Abstract
131 primary school teachers were surveyed three times during school year 2013-2014 on the picture books read in class during the two previous weeks. The book list obtained – titles, writers and publishers - shows what types (narrative, expository…) and genres (traditional tales, poetry, etc.) teachers prefer, as well as the extent to which they use books prescribed by the national curriculum or which form part of a specific reading programme. This list raises the issue of what influences teachers’ choices, revealing multiple influences, from curricular prescriptions, publishers’ policies, and beyond these, from the notion of what “legitimate” children’s literature should be. It also shows how choices are, above all, determined by learning objectives, such as word identification and text comprehension.