Despite fierce competition from high-tech video consoles and computer games, from television and cinema, children's books are still big business at Christmas time.

In fact, according to Paula Kennedy, children's books buyer with the Book Centre in Waterford, "there seems to be no limit to how much parents will spend on books at Christmas! They like to buy a few books for each child and they don't mind if it's hardcover or paperback."

It's the same story right across the country. "Christmas is our peak time for children's book sales," says Paul Cussen, children's buyer with Waterstone's in Cork. "We probably do about 50 per cent of our sales from the end of November to Christmas."

And what would you think might top the bestseller list? Yes, Harry Potter, once again. Harry Potter, big with both the parents and the kids, appears in a new title this Christmas, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkuban by JK Rowling (Bloomsbury, £10.99).

According to Karim RehamniWhite, children's books buyer with Waterstone's, Dublin, sales of Harry Potter books (there are now three in the series) account for some 22 per cent of all children's book sales.

"People buy lots of books for children at Christmas time," Rehamni-White says. "Not just parents - aunts, uncles, godparents, they all buy books. It is a good opportunity to bring children's books to a wider audience - the power of illustration is underrated in the adult market."

Parents in particular would have quite a good idea what to buy for their children. Sometimes they look for books they loved themselves growing up. More often, though, their children have a very strong idea of what they want - and new titles, particularly from Irish authors, prove very popular.

"The children's market is growing all the time," Rehamni-White says. "Increasingly children are showing a desire to choose their own reading material. They have more freedom to choose their own books from school libraries, and they become big fans of a particular author or series of books.

"Far from new-technology entertainment impinging on sales, there is more diversity in children's books than ever before. If anything, the new technology is being incorporated into stories which reflect the lives of today's children and teenagers."

ALL THIS competition in the books market can only be a good thing for children, and the standard tends to be exceptionally high. So what's out there this year? For preschoolers there is the usual range of picture books, pop-up books, hardboard books, squeaky bath books, multi-texture books and, now, scratch-and-sniff books.

Published by Dorling Kindersley (£6), the scratch-and-sniff series includes garden smells and food smells. Some of the smells are a bit revolting, such as the strawberry ice cream, some are a bit weird - the grass smells like posh aftershave - but most are spot on, particularly the luxurious chocolate cake.

There are a couple of new Keith Haring books, apparently designed by the artist before he died some years ago. 10 is a counting book, while Big is a size/colours book (£6 each).

There are also several classics in hardboard for babies, from the Helen Oxenbury (Walker Books) series to Eric Carle's The Hungry Caterpillar and The Very Busy Spider (Puffin), all for around £6.

For children aged about six up, there are at least two new editions of Alice in Wonderland. There's an unabridged version illustrated by Helen Oxenbury (Walker Books, £18). Alice is redesigned as a late-20th-century/early-21st-century girl, as Oxenbury shakes off the more sinister feel of earlier drawings. There is also an abridged version illustrated by Lisbeth Zwerger (North South, £18). These drawings have a slightly more surreal feel to them.

Russel Hoban has a new book out, The Sea Thing Child, about a baby puffin who gets washed up on the beach. This one is brilliantly illustrated by Patrick Benson, with incredible attention to detail (Walker Books, £13.20).

There is also a new Maurice Sendak, What Can You do with a Shoe? (Simon and Schuster, £15.60)

One of the most interesting new picture books this year is based on the life of an Irish boy living in a tower block who wants to buy a horse. Written by Caroline Binch, Christy's Dream (Mammoth, £12) is dedicated to "the Ballymun jockeys".

There is a heap of millennium rubbish out there. One particular exception, however, is the Dorling Kindersley 1,000 Makers of the Millennium, (£18) an extensive series of biographies from Brian Boru to Louise Brown (the first test tube baby).

There's a lot of dinosaur stuff too, naturally. The BBC Walking With Dinosaurs people have published a pretty cool 3D picture book which comes complete with 3D specs (£10.80).

In fact, there is just so much available, don't be surprised if you find yourself browsing through the children's books section for hours and hours, immersed in spectacularly colourful worlds of fantasy, adventure and all sorts of amazing excitement.