It’s New Year, New Reading Goals here at Mr B’s, where our team is excitedly picking out their reads for the year ahead. Especially as 2026 has just been named the National Year of Reading: promoting reading for pleasure, and using books as a way to reconnect reading with the things that already inspire us – from playlists and football matches to films, food and family time.

So, if you’re after a fool-proof way to plan out your 2026 reads, then look no further! Featuring 24 different categories of bookish inspiration (plus a free space!), these prompts allow you to pull from your existing shelves… and be pointed in some new literary directions!

Today we’re highlighting some of Team B’s top kids’ books! You need only step inside our famous ‘Wood Between the Words’ in-store (our children’s room, gorgeously illustrated by Alex Lucas!) to see how passionate we are about kids’ fiction.

For so many of us, childhood is where we first encounter the transportive power of a good book – often through reading about adventures to magical worlds, whether hidden behind doorways, tucked at the back of an old wardrobe, or found at the bottom of a rabbithole. Isn’t it incredible to leave ordinary life behind, and find yourself somewhere completely new?

As we get older, those magical worlds might fade from the books we pick up… but the feeling of immersing yourself fully in a fictional world never does. That’s why we believe it’s so important to foster a love of reading in early childhood – especially as the National Literacy Trust’s Annual Literacy Survey (2025) reveals that only one in three children aged 8 to 18 reported enjoying reading in their free time, with just one in five reading something daily. 

So, whether you’re looking for something to read with a little one, or to recapture some of that childhood magic for yourself, we’ve put together a list of some of our fave kids’ books!

Expect paupers and princesses, monsters and mysteries, spies and shadows, libraries and labyrinths, family and friendship, kindness and bravery, a talking animal or two, and (of course!) Moomintrolls.

Check out the link to shop Team B’s selection of favourite kids’ books – or look below, to see which bookseller chose which book!

We hope you have fun ticking off the categories, and that this bingo sheet inspires some excellent new reads.

Here’s to 2026 being another year of delightful reading!