav Pilkey

Cartoon illustrations, a chunky format and pants in the title make this an easy choice for new readers. Superhero Captain Underpants hurtles through adventures, seeing off all kinds of opposition from aliens and the rest. Loads of slapstick humour to enjoy in the pictures, as well as easy-to-read speech bubbles that support the longer storyline.

The Worst Witch: Jill Murphy

It's hard enough to be hopeless in any school but, when it is spells that go wrong, the results can have unpredictable consequences. New girl Mildred Taylor doesn't quite get the hang of some of the magical homework set at Miss Cackle's Academy for Witches. The resulting chaos is delightful and hugely satisfying.

The Adventures of the Dish and the Spoon: Mini Grey

Everyone knows that the dish ran away with the spoon but, in this bittersweet rags-to-riches picture-book story, now we know what happened next. The couple sail to New York. Here they make big money as glamorous stage stars but then lose it all and set out on a less glamorous life as criminals. Sophisticated and glorious illustrations make this a visual treat.

Flat Stanley: Jeff Brown

Squashed flat when a billboard falls on top of him, Stanley lives a new and deliciously dotty life, being posted off on holiday – so much cheaper than a plane ticket – and being flown as a kite.

Mr Gum and the Biscuit Billionaire: Andy Stanton

Mr Gum is unremittingly nasty. He hates children, animals and even fun. But there is something he loves: money! So, when he finds someone with lots and lots of cash, he is determined to get his hands on it. Mr Gum's anarchic and outrageous behaviour has much to recommend him.

Ug: Boy Genius of the Stone Age: Raymond Briggs

Like all children, Ug questions everything. And with good reason. Briggs's Stone Age is solidly stony. Ug wants a soft ball to play with, cooked meat not raw. Above all, Ug longs for soft trousers. (His stone ones are hugely amusing.) A brilliant book about asking why.

The Iron Man: Ted Hughes

From its terrifying opening in which a strange creature crashes down a cliff, then scrabbles to put itself back together from the body parts that are strewn all over the beach, this mythic story is rich in unforgettable images. Underlying them, Hughes raises all kinds of questions about how people respond to anything new.

Finn Family Moomintroll: Tove Jansson

The stories of the Moomins have a timeless charm. Fantasy and reality fuse delightfully; the strong family feeling of the Moomins and the charming details of their domestic life sit comfortably alongside the magic that surrounds them. Here, Moomintroll and his friends have a wonderful set of adventures with a magical hat when they wake up from their long winter sleep.

The best children's books: 8-12 year-olds

From the small genius of The Borrowers to the giants of children's books, the Narnia stories, Lucy Mangan and Imogen Russell-Williams pick their must-reads for 8-12 years.

Stig of the Dump: Clive King

This was the first original Puffin published in 1963. The story of eight-year-old loner Barney who befriends Stig, a remnant of the Stone Age hidden in the local chalk pit, has not been out of print since. The two boys grow to appreciate each other's eras and skills as they contrive ingenious solutions to Stig's various problems living out of the junk that is thrown into the pit. A modern classic.

Charlotte's Web: EB White

"'Where's Papa going with that ax?' said Fern to her mother" is probably the most famous opening line of any children's book. He is going to dispatch Wilbur, the runt of the litter, until Fern pleads for clemency. With the help of Wilbur's wise and devoted friend, Charlotte, the spider is able to live out the rest of his days in safety. You may feel like warning your child that Charlotte dies "as spiders do" at the end of the summer. You should resist. It's a book that teaches you that characters can be made to live for ever simply by turning back to the first page and starting again.

The Family from One End Street: Eve Garnett

This episodic collection of the adventures (in the late 1930s) of the multitudinous Ruggles family (seven children, two parents) was one of the first books for this age group to take working-class life as its central theme and to depict it with charm and without condescension. They remain as fresh as the day they were penned.

The Story of Tracy Beaker: Jacqueline Wilson

One End Street was Wilson's favourite book as a child and its influence can be seen in all her wildly popular books, which speak just as directly and unpatronisingly to and about the kind of children underrepresented in young fiction. Tracy Beaker is their totem, an irrepressibly imaginative child (though the staff in her care home say she has "behavioural problems") who writes the story of her life while waiting for her mother to come and get her back.

Matilda: Roald Dahl

It's almost impossible to choose between Dahls but Matilda is one of the most borrowed by children so let us pick her – especially as it helps refute the charges of misogyny occasionally aimed at Dahl. Matilda is the superbright daughter of horrible parents who helps free her schoolmates and her lovely teacher Miss Honey from the tyranny of Miss Trunchbull, the headmistress. All of Dahl's exuberance and cartoon brutality is on display here, just the way kids like it.

Tom's Midnight Garden: Philippa Pearce

Exquisitely written, perfectly pitched and suffused with a gentle yearning, the story of lonely Tom – who discovers that the gardenless flat in which he is staying returns at midnight to its days of Victorian splendour – is Pearce's masterpiece. And if you don't cry at the final scene, well, you'll know you're dead inside.

The Phantom Tollbooth: Norton Juster

Bored, disaffected young Milo receives a mysterious present – a purple tollbooth – and sets off on a journey through Dictionopolis and Digitopolis, cities at war in the Kingdom of Wisdom which has banished the Princesses of Rhyme and Reason. It dazzled, discomfited, enmeshed and then enraptured me.

The Narnia books: CS Lewis

Yes, they're very much of their time and place, an oak-panelled room in the oak-panelled 1950s – and maybe you'll want to drop The Last Battle, where the whole Christian allegory thing becomes crudely explicit, behind the sofa – but until then it's a riot of fauns, talking beavers and dancing dryad in a cracking set of stories.

Harry Potter: JK Rowling

No, they're not great literature. But, like Enid Blyton, they give new readers quick and convincing proof that reading can be fun. For that alone – although I'd argue they achieve more than that – Rowling's boy has earned his Z-shaped stripes.

The Borrowers: Mary Norton

The Borrowers – tiny people, living secretly in the houses of "human beans" and scavenging therein – are a wonderful idea. The story of young Arrietty's growing frustration with life under the floorboards speaks forever to children's irritation with their own circumscribed world. If only we could all pole vault with a hatpin out of here.

Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror: Chris Priestly

Mesmerising, understated, and convincingly Victorian in tone, these grisly ghost stories are beautifully framed by the mysterious Uncle Montague, telling tales of his sinister knick-knacks to his nephew Edgar over tea and cake. A book for children who enjoy being frightened – and a perfect introduction to Saki and Edgar Allan Poe.

The Lionboy Trilogy: Zizou Corder

This riproaring trilogy crams in everything – dystopian oppression, passionate conservationism, villainous relatives, shipboard circuses and a boy who can speak to cats, all set in a petrol-poor, corporation-controlled future. Charlie Ashanti discovers his scientist parents have been kidnapped by the corporation because they're on the verge of discovering a breakthrough cure for asthma. Charlie must travel to Paris, Venice, Morocco and Haiti, in the company of the lions he has freed from a drug-administering tamer, to set the world to rights. Joyous.

Skellig: David Almond

Michael, worried because his baby sister has been born prematurely, finds a curious creature in the garage of his family's new home. Unethereal in its tastes – which include brown ale and Chinese takeaway – the being nevertheless seems to have wings. Skellig celebrates children's unfiltered, Technicolor perceptions of the exciting world in which they live. A bookshelf essential.

The best children's books: 5-7 year-olds

From Roald Dahl's bestselling Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to Jill Murphy's The Worst Witch, Julia Eccleshare picks her top reads for 5-7 year-olds