Dazzlehands needs no introduction in New Zealand homes & classrooms. It's an award winner, a staple, and genuinely hilarious. A pig who doesn't go oink instead gets everyone doing "train hands, rain hands, fly-it-like-a-plane hands." Published by Huia and adapted by the Royal New Zealand Ballet, this book is proof that New Zealand picture books can stand alongside anything in the world.

Our best seller by quite some margin. I hadn't read it before I bought the shop, and when I finally did, I understood immediately. You know how people say "I'm so jealous you get to read that for the first time"? That's exactly how I feel about Oi Frog. The rhythm of the language is beautiful: rhyming, ridiculous, and impossible to read without grinning.

Julia Donaldson is prolific (there's a new Gruffalo book coming in September!) and yet this remains my absolute favourite of everything she's written. A book about a book about a book: stories within other stories in one gorgeous loop. Scheffler's illustrations as always, are fantastic.

One of the most perfectly constructed picture books ever made. A bear has lost his hat. He asks around. And then, in a moment of the most satisfying deadpan comedy you will ever witness, he remembers where he saw it. It works at every age, which is my favourite thing a picture book can do.

The first book I remember being read at school. I was on the mat, our teacher opened it, and I was hooked. Decades later I still know the rhythm by heart. That jumbly jam of birds takes me back to being five years old instantly. Lynley Dodd is a New Zealand treasure, and this is where I'd start if I had to build my library all over again.