best picture books for literary essays

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Jenna Copper

Teaching Secondary English Language Arts

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How to Use Picture Books to Teach Literary Analysis

In 2013, we had our first baby, Gianna. Taking the advice of a mentor and a colleague*, I started collecting picture books.  With a bouncy baby girl on my knee, I read classics, like “Goodnight Moon , ” and New York Times best sellers, like “The Pout-Pout Fish.” It didn’t take long for me to realize their complexity. Then, something else strange started happening. I began to see literary concepts jump out at me right from the pages. It wasn’t long before I started conducting research. 

Picture Books Research

I discovered that back in 1984 authors Beckman and Diamond suggested the benefit of using picture books with kids of all ages to promote language arts learning. Though the focus of their work was on middle school and junior high levels, the authors identified significant universal experience. Namely, they indicated the same misconception that many of us secondary teachers hold: “[teachers] may assume their students are too old for picture books” (p. 102), and Watson (1978) expressed another: teachers conclude that picture books for big kids are “too babyish” (p. 208). On the contrary, I found many researchers who agree that picture books provide an accessible way to add varied materials to the curriculum, improve reading comprehension, incorporate visual literacy, stimulate higher-order creative thinking, and introduce vocabulary with rich language (Beckman & Diamond, 1984; Giorgis, 1999; Senokossoff, 2013; Tiedt, 2000; Watson, 1978). 

Getting Started with Picture Books

I am so excited to share my research using picture books in secondary ELA to teach literary analysis. Because this is a topic that I fear too many secondary teachers (my former self included) pass off as too elementary or not academic, I find it important to share my research and sources. This article will not only help you plan your own lessons using picture books, but it will provide you with the support to justify its value and feel confident with this topic. I presented on this topic at the Keeping the Wonder Workshop Season 1, and if you’re interested in learning the exact lesson plans that I use, I’d love for you to join our virtual workshop where I break down this information further.

The first step is to understand the ways that picture books can be used in your secondary ELA classroom. I created three overarching actions to help me when lesson planning: 1) introduce a literary concept, 2) explore literary devices, and 3) extend a literary theme.

Introduce a Literary Concept with Picture Books

A picture book read aloud is a great anticipatory activity to introduce a literary concept. In fact, I’ve used a traditional read aloud model to introduce literary concepts, such as tonal shifts. My Advanced Placement Literature and Composition students often have a hard time connecting tonal shifts in poetry to author’s purpose. Therefore, I started the lesson with a read aloud of the well-known picture book, “Llama Llama Red Pajama” by Anna Dewdney. This picture book about a little Llama waiting for his mother to check on him before bed includes several deliberate tonal shifts tied to the author’s intent: to show little readers that they shouldn’t panic when their parents have work to do at bedtime. While this message of patience is a good reminder (myself included), the real magic happens when my students recognize the significance of the tonal shifts.

These tonal shifts are brilliantly represented by rhythmic verse and memorable illustrations, which help my secondary students identify the tonal shifts and connect them to the purpose. After introducing this concept, students have a much easier time applying their understanding of tonal shifts and author’s purpose to 17th century poetry.

In this example, I use a picture book to introduce a challenging literary concept, tonal shifts. The read aloud structure is an important aspect of this introduction. In fact, reading aloud to adolescent students helps them to understand “the power of the spoken word and the bond that develops between speaker/oral reader and audience” (Megyeri, 1993, p. 186). Performing a read aloud to students is something that takes practice, and I do mean performing. Using intentional voices for dialogue, inflection, and emotion help students understand tone and mood and increases their engagement. If you don’t feel comfortable right way (or ever), there are other strategies to incorporate picture books for academic purposes that require student voices. 

Explore Literary Devices with Picture Books

This next method involves student voice as an inquiry-based approach, an approach that requires students to explore a question, problem, or scenario to arrive at an understanding, solution, or hypothesis, and as a way to build what Jacobson (2015) described as a “community of readers” (para. 17). Using a stations strategy, I identified five literary devices. Then, I paired a children’s book with each literary device. Students worked in groups of five to complete the task of 1) reading the book aloud by taking turns, 2) defining the literary terms through their own research, and 3) identifying how and why the literary term was exemplified by the picture book.

For example, when my AP Language and Composition students were studying writer’s craft, station one was the picture book, “All the World,” by Liz Garton Scanlon, which was paired with the term, asyndeton, and station two, included “Goodnight Moon,” by Margaret Wise Brown paired with the term, polysyndeton. Each station followed this pattern. By the end of the activity, the students read a total of five picture books and explored each term through an inquiry-based approach. They overwhelmingly agreed that this process was much more engaging and helpful than a typical slideshow and notes lesson. 

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Extend a Literary Concept with Picture Books

The final category that I identified is to use picture books as an extension of a literary concept, theme, or unit of study. In other words, once the concept is taught, a picture book can function as an extension or remedial activity. Jacobson (2015) used the term “companions to classics.” In this case, picture books provide a new lens for which to interpret important themes and concepts (Jacobson, 2015). In addition, visual literacy, the skills necessary to analyze the complexities of an image, is an important skill that can be developed during these supplemental lessons (Senokossoff, 2013). 

In my AP Language and Composition class, students analyzed the rhetorical situation in Malala Yousafzai’s Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech. After studying her speech, I performed a read aloud with Malala’s picture book, “Malala’s Magic Pencil.” The visual imagery and symbolism is spellbinding. Not only does it highlight a moving rendition of her harrowing personal and global triumph for girls’ education against misogyny and violence, but it also signifies the core of her message as expressed in her acceptance speech. 

When it comes to student interaction with picture books, traditional approaches to analysis can be applied to picture books. In fact, picture books provide an excellent opportunity for close reading both textually and visually and a new lens for discussion and analysis (Senokossoff, 2013). Depending on your classroom goals, guided listening and looking activities can be completed before, during, or after read alouds or group activities. These guided reading opportunities can align specifically to your classroom goals. 

Here are some additional ideas  that can be used as your extension activity:

• create picture books mimicking the writer’s style and diction
• analyze the effectiveness of the illustrations
• write and share a critic’s review of the picture book
• analyze the subject, occasion, audience, purpose, and speaker
• complete a reader response journal entry or free write
• participate in a Socratic Seminar to compare the picture book to the traditional content

When it comes to introducing the selected picture to your secondary students, there are some best practices, or rather worst practices. It’s so easy to start with an apology or a justification for any new strategy, but I caution you to use positive intentional language when introducing the picture book to the class. As you’ve now read, there is a very solid research base to support the benefits of using picture books for secondary students, not to mention the literature that supports the value of picture books in general.  Giorgis (1999) expresses this very clearly: [when a teacher] 

apologizes to the students and tries to explain the reasons for bringing a book for “little kids” to the class. Students immediately perceive that they are going to be “read down to” and often are put off by the experience. If students reject picture books in their classroom, the question should be raised as to how the book was introduced. If the picture book is explained as an inferior text, then students will develop a negative mindset before the reading occurs, and the experience is doomed to failure. (p. 52)

To summarize, when introducing picture books treat them with the academic value they deserve, and watch your students literary analysis skills soar to new heights. 

*The advice from my mentor was “love them and read to them.” It’s advice that I’ve tried to use as a mom and a teacher.

Beckman, J., & Diamond, J. (1984). Picture books in the classroom: The secret weapon for the creative teacher. The English Journal, 73 (2), 102-104. doi:10.2307/817545

Giorgis, C. (1999). The power of reading picture books aloud to secondary students. Clearing House, 73 (1), 51-53.

Jacobson, L. (2015). Teachers find many reasons to use picture books with middle and high school students. The School Library Journal . Retrieved from https://www.slj.com/2015/09/books-media/teachers-find-many-reasons-to-use-picture-books-with-middle-and-high-school-students/#_

Megyeri, K. A. 1993. The reading aloud of ninth-grade writing. Journal of Reading, 37 : 184-90.

Robinson, J. (2010). Little kids, stuffed animals, and picture books at a high school? Reading Today, 27 (4), 36.

Tiedt, I. M. (2000). Teaching with Picture Books in the Middle School . Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Senokossoff, G.W. (2013). Picture books are for little kids, aren’t they? Using picture books with adolescent readers to enhance literacy instruction. Reading Horizons, 52 (3), 211-232.

Watson, J. (1978). Picture books for young adolescents. The Clearing House, 51 (5), 208-212. Retrieved from http://reddog.rmu.edu:2083/stable/30184980

More Resources

For information about how you can use picture books in conjunction with teaching poetry, check out this article I wrote about teaching poetic analysis.

Picture books make a great introduction for literary lenses. Read this article about literary lenses for information.

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Reader Interactions

September 13, 2019 at 4:06 am

I’m geeking out right now because you quoted and cited my former professor, Dr Cyndi Giorgis! Best teacher and mentor I’ve ever had!

September 21, 2019 at 12:57 pm

Wow! What a small world! Thank you for sharing. This made my day!

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With cherished classics and contemporary award winners, written and illustrated by the superstars of children's literature, these popular picture books are sure to delight readers⁠ — young and old ⁠— for generations.

Picture books are a timeless way to engage your students with a multisensory experience that can help increase vocabulary, understand sentence structure, and encourage story analysis. Plus, the visual stimulation they offer young children can help them decode the narrative, which in turn increases comprehension. 

Where the Wild Things Are ,  The Snowy Day ,  Corduroy , and  Clifford the Big Red Dog  are just a few of the beloved classic picture books featured in this list, along with popular new additions like  The Very Impatient Caterpillar , A Bad Case of Stripes , and Frog on a Log?

Shop top picture books below! As an educator, you get at least 25% off the list price when you shop books and activities at  The Teacher Store .

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19 of the Best Opinion Writing Mentor Text Picture Books

These days, there is a ton of great literature that lends itself to opinion writing . Not only do mentor texts for opinion writing contain a fun and engaging story, but they also include pictures that draw the reader in and prompt them to ask more questions about the text. Use these opinion writing read alouds to introduce the concept of opinion writing or investigate specific components of opinion writing to hone students’ writing skills.

Opinion Writing Unit for Second and Third Grade

You may also be interested in my Opinion Writing Unit for second and third grades. This unit includes scaffolds for teaching each component of the opinion writing process. It guides students through writing well-crafted opinion paragraphs and essays.

Use the opinion writing mentor texts to introduce a component of opinion writing, then use the included worksheets, games, and cooperative learning strategies to solidify students’ understanding of that writing component.

How to Teach OPinion Writing with Read Alouds Using an Anchor CHart

Before reading any persuasive book, consider creating an anchor chart that will carry you and your students through your entire opinion writing unit. Use the anchor chart to introduce opinion writing and follow up with it as you explore each component of opinion writing in depth.

The anchor chart should have several columns, including:

• The book and/or text title. In addition to writing the title, consider making a photocopy of the cover or printing an image of the cover that you find online. This gives students a quick way to find the book on the long list that you will create.
• Opinion Statement – This is where you will record the opinion statement from the book.
• Reason #1, Reason #2, Reason #3 . Or just a column for all reasons.
• Introduce the Topic
• Conclusion Statement

Consider adding examples to the list above if you’re teaching third grade. Students will be taught these components of opinion writing throughout your opinion writing unit and the components they will look for in each of the opinion writing picture books.

Many persuasive books you read will not follow the formatted opinion writing process you are teaching. Students will need to understand that authors are creative. Once they have learned the structure of a writing style, many authors move outside of that structure.

When recording the components of opinion writing on the anchor chart, consider using the academic language you expect students to use in their own writing. This is just one more opportunity to model academic language.

Free Digital Anchor Chart of Opinion Writing Picture Books

Would you like a free digital anchor chart of the opinion writing picture books in this blog post? Click the image below and sign up for a link to copy this fully editable Google Slides file.

19 Opinion Writing Picture Books to Use as Read Alouds in Your Classroom

Here is a variety of opinion writing picture books you can use to teach opinion writing to your students. Use them to introduce opinion writing, identify opinions, supply reasons, and provide examples.

When choosing persuasive books for your students, be sure to consider the level of new content vs. the type of academic language you are asking them to produce.

If you want students to use higher levels of academic language in discussions and writing, use more accessible content. While some of the books in this post may seem too young for your grade level, most students love re-reading old favorites. They know the storyline so well that they can focus on the academic task vs. the book’s plot.

Along the same lines, don’t ignore higher content. When you read mentor books for opinion writing that contain harder concepts and higher content, start by helping students form opinions orally during classroom discussions. Do the oral practice often, and it will transfer to writing.

Emily’s Perfect Pet

Pets are one of the easiest topics to use in opinion writing. At some point in their childhood, most kids try to convince their parents to get a coveted pet. Emily is no different. In this book, she tells about the attributes of specific pets and why they are perfect for her. This is a great book for giving reasons.

Hey Little Ant

This is one of my favorite persuasive books to use for opinion writing! It is a fun book about different perspectives and why ants are important and shouldn’t be stepped on.

A Pig Parade is a Terrible Idea

Do you think a Pig Parade is a good idea? This fun and engaging book explains why you should not have a pig parade. It is a great book for supplying reasons.

Stella Writes an Opinion

This is a perfect book for teaching opinion writing! Stella, the main character, wants a morning snack and uses her persuasive opinion skills to give reasons and even includes a closing statement. It even includes some ideas for teacher use in the classroom.

A Bad Case of Stripes

This is a great book on many different levels. Not only does it work with supplying reasons why she shouldn’t eat lima beans, but it also deals with social issues and peer pressure.

I Wanna Iguana (and other books from the series)

In this book, Alex is trying to convince his mom to let him have a pet iguana. He gives plenty of reasons why he should have the pet and backs them up with how he will take care of it. It’s a fun, engaging book that develops the skills of supplying reasons.

Who Would Win Books

The Who Would Win series of books are nonfiction books that compare and contrast two animals. Readers learn about each animal’s attributes, behavior, and more. Not only will students be able to give an opinion about which animal would win in a battle, they learn science content as well!

The Day the Crayons Quit

A fun book about crayons that refuse to be crayons. This book is great for explaining why specific colors quit being crayons. Each color has a reason and gives clear examples on why they want to quit being a crayon. This book is great for supplying reasons as well as explaining those reasons.

Pigeon Books

Pigeon is quite a character! Most of the books are great demonstrations of opinion writing. Pigeon is always trying to convince the reader why he should be able to do something and the author is using opinion language to tell why he shouldn’t. While this book is great for younger kids to enjoy, it works well for older students to analyze the written components.

A Fine, Fine School

Do you think students should go to school on Saturdays? Tillie’s principal does! He loves school so much that he decides everyone should go to school all the time! This is a great springboard for some of the most common opinion writing topics, like whether should we extend the school day. If we’re in school more, do students learn more?

The Big Bed

A fun book about a toddler who doesn’t want to sleep in her own bed and uses all sorts of reasons to convince her dad to sleep on a cot. This fun book is great for supplying reasons.

The Perfect Pet

In the Perfect Pet, Elizabeth explores the different pets and the reasons why some are better than others. She ends up with an unusual pet.

Click Clack Moo Cows that Type

This is a beloved classic about cows that ask for quite a few things from Farmer Brown. It’s great for reasons and explanations.

I Can be Anything

This is a great book about setting goals and not listening to the voices that tell us we can’t do something. I love the book for goal setting, but it is also great for giving reasons and explaining why you can be anything you dream.

The Amazing Collection of Joey Cornwell

This is a great story about an artist and how he collected everything as a child. That collection grew and he realized that certain things looked good together. This is a great book to introduce kids to art, but can also lead to some discussions about opinions.

Dog vs. Cat

If you have students write about which pet is the best, this book brings out all of their good and bad qualities. It gives a lot of reasons why one may be better than another. It’s a fun and engaging book for younger learners.

Give Bees a Chance

I love this book for the opinion writing aspects of it but also because it’s focused on science. Many of the books in this list are fiction and fun books. This one is more about the benefit of bees.

Red is Best

In this book, the main character lists reasons why he loves the color red. It is a great book to help students develop the skill of supplying reasons when giving opinions and fits perfectly with that week of teaching opinion writing.

Which Would You Rather Be

This book doesn’t try to convince the reader of anything but poses questions. It’s a great book for classroom discussions or a community circle. It works well for the week of stating your opinion. This is a great book to help students practice using sentence frames. Be sure to preview the book ahead of time. There may be a few questions you want to skip.

You could extend a few of these opinion-writing picture book discussions into identifying points of view, as well as stating an opinion and supplying reasons.

Videos for Opinion Writing

Many of the books above also have video versions available. Providing students with links to the videos adds a different way to hear the story that might spark even more opinion-writing ideas. Here are links to a few of the videos.

Opinion Writing Blog Post Series

This blog post is part of a series of content all about Opinion Writing. While this blog post about mentor books to teach opinion writing is a great place to introduce opinion writing, the following blog posts are some of my favorite ways to extend learning in the classroom.

Here are other posts that you can use to teach opinion writing in your classroom.

Read More Opinion Writing Strategies

7 Ways to Introduce Opinion Writing Picture Books to Teach Opinion Writing Teaching Ideas to Solidify Students’ Understanding of Opinion Writing Teaching How to State an Opinion Teaching How to Supply Reasons Teaching How to Introduce the Opinion Writing Teaching How to Conclude the Opinion Writing

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• February 8, 2022

Choosing Picture Books to Teach Summarizing: Strategies and Tips

Summarizing is a critical reading skill that allows students to distill the essence of a story or text. This blog post explores how you can use picture books to teach summarizing effectively and provides a list of picture books as inspiration. Use them to teach how to find the most relevant parts of a story and dismiss what is irrelevant.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase anything through them, I will get a small referral fee and you will be supporting me and my blog at no extra cost to you, so thank you! You can find more information here .

What is Summarizing?

Summarizing involves condensing a text to its most important elements — the main ideas, key details, and underlying themes — while omitting less crucial information. It’s a skill that enhances comprehension and fosters critical thinking and information retention.

Benefits of Summarizing

• Summarizing improves memory for what has been read.
• Identifying the most important details, along with supporting details.
• Reducing a large selection of text to improve understanding.
• Summarizing is important in different academic areas.

Teaching Summarizing with Picture Books

Summarizing is like retelling but requires determining the most important details of a text. It helps your students identify the book’s central idea and supporting details. 

Using picture books to teach summarizing means you can model how to identify key information and pick out important details, helping your students omit irrelevant information from their summaries. 

Dismissing irrelevant information means your students must understand the following literacy concepts: characters, setting, plot, events, problem, and solution.

It will help if your students are confident in retelling and sequencing before focusing on summarizing.

Why Use Picture Books to Teach Summarizing?

Using picture books to teach summarizing presents several benefits:

• Visual Support : Picture book illustrations provide visual cues that help students identify key ideas and details, making summarizing more accessible.
• Engagement : The artwork and narratives in picture books engage students’ interest and imagination, encouraging deeper interaction with the text.
• Accessibility : With their concise text and vivid imagery, picture books are especially suitable for young readers or those struggling with more dense texts.

You can help your students identify the most important parts of a story by using these prompts:

• Somebody : Who is the main character?
• Wanted : What did the main character want?
• But : What was the problem?
• So : How was the problem solved?
• Then : How did the story end?

Who – What – Where – When – Why – How

Strategies for Teaching Summarizing with Picture Books

• Pre-Reading Discussio n: Begin by discussing the book’s title, cover, and illustrations to activate prior knowledge and predict content.
• Guided Reading : As you read, pause to discuss the plot, characters, and setting. Ask questions that prompt your students to think about the story’s main ideas.
• Identifying Key Elements : Use the illustrations and text to identify the main idea, characters, setting, problem, and solution. Visual aids, like story maps or graphic organizers , can be helpful.
• Modeling Summarizing : Demonstrate how to summarize a story by thinking aloud as you condense a text into its main points. Highlight how to use one’s own words and connect key details succinctly.
• Practice with Guidance : Have students practice summarizing parts of the book with partners or in small groups. Offer feedback and support as they work to express the story’s essence.
• Independent Summarizing : Encourage students to summarize the book independently, either through writing or orally. This reinforces their understanding and ability to apply summarizing skills independently.

Questions to Use with Books to Teach Summarizing

• What is the main idea of the story?
• What information from the text is important to support the main idea?
• Who are the main characters?
• What is the setting?
• What is the problem and solution?
• What information from the text is irrelevant?
• What happened after [event]?
• What was the first/last thing that happened in the story?
• What does [character] do during different parts of the story?
• What actions and reactions took place in the story?
• What are the most important parts of the story?
• What details from the text and illustrations help us understand the story better?
• How would you summarize the story to someone who hasn’t read it?

Picture Books to Teach Summarizing

Choose picture books rich in plot and character development but not overly complex. Books with a clear problem and resolution and those that evoke questions and predictions are particularly effective.

111 Trees: How One Village Celebrates the Birth of Every Girl by Rina Singh

In Piplantri village, Sundar Paliwal encouraged gender equality by asking villagers to plant 111 trees every time a girl was born. These trees provided food, water, and jobs for women.

Paliwal wanted to show that everyone can work together to help the environment, empower women, and build a stronger community.

All Are Welcome by Alexandra Penfold

Follow a group of children from diverse backgrounds through a day at their school where everyone is welcome in an environment of acceptance and respect for everyone’s unique differences.

All Are Welcome promotes discussions on embracing diversity, fostering inclusivity, respecting all cultures, and building unity in our communities.

A Bad Case of the Stripes by David Shannon

Camilla Cream loves lima beans but won’t eat them because her friends hate them. A mysterious illness causes her to become what others think she should be. Only when she embraces her true self does she recover.

A Bad Case of the Stripes serves as a reminder that individuality should be celebrated and that personal growth stems from self-acceptance and the courage to resist societal pressures.

Balloons Over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy's Day Parade by Melissa Sweet

Tony Sarg, a puppeteer, created Macy’s first Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons. He invented giant helium-filled balloons that would float above the city streets, and the parade became a beloved tradition that continues to this day.

Balloons Over Broadway explores creativity, innovation, perseverance, dedication, curiosity, and problem-solving skills.

Biblioburro: A True Story from Colombia by Jeanette Winter

A true story of Luis Soriano Bohórquez, who loads his books onto two burros (donkeys) and treks into the remote countryside of Colombia to distribute books to children who don’t have access to them.

Biblioburro inspires discussions on a love of reading, the power of education, community service, perseverance, and creative problem-solving. This is the first of two picture books to teach summarizing by Jeanette Winter.

Bilal Cooks Daal by Aisha Saeed

Bilal invites his friends to help cook a traditional Daal dish. Amidst his excitement, Bilal worries about his friends’ reactions to this cultural experience. Bilal Cooks Daal promotes discussions on cultural diversity, patience, community building, open-mindedness and making connections.

Click, Clack, Moo Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin

When Farmer Brown’s cows stumble upon a typewriter, they type letters demanding electric blankets. Things escalate as the cows strike, and Duck is the mediator. But the peace doesn’t last long when the ducks have their own demands!

Click, Clack, Moo story promotes dialogue about fair negotiations, communication’s power, and compromise.

Don't Touch My Hair! by Sharee Miller

Aria loves her hair but doesn’t like it when people touch it without permission. She realises she needs to be assertive and clarifies that her hair is a part of her personal space, and people must respect that.

Don’t Touch My Hair! promotes discussions on respect for personal boundaries, self-esteem, assertiveness, and consent.

Drawn Together by Minh Lê

A boy and his grandfather cannot communicate through words due to language differences. They discover a shared love for art, transforming their interactions from frustrating silence to vibrant storytelling.

Drawn Together explores communication, open-mindedness, and identity and emphasises the power of making connections through non-verbal communication.

Elmer by David McKee

Elmer, a patchwork of colours, is different from the other elephants. He changes his skin to grey to fit in but discovers he enjoys being different. The other elephants accept Elmer for who he is, and he realises it is okay to be different.

Elmer promotes discussions on individuality, acceptance, self-awareness, open-mindedness, and the importance of being oneself.

Enemy Pie by Derek Munson

When Jeremy moves into the neighbourhood, he snubs the protagonist. The boy’s father suggests making an enemy pie, but it will only work if he spends the whole day with his enemy (Jeremy). They end up having so much fun the boy doesn’t need the pie.

Enemy Pie promotes discussions on making friends, overcoming prejudices, resolving conflicts, and reevaluating first impressions.

Flotsam by David Wiesner

A boy stumbles upon an old camera on the beach. Developing its film reveals an underwater world beyond imagination, a visual narrative linking children across time and space.

Flotsam, a wordless book, inspires discussions on perception, perspectives, curiosity, and observation. This is the first of two picture books to teach summarizing by David Wiesner. 

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Four Feet, Two Sandals by Karen Lynn Williams

Living in a Peshawar refugee camp, Lina and Feroza each find one yellow sandal, forming a perfect pair. They alternate wearing them. When Lina and her mother emigrate to America, Feroza insists they’ll share the sandals again one day.

Four Feet, Two Sandals explores belonging, compassion, the power of hope, social awareness, and the realities refugee children face.

Gustavo, the Shy Ghost by Flavia Z. Drago

A timid ghost struggles to make friends because he is invisible to others. Despite his fears, Gustavo courageously invites everyone to his violin concert on the Day of the Dead. In doing so, he makes new friends and learns to overcome his shyness.

Gustavo, the Shy Ghost promotes discussions about overcoming fears, Hispanic culture, and making friends.

How to Catch a Leprechaun by Adam Wallace

Joni: The Lyrical Life of Joni Mitchell by Selina Alko

Joni Mitchell expressed her creativity through music and painting as a child despite suffering from polio. She inspired a generation with her emotional and personal songs. Joni wrote a famous song about Woodstock because she could not attend.

The book captures Joni’s determination to beat societal norms and her evolution into a feminist and folk icon. It explores determination, resilience, self-expression and the power of music.

The Librarian of Basra by Jeanette Winter

Librarian Alia Muhammad Baker saves her library’s books from destruction during the conflict in Iraq by transporting them to her own home with the help of her community.

Alia’s courage and perseverance resulted in a victory for the library, allowing people to access the resources and stories within. This is the second of two picture books to teach summarizing by Jeanette Winter.

Little Beauty by Anthony Browne

A lonely gorilla learns sign language to communicate with his zookeepers. They bring him a tiny cat called Beauty, and the two become inseparable. When the gorilla gets angry, his keepers threaten to separate the pair until the kitten keeps them together.

Little Beauty promotes discussions, communication, friendships, kindness, loneliness, and self-management. This is the first of two picture books to teach summarizing by Anthony Browne.

Martin's Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by Doreen Rappaport

As a young boy, Martin witnessed the harsh reality of segregation. Inspired by his father’s preaching and his mother’s assurance of his worth, Martin grows up to use his ‘big words’ to fight for equality and justice.

Martin’s Big Words promotes discussions on social justice, racial segregation, advocacy for equal rights, bravery in the face of adversity and resistance, and the power of words.

Monsoon Afternoon by Kashmira Sheth

An Indian boy and his grandfather enjoy a rainy day together during monsoon season. As dark clouds roll in and the rain starts to fall, the boy and his dadaji (grandfather) have plenty to do inside their home.

Monsoon Afternoon celebrates the joys of spending time with family, experiencing nature’s beauty, and appreciating life’s simple pleasures.

No, David! by David Shannon

No, David! features a young boy named David who’s always breaking the rules – flooding the bath, jumping on beds, smashing vases – you name it. But, amidst all the chaos, he learns the importance of responsible decision-making, manners, the power of apology and the value of forgiveness.

On a Magical Do-Nothing Day by Beatrice Alemagna

A girl playing a video game is encouraged by her mother to go outside on a rainy day. Despite initial reluctance, she explores the outdoors and revels in nature’s simple pleasures.

Magical Do-Nothing Day explores connecting with nature, the contrast between digital and real-world experiences, curiosity and mindfulness and appreciating the world around us.

Princess Smartypants by Babette Cole

Princess Smartypant is determined not to marry and devises a plan to block princely suitors. When Prince Swashbuckle outsmarts her challenges, she must think quickly to maintain her independence.

Princess Smartypants challenges traditional gender roles, and explore personal choice and the value of individuality and independence.

Red: A Crayon's Story by Michael Hall

Meet Red, a crayon labelled red but who only ever manages to colour blue. When his friend Berry encourages him to look beyond his label, Red embarks on a journey of self-expression and self-acceptance.

Red: A Crayon’s Story fosters discussions around adaptability in tricky situations, identity, self-awareness, and fostering empathy and understanding towards others.

The Red Bicycle by Jude Isabella

Leo donates his beloved red bicycle to a charity. It embarks on a journey to Africa, where it helps Alisetta carry goods to the market and is later transformed into an ambulance, providing emergency transport for patients in remote areas.

The Red Bicycle inspires discussions on the ripple effects of our actions and decisions, gratitude, social awareness, and responsible decision-making.

Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson

A witch meets a dog, a bird, and a frog, who help her find her lost items. The witch offers them a spot on her broomstick, but their journey is interrupted by a fierce dragon. The animals work together to scare off the dragon, and the witch rewards them with a magical surprise.

Room on the Broom is a tale of kindness and teamwork and encourages your students to think about helping others.

Something Beautiful by Sharon Dennis Wyeth

A teacher helps a young girl see beyond her scary feeling for her neighbourhood. She looks for beauty in her community with the help of her neighbours. Her beautiful journey helps her feel happy and hopeful.

Something Beautiful promotes discussions on a sense of community, poverty, finding beauty in our surroundings and hope.

Sparrow Girl by Sara Pennypacker

In 1958, China decreed the elimination of all sparrows. As a result, a plague of locusts destroys crops. Ming Li saved her village from a devastating famine by defying the order and rescuing seven sparrows.

Sparrow Girl inspires conversations about cause and effect, compassion, a growth mindset, and the importance of inquiry and problem-solving.

Stuck by Oliver Jeffers

When Floyd’s kite gets stuck in a tree, he throws his shoes in an attempt to free it. However, when that doesn’t work, Floyd resorts to increasingly outrageous objects (even people!) to dislodge the kite.

Stuck explores cause and effect, creative problem-solving strategies, persistence in the face of obstacles, resourcefulness, initiative and adaptability.

The Tea Party in the Woods BY Akiko Miyakoshi

When Kikko ruins the pie she is carrying, she follows a figure she assumes to be her father into a magical tea party hosted by woodland creatures, who help replace her ruined pie.

The Tea Party in the Woods explores curiosity, kindness, stepping out of one’s comfort zone, and welcoming unexpected experiences with an open mind. This is the first of two picture books to teach summarizing by Akiko Miyakoshi. 

Thank You, Omu! By Oge Mora

Omu’s stew draws the attention of her neighbourhood, who come asking for a share. As the day ends, she realises she’s shared so much stew there’s none left for her.

Thank You, Omu! explores community, generosity, gratitude, and the joy of sharing and how Omu’s selflessness is returned by her neighbours.

The Tree Lady: The True Story of How One Tree-Loving Woman Changed A City Forever by H. Joseph Hopkins

At the turn of the 20th century, Katherine Olivia Sessions turned San Diego into a lush city by transforming it into an emerald oasis. Her legacy can be seen in the parks and gardens she created.

Katherine’s resilience, tenacity and determination remind us not to give up on our dreams despite the possible obstacles.

Tuesday by David Wiesner

Starting at eight on a Tuesday night in a swamp, frogs on lily pads levitate through a nearby town. The event ends as mysteriously as it began, leaving the frogs back in their pond and the townsfolk puzzled.

Tuesday explores interpreting a story through its illustrations and the role of imagination in understanding the story without words. This is the second of two picture books to teach summarizing by David Wiesner.

The Umbrella Queen Shirin by Yim Bridges

Noot lives in a Thai village where umbrellas are painted and sold. Noot is too young to paint, but when a disaster strikes, she is called upon to use her artistic skills to help the community.

The Umbrella Queen explores creativity, perseverance, community support in difficult times, and following one’s passions, even in adversity.

Voices in the Park by Anthony Browne

Four different characters describe their visit to the same park from their perspective. The characters see the world differently and have their own views on the same events.

Voices in the Park inspires discussions on differing perspectives, social class, human connection, individual experiences, empathy, decoding illustrations, and determining importance. This is the second of two picture books to teach summarizing by Anthony Browne. 

Wangari Maathai by Franck Prevot

The late Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai sparked a revolutionary movement in Africa to challenge deforestation. In a bold move, she championed African women to plant trees, ultimately helping cultivate lush farms and thriving communities. Maathai also provided seedlings to men, school children, and even soldiers, spurring further reforestation efforts and making a lasting impact. 

The Way Home in the Night by Akiko Miyakoshi

A rabbit carries her young bunny home on a dark night. The bunny observes people talking on the telephone, cooking, having a party, closing shops and saying goodbye. After her father tucks her into bed the bunny falls asleep wondering about her neighbours.

The Way Home in the Night explores curiosity, routine, familial love, moments of connection, and reflection that occur in the everyday. This is the second of two picture books to teach summarizing by Akiko Miyakoshi. 

We Don't Eat Our Classmates by Ryan T. Higgins

Join Penelope Rex through the ups and downs of starting school. She learns important lessons about empathy and making friends when she struggles with self-control.

We Don’t Eat Our Classmates explores empathy, understanding others’ perspectives, self-management skills, navigating social situations and the consequences of our actions.

We Found a Hat by Jon Klassen

Witness the power of integrity and responsible decision-making as two turtles navigate a tempting discovery—a hat! 

We Found a Hat ignites discussions on understanding different points of view, responsible decision-making, the ability to resist temptation, compromise, integrity, staying true to one’s principles, building strong relationship skills and fostering trust.

Teaching summarizing through picture books helps your students condense text and sets the foundation for a lifetime of reading comprehension and enjoyment.

Remember, the key to successful teaching with picture books is to choose titles that resonate with your students and align with your educational goals.

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Classroom Management

Classroom ideas, classroom community, books to teach opinion writing.

If you’re looking for books and mentor texts to teach opinion writing, you’re in the right place.

Teaching opinion writing can be a challenge, however, I’ve found that picture book mentor texts can make all the difference in helping students understand different writing opinion pieces.

Throughout this post, you’ll find Amazon Affiliate links. This means I receive a small commission if you purchase something through that link, at no extra cost to you, that helps keep my blog running and helps fund giveaways!

Why use mentor texts?

Using picture books to teach opinion writing gives students an example of what their writing can look like, and can help model different components of their writing.

How to Books to Teach Opinion Writing?

I like to read a mentor text in its entirety, then be able to refer back to it on a different day, or multiple days as needed.

Below you’ll find my favorite opinion writing mentor texts that I tend to use year and year.

Books to Teach Opinions

To help students understand what an opinion is, and how to support their opinion with reasons and examples, I use opinion writing mentor texts:

• Cats vs. Dogs
• Hey, Little Ant
• The Perfect Pet
• Duck! Rabbit!
• Red is Best
• Pick a Picture: Write an Opinion

To help students with the actual writing process and structure, I use these opinion writing mentor texts:

• I Want a Cat: My Opinion Writing Essay
• I Wanna New Room
• I Want a Dog: My Opinion Writing Essay
• I Wanna Iguana
• Stella Writes an Opinion
• The Best Part of Me
• You Can Write a Terrific Opinion Piece
• How to Write an Opinion Piece

Resources to Launch Opinion Writing

Looking for resources to help your students understand the difference between a fact and an opinion? Or perhaps you want your students to learn how to form and state an opinion before beginning to write an opinion piece. Opinion Writing Launch Activities are hands-on, engaging, and your students will LOVE them!

If you’re looking for resources to lead your students through the writing process so that they have a completed opinion writing piece, then Opinion Writing Resources will help you! Students will brainstorm, plan, draft, revise, edit, and publish an opinion writing piece.

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13 Picture Books About Reading to Inspire Young Readers and Writers

“When you read a book as a child, it becomes a part of your identity in a way that no other reading in your whole life does.” – You’ve Got Mail

There’s something special about a book about reading. It’s like reading a book in a book in a book … literary inception, if you know what I mean. Here are 13 picture books about reading to read aloud or add to your classroom library and inspire students to keep reading.

1.  How to Read a Story by Kate Messner

This picture book about reading playfully and movingly illustrates the idea that the reader who discovers the love of reading finds, at the end, the beginning.

2. A Child of Books by Oliver Jeffers

A little girl sails her raft across a sea of words, arriving at the house of a small boy and calling him away on an adventure.

3. This Is My Book by Mark Pett

What happens when a writer learns that he doesn’t quite have as much control over his book as he thinks?

4. Book Uncle and Me by Uma Krishnaswami

Every day, 9-year-old Yasmin borrows a book from Book Uncle, a retired teacher who has set up a free lending library next to her apartment building.

5. The Lonely Book by Kate Bernheimer

When a wonderful new book arrives at the library, at first it is loved by all, checked out constantly, and rarely spends a night on the library shelf. But over time it grows old and worn, and the children lose interest in its story.

6. It’s a Book by Lane Smith

In this book about reading, one animal asks another all about what a book is by asking if it can do things a computer can do.

7. The Whisper by Pamela Zagarenski

A little girl discovers that we each bring something different to the same story.

8. How This Book Was Made by Mac Barnett and Adam Rex

This book tells the story of how a book is written and illustrated. But be careful of tigers and pirates!

9. Isabella: Star of the Story by Jennifer Fosberry

An everyday visit to the library becomes an unexpected adventure through the pages of classic children’s book favorites!

10. How Rocket Learned to Read by Tad Hills

Rocket meets a little yellow bird who decides to teach him to read.

11. The Incredible Book Eating Boy by Oliver Jeffers

Like many children, Henry loves books. But Henry doesn’t like to read books, he likes to eat them!

12. I Am a Story by Dan Yaccarino

From cave drawings to the invention of the printing press to our digital age, discover how a story has been told in many different ways over time.

13. I Hate to Read by Rita Marshall

Victor Dickens hates to read, and nothing can change his mind. Or can it? How about a parrot with a peg leg? Or a rabbit with black barn boots? This book about reading is great for reluctant readers.

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6 Upper Elementary Picture Books I Use to Teach Writing

Picture books are not just for primary grade students. I use picture books with my fifth graders during each genre unit to model what good writing should look like. Hidden in these gems, are also great examples of writing skills that they can use during writing time with any genre. I’ve listed below six of my favorites with examples of the writing skills I teach for each one.

Nothing Ever Happens on 90th Street by Roni Schotter

This is my favorite book to teach writing skills. In the story, Eva cannot come up with something to write for her class, so each person on 90th street gives her a piece of advice. Each piece of advice can be used to help guide her writing. For example, the 90th street baker says, “Find the poetry in your pudding.” We discuss what this can mean for writing such as improving overused words, turning an old story into something exciting, etc. I even create a chart with each characters advice for writing so the students can refer to it.

The Sweetest Fig by Chris Van Allsburg

If you are looking to teach students how to develop a strong character, this book will do just that. Chris Van Allsburg is very good at creating a strong character using thoughts and actions. In this book, we discuss how to use a character’s actions to portray their character. Chris Van Allsburg creates this selfish, greedy, character, Monsieur Bibot, through actions and dialogue. It is a great book to demonstrate “show don’t tell.”

The Summer My Father Was Ten by Pat Brisson

I love this upper elementary picture book because these students are able to relate to the plot. In the story, a boy gets carried away with his friends during a baseball game, and ends up ruining an older man’s garden. He feels terrible afterward, and works hard each spring to help the man rebuild it. It is a great story to show rising action and character change.

My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother by Patricia Polacco

I often struggle when teaching personal narrative because I find students often write about the same topics. Since I am departmentalizing and teach four classes, after reading 99 stories about a day trip to six flags, I am ready to cry. Patricia Polacco is one of my favorite upper elementary picture book authors. In My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother , she does a wonderful job in modeling how to write a personal narrative. The story is about a typical brother sister relationship that reaches a turning point and completely changes. After reading this book, I often find students are able to understand more what I am looking for in developing a personal narrative.

The Lotus Seed by Sherry Garland

One strategy that we use for writing is to base a story around an object. In The Lotus Seed , a young woman travels from her home in Vietnam to America. The only thing she has with her to remember her home is this tiny seed from a lotus flower. After I read this story to students, it is amazing what they are able to come up with. I often start by having them do a quick write and make a list of several objects they could write about. They then choose one of these objects to turn into a story. One of the best writing pieces I have ever gotten from a student resulted from this lesson. She based an entire story around a leaf. It was beautiful, and I use it as a model every year!

I Wonder Why Penguins Can’t Fly and Other Questions About Polar Lands by Pat Jacobs

My favorite genre for teaching writing is nonfiction. I love how interested the students become in researching their topics. Often times, they even go home and research on their own. They love to come in and tell me all they have found. I always start with this question and answer book because it peaks student interest in non fiction instantly. Instead of reading fact paragraph after fact paragraph, the book asks several interesting questions based on a topic. There is an entire series to choose from. I usually start the lesson by having students open their writing notebooks. I read several questions and they write down the one they would like to hear the answer to the most. I then go around and have students read their questions and I provide the answer. By structuring the lesson this way, students have more accountability and tend to engage with the lesson more. We then discuss how to structure their own question and answer books when they start researching.

These six books are some of my favorites but I have many more that I use to teach writing. Using picture books is a great way to engage students. Upper elementary students are not too young for these visuals and often need them to be able to understand what we are looking for in their writing!

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100 of the Best Picture Books for Middle School

Picture books for middle school? Shouldn’t older students have moved on from picture books years ago?

Not necessarily. Many of the best living picture books include amazing stories with rich language that big kids are finally able to read and enjoy on their own.

Additionally, some of the picture books we have on our shelves do a beautiful job of introducing kids to serious topics – like war or racism. And I purposely tend to hold these back until my kids are old enough to handle the emotional content.

Even with books that don’t cover heavy topics, there are many picture books with nuances that are best understood by older children.

This book contains affiliate links.

I’ve included more than 100 picture books for middle school students below. This is by no means an exhaustive list because there are so, so many picture books that could be appropriate for middle school students to read.

You may see some books on the list that you’ve read with younger children before. It’s okay! Some of them are entirely appropriate for younger children, too, but I’ve included them on the list because of the nuances that can be read with an entirely new perspective now that your children are older.

In our homeschool this year, Friday is picture book day for free reading for my 6th grader. I keep a rotating pile of the books listed below for my son to choose from.

The books that cover more sensitive topics, about war for instance, I like to either read with my son or take some time for pretty deep discussions after he’s read them on his own. Nettie’s Trip South is an example of such a book. It’s about a young girl who witnesses a slave auction and includes some pretty raw emotions. For this reason, you may want to do a quick pre-read of the books listed in the history section before handing them over freely.

History Picture Books

The 5,000 Year-Old Puzzle: Solving a Mystery of Ancient Egypt by Claudia Logan

Angelo by David Macauley

The Babe and I by David A. Adler

The Bard of Avon: The Story of William Shakespeare by Diane Stanley

Baseball Saved Us by Ken Mochizuki

The Bobbin Girl by Emily Arnold McCully

Delivering Justice: W.W. Law and the Fight for Civil Rights by Jim Haskins

Electrical Wizard: How Nicola Tesla Lit Up the World by Elizabeth Rusch

The Faithful Friend by Robert D. San Souci

The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship: A Russian Tale by Arthur Ransome

Goin’ Someplace Special by Patricia McKissack

Good Queen Bess: The Story of Elizabeth I of England by Diane Stanley

Growing Up Pedro by Matt Tavares

Jubilee! One Man’s Big, Bold, and Very, Very Loud Celebration of Peace by Alicia Potter

Lady Liberty by Doreen Rappaport

Minty: A Story of Young Harriet Tubman by Alan Schroeder

Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom by Carole Boston Weatherford

Nettie’s Trip South by Ann Turner

Peppe the Lamplighter by Elise Bartone

Seaman’s Journal by Patricia Reeder Eubank

The Seven Chinese Brothers by Margaret Mahy

Smoky Nights by Eve Bunting

Star of Fear, Star of Hope by Jo Hoestlandt

The Story of Ruby Bridges by Robert Coles

Train to Somewhere by Eve Bunting

Uncle Jed’s Barbershop by Margaree King Mitchell

Vassilisa the Wise by Josepha Sherman

A Voice of Her Own: The Story of Phillis Wheatley, Slave Poet by Kathryn Lasky

The Wall by Eve Bunting

Who Owns the Sun? by Stacy Chbosky

History Series Picture Books

Holling C. Holling Series (actually great for science, too)

Patricia Polacco Books

Science Picture Books

Alejandro’s Gift by Richard Albert

The Amazing Impossible Erie Canal by Cheryl Harness

Bartholomew and the Oobleck by Dr. Seuss

The Boy Who Drew Birds: A Story of John James Audubon by Jacqueline Davies

Gregor Mendel: The Friar Who Grew Peas by Cheryl Bardow

How We Crossed West: The Adventures of Lewis and Clark by Rosalyn Schanzer

It’s a Frog’s Life by Steve Parker

The Raft by Jim LaMarche

Salamander Rain by Kristin Joy Pratt-Serifini

The Secret World of Walter Anderson by Hester Bass

Starry Messenger: Galileo Galilei by Peter Sis

The Wartville Wizard by Don Madden

The Web at Dragonfly Pond by Brian Ellis

S cience Series Picture Books

Max Axiom Super Scientist Series

Math Picture Books

While I definitely read these books with upper elementary children, they each have concepts that can be explored in much more depth with middle school students.

The King’s Chessboard by David Burch

Math Curse by Jon Scieszka

One Grain of Rice: A Mathematical Folktale by Demi

Math Series Picture Books

Sir Cumference Series

Bible & Character Picture Books

These books are perfect to help your children see God’s goodness in big ways.

Coming Home by Max Lucado

With You All the Way by Max Lucado

This biography is very helpful to explain the Protestant Reformation.

Martin Luther: A Man Who Changed the World by Paul L. Maier

While these books are easy to read with young children, too, they make great discussion starters about character qualities for middle schoolers.

The Merchant and the Thief by Ravi Zacharias

The Quiltmaker’s Gift by Jeff Brumbeau

Sanji’s Seed by B.J. Reinhard

Christmas Picture Books for Middle School

Each of these Christmas books also has a nice dose of history. I know several of them are written by Patricia Polacco and I’ve already mentioned her books above, but I wanted to be sure you don’t miss these!

The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey by Susan Wojceichowski

Christmas Tapestry by Patricia Polacco

Gifts of the Heart by Patricia Polacco

An Orange for Frankie by Patricia Polacco

The Scallop Christmas by Jane Freeburg

Do you have suggestions for other picture books for middle school? 

That’s a wrap for this giant list, but I’d love to hear your favorites! Let’s keep the list growing in the comments.

Other Book Lists

I’ve written post after post after post about living books. You can find links to all of those posts here.

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Wow, what a great list! Can’t wait to check these out – especially the Christmas ones!

The Christmas books are soooo good.

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Thanks for this helpful list!

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The Best Picture Books for Kids: Choices for Early Literacy

Picture books are a cornerstone of childhood, offering a unique blend of storytelling and visual art that can captivate the minds of young readers. Not only do these books introduce children to the fundamentals of reading, but they also provide a rich visual context that helps them develop comprehension and expand their imagination. The symbiosis of images and text can make complex stories accessible and enjoyable, turning the act of reading into a lively, interactive experience.

When it comes to selecting the best picture books for children, one should consider a variety of factors. The storytelling should be engaging and age-appropriate, with themes that resonate with young readers. Illustrations play a critical role; they should be high-quality, expressive, and contribute to the narrative. Picture books not only serve as a child’s first encounter with art, but they also bolster language skills and can tackle complex emotions and concepts in a way that children can understand.

Parents and educators should pay close attention to the book’s content, the age recommendation, and the quality of the binding, especially for younger kids who may handle their books less gently. Durability is just as important as content, ensuring the book can withstand repeated readings. Moreover, it’s worth considering whether a book comes with interactive elements or educational aspects that can enhance the reader’s experience.

As we navigate the diverse range of picture books available, our focus is to identify selections that fulfill these criteria, creating a rewarding reading experience for children. This sets the stage for us to explore specific titles that stand out in the world of children’s literature, ensuring both an enjoyable storytime and a solid foundation for lifelong reading skills.

Top Picture Books for Children

Choosing the right picture book for kids can be both exciting and overwhelming with so many options out there. We’ve combed through countless books to find the ones that are bound to captivate and foster a love for reading in young minds. Our selection meets the needs of various ages, providing enriching stories, stunning illustrations, and the perfect opportunity for quality reading time. Whether searching for classics or fresh new reads, our roundup will guide you to the best picture books that are sure to delight any child.

The Hiccupotamus

We believe “The Hiccupotamus” offers a delightful reading experience for young children, combining humor, rhythm, and colorful illustrations .

• Engaging and rhyming narrative perfect for reading aloud
• Vibrant and colorful illustrations that capture kids’ attention
• A humorous storyline with language that provokes children’s laughter
• Complex words may challenge beginner readers
• Some may find the humor too silly for their taste
• Limited educational content beyond the fun story

The rhythm and rhyme of “The Hiccupotamus” create an energetic atmosphere that makes it a joy to read out loud . The playful language and engaging storyline are designed to keep kids entertained, sparking their imagination and sense of humor.

Illustrations in the book are notable for their bright colors and whimsy. They hold the gaze of young readers, complementing the story beautifully, and providing an enriching visual narrative that enhances the reading experience.

Although the book is a crowd-pleaser, it’s worth noting that some parents and educators might be looking for more educational substance. The focus here is on fun and entertainment, which it delivers in spades, but those seeking a learning-focused read might consider other options.

The Gruffalo

We believe purchasing “The Gruffalo” for young readers offers a magical experience that combines vivid storytelling with delightful illustrations.

• Engages children with rhyming text and repetitive phrases
• Features captivating illustrations that complement the story
• Encourages imagination and wit through its clever plot
• Paper cover may be less durable than a hardback
• With only 26 pages, it’s a quick read that may leave the audience wanting more
• The story’s simplicity might not challenge advanced readers

Julia Donaldson has penned “The Gruffalo”, a tale that resonates with kids through its rhythmic narrative and a smart little mouse as the protagonist. The book weaves a spellbinding story filled with tension and humor as the mouse encounters various forest creatures—including the mythical Gruffalo. Its engaging plot teaches children the value of intelligence and bravery .

Illustrations in this book are richly detailed, bringing the forest and its inhabitants to life. Children find themselves captivated by the visual feast on each page, which aids in their comprehension and enjoyment of the story.

Although the book is brief, it promises a multitude of re-reads, as the kids enjoy the predictability of the rhymes and the satisfaction of knowing what comes next. “The Gruffalo” is a picture book that has secured a place as a modern classic in children’s literature, and it can become a cherished part of any child’s bookshelf.

Just Except For Antarctica

If you’re looking for a blend of humor and education in a children’s book, “Except Antarctica” serves up both, engaging young readers with laughs and learning.

• Stimulates curiosity about animals with facts sprinkled throughout a humorous narrative.
• Encourages repeat readings with its enjoyable dialogue and illustrative charm.
• Suits a wide age range, providing value for children from preschool to third grade.
• At 40 pages, the book might be too lengthy for the youngest readers’ attention spans.
• The humorous interjections may confuse children who are just learning to differentiate between facts and fiction.
• Hardcover format may make it less travel-friendly than a board book or paperback.

Imagine diving into a world where every page crackles with wit and wisdom. “Except Antarctica” welcomes us to just such a journey where laughter pairs with learning. This delightful picture book captivates kids with a comical tale of animals dreaming of living in Antarctica—only, they aren’t supposed to be there. Through this mischievous storyline, children unwittingly absorb genuine animal facts, fostering a love for reading and education.

Let’s explore the vibrant and comical illustrations that bring each critter’s personality to life, sparking children’s imaginations. The book’s large format and vivid visuals make it a perfect tool for engaging multiple children at once, making it a hit for both storytime and classroom settings.

We believe that fostering a love for literature is crucial in a child’s early years. “Except Antarctica” does more than entertain; it educates and inspires dialogue between young minds and their reading buddies. This book has the potential to become a cherished staple in any child librarian’s collection, promising repeated requests from eager young readers.

The Leaf Thief

In our view, “The Leaf Thief” is a charming and witty must-have for young readers that brings humor and learning to the ever-changing season of fall.

• Engaging and humorous story that captivates children
• Vivid and appealing illustrations that hold a child’s attention
• Encourages understanding of natural changes, like the seasons, in an accessible way
• Targeted primarily at preschool to second grade, potentially less appealing to older children
• With 32 pages, some may find it too brief for story time
• The simplicity of the story might not challenge more advanced readers

In “The Leaf Thief,” kids are introduced to a lighthearted mystery surrounding a squirrel and the disappearing leaves. This book cleverly unravels the concept of seasonal change while ensuring plenty of giggles along the way. It’s a delightful way to discuss the wonders of nature and the shifts in our environment as seasons change, especially tailored to young minds experiencing fall’s transformations for the first time.

The story brims with enchantment as children follow the engaging narrative. The text is also paired with vivid and creative illustrations, which are as much a part of the storytelling as the words themselves. The artwork not only complements but elevates the tale, ensuring kids remain absorbed and entertained throughout the read.

For us, “The Leaf Thief” is an exceptional blend of education and entertainment. It introduces fundamental concepts to young readers in an incredibly engaging manner. While the book is concise, every page is a burst of color and joy, perfect for several quick reads or to calm down before bedtime. It offers just the right balance to make learning about the seasons a fun and memorable experience.

Strictly No Elephants

In selecting “Strictly No Elephants” for your child’s library, you’re embracing a story of inclusion and the value of friendship.

• Encourages discussions on inclusion and kindness
• Illustrated edition makes it appealing for young readers
• Story resonates with both younger and older children within the targeted age range
• The simple language might not challenge older readers as much
• With only 32 pages, the book may be quickly outgrown
• The hardcover edition is heavier for very young kids to handle

“Strictly No Elephants,” though a brief tale, opens up a world of kindness and inclusivity for young readers. We discover that friendship transcends the ordinary; it is about embracing others for who they are, even if they come with an elephant. The story provides a springboard for important discussions on topics like diversity and acceptance.

The charm of the book lies not just in its message but also in its vibrant illustrations. They captivate children’s attention, making reading a visual pleasure. Our reading experience is enriched by the balance of both story and pictures, inviting us to return to its pages.

This narrative excels at presenting complex social concepts in a manner that little ones can grasp. The tale is easy to follow, which ensures that children in the earlier stages of reading can engage with the story independently. It’s an investment in a child’s social learning as much as it is in their literacy.

Big Sisters Are the Best

We recommend this charming book for its sweet portrayal of sisterhood, making it a heartwarming read for families welcoming a new baby.

• Engaging storyline that supports sibling relationships
• Vivid illustrations that capture a child’s interest
• Compact and lightweight for young hands
• Limited to a specific family dynamic
• The storyline may be simplistic for older readers
• May not withstand rough handling due to paperback format

Enthralling a young reader requires a blend of vivid imagery and a relatable story. “Big Sisters Are the Best” wonderfully presents the joys and responsibilities of being an older sibling through its engaging narrative. This book serves as an ideal tool for parents to help their older child adapt to having a new baby in the family.

Illustrations are quintessential in any children’s book, and this one excels with colorful and expressive artwork. They not only complement the storyline but also add a layer of understanding for the pre-readers, aiding in their comprehension and enjoyment of the tale.

Considering its specific focus on the role of a big sister, this book brilliantly caters to families experiencing this change. However, it stands out less to those without this particular dynamic. But for its intended audience, it is an excellent choice, striking a balance between education and entertainment tenderly.

Hidden Pictures Fun Pack

We think these activity books are a splendid choice for developing little one’s problem-solving and observational skills while ensuring they’re having a blast.

• Specially tailored for kids ages 3-6 with simplified puzzles and vibrant images
• Enhances fine motor skills and attention to detail through fun activities
• Includes a bonus booklet promoting self-expression that doubles as a keepsake
• Black-and-white images might not be as engaging for all children
• Might be too challenging for some 3-year-olds without adult assistance
• The size of the books could be smaller than some expect

Highlights for Children has been fostering curiosity and learning in kids for over 75 years, and their My First Hidden Pictures series is no exception—their popularity speaks for itself. Designed for preschoolers and kindergarteners, these books couple enjoyment with learning opportunities. The puzzles are not only fun, but they’re beneficial for brain development, promoting focus and patience in young minds.

Inside the pack, a diverse array of activities is waiting to entertain and educate your children. Whether at home or on the move, these books are crafted to be travel-friendly, capable of keeping little ones engaged during long trips. Also, the added bonus of the ‘Mini Book About Me’ allows for a more personalized and reflective activity.

Reflecting on these elements, we recognize the effort made by Highlights to go beyond mere entertainment. Their product is a tool for early development, facilitating enhancements in fine motor skills, problem-solving abilities, and emotional intelligence through self-expression. Despite the few downsides mentioned, this Hidden Pictures set is a stellar addition to any child’s library.

Buying Guide

Understanding age appropriateness.

When selecting picture books for children, it’s imperative to consider their developmental stage. We look for books that match the cognitive and emotional skills of the intended age group.

• For toddlers (0-2 years) : Board books with simple imagery and minimal text.
• Preschoolers (3-5 years) : Books with repetitive phrases and interactive elements.
• Early Readers (6-8 years) : Stories with a simple narrative structure, larger text.

Illustrations

The artwork in picture books is not merely for aesthetic appeal; it plays a crucial role in comprehension and engagement. We assess the:

• Clarity : Images should be distinct and help explain the text.
• Color Scheme : Bright colors often captivate younger readers.

Diversity and Representation

It’s essential that the content of the picture books reflects a diversity of characters and settings. We seek out books that expose young readers to a broad range of cultures and experiences, promoting inclusivity.

Quality and Durability

For books intended for younger children, durability is a key factor. We prefer:

Educational Value

While entertainment is a primary function of picture books, we also evaluate their potential to teach. Interactive elements that encourage participation can enhance learning and literacy.

• Vocabulary : Rich language for a robust lexicon.
• Concepts : Books that introduce numbers, letters, or nature.

Themes and Morals

We recognize the importance of the messages conveyed through stories. Books should present positive themes and morals suitable for children, aiding in character development.

By focusing on these criteria, we can confidently choose the best picture books for children, ensuring they offer a blend of enjoyment, learning, and social understanding.

Frequently Asked Questions

In our exploration of children’s literature, we’ve compiled answers to some of the most common inquiries about picture books.

What are some classic children’s picture books every child should experience?

Many classics have captured the hearts of children for generations. “ Where the Wild Things Are ” by Maurice Sendak, “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle, and “ Goodnight Moon ” by Margaret Wise Brown are essential stories with themes and illustrations that stand the test of time.

Can you recommend engaging wordless picture books for early readers?

Wordless picture books like “Journey” by Aaron Becker and “Tuesday” by David Wiesner offer engaging illustrations that spark imagination and help children infer the story, fostering creativity and visual literacy.

Which picture books are considered the best for reading aloud to a kindergarten classroom?

“For reading aloud to kindergarteners, “The Gruffalo” by Julia Donaldson, “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!” by Mo Willems, and “The Day the Crayons Quit” by Drew Daywalt are excellent choices. Their vibrant illustrations and rhythmic texts captivate young audiences.

What are the most popular picture books for children that have been released in recent years?

Recent years have brought us instant classics such as “The Wonderful Things You Will Be” by Emily Winfield Martin, “Last Stop on Market Street” by Matt de la Peña, and “Dragons Love Tacos” by Adam Rubin, all of which have resonated with contemporary audiences and received critical acclaim.

Where can I find high-quality picture book PDFs suitable for storytime?

High-quality picture book PDFs can often be found on the websites of publishers and authors, as well as on educational platforms. Always ensure that the sources are legitimate and honor copyright laws to respect the creators’ work.

Could you provide a list of noteworthy picture books from the 1970s that are still relevant for kids today?

From the 1970s, “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day” by Judith Viorst and “Sylvester and the Magic Pebble” by William Steig remain relevant with themes that children can still relate to. These stories have endured owing to their universal messages and distinctive illustrations.

Kids Who Learn

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Writing Tips Oasis - A website dedicated to helping writers to write and publish books.

19 of the Best Picture Book Editors

By Joel Harris

Please note: This article contains affiliate links to Reedsy. That means Writing Tips Oasis receive a small % of the sale if you hire the services of any of the following editors, or another professional on Reedsy, but at no extra cost to you.

If you’re focused on picture books and looking for a professional editor , who will help you improve the quality of your picture book, then you’re in the right place. Below we’ve featured 19 of the best picture book editors for your review.

1. Jennifer Rees

Situated in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Jennifer Rees is one of the best picture book editors in the world. She’s edited everything from middle-grade books to young adult books and honed her skills for 13 years as a senior editor at Scholastic Inc.

Since 2011, Jennifer has been working as an independent editor, working with established agencies and budding writers to heighten the quality of many stories.

She offers editorial assessments and both developmental editing and copy-editing services.

Apart from the global YA novel sensation that is The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins, Jennifer has worked on picture books like Sara Varon’s Chicken and Cat and Rachel Vail’s Righty & Lefty .

To avail of her superb editing skills, contact Jennifer here .

2. Erica Green

Erica Green has been in the publishing industry for more than two decades. Thus, she’s edited hundreds of titles and worked with everyone from renowned primatologist Jane Goodall to TV personality Dr. Oz.

Residing in Washington DC, she served as the editorial director for National Geographic Kids Books for four years and began editing in 1994. Likewise, Erica is a freelancer who launched the Iceland Writers Retreat in 2012.

Erica provides assessments and developmental editing to her clients who have picture books, YA books, or middle-grade fiction.

One amazing picture book she edited is Animal Ark: Celebrating our Wild World in Poetry and Pictures by Kwame Alexander, Mary Rand Hess, and Deanna Nikaido. Another intriguing picture book is How to Pee: Potty Training for Boys by Dr. Todd Spector.

Contact Erica for more information about her services.

3. Jo Collins

Located in London, UK, Jo Collins is one of the go-to editors for picture books. Her editing journey began when she served as the group editorial manager for Barefoot Books in 2005. But it was in 2009 when Jo had the opportunity to work on over 40 picture books as a senior editor for Little Tiger Group.

Currently, Jo is a freelancer and is also part of The Golden Egg Academy where she co-manages a picture book project.

From copy editing to proofreading and developmental editing, Jo will help you improve the quality of your picture book.

Some of the amazing children’s books she edited over the years are Sue Mongredien’s Harry and the Monster and Steve Smallman’s Dragon Stew .

Feel free to inquire Jo about her editing services.

4. Sara Schonfeld

Are you unsure which parts of your picture book need improving? Sara Schonfeld can help you identify what’s working and what isn’t. Living in New York City, New York, Sara was an intern and assistant editor at Penguin Random House.

Currently, Sara is the associate editor at HarperCollins. Since she’s also an author, she understands how and why some authors approach their writing.

Her services include editorial assessments and developmental editing.

Two of the colorful children’s books in her portfolio are Holly Fox’s The Cookie Book of Colors and Jane Kelley’s Octo-Man and the Headless Monster .

You can discuss her editing rates with ease here .

5. Vicky Garrard

Vicky Garrard lives in Kent, UK, and helps both long-time authors and beginner writers, especially in the field of children’s books. She was an editor for Scholastic Children’s Books and was a key part of Quarto Publishing when she became the editorial director for more than eight years.

Her services range from assessments to both copy editing and developmental editing. While she’s keen on picture books, Vicky also has the skills to work on children’s non-fiction.

From Peter Bently’s funny National Geographic Kids Wild Tales: Ella’s Bath to Leonie Roberts’ My Colorful Chameleon , Vicky has proven she has what it takes to edit books for kids.

For more information, you can contact Vicky with ease.

6. Holland Baker

Holland Baker is from New York City, New York, and never fails to pay attention to the smallest details. Starting as a copy editor for Topix Media Lab before being promoted to an assistant managing editor, she’s now the production editor for three imprints of Scholastic.

Aside from proofreading, Holland is an expert in copy editing and editorial assessments. This is not a big surprise when you learn that she has a bachelor’s degree in journalism.

Holland’s editing portfolio includes Tracey West’s cool Fortress of the Stone Dragon and Ann M. Martin’s Karen’s Roller Skates .

You can request her services online.

7. Brooke Vitale

Another trustworthy picture book editor in New York City, New York, is Brooke Vitale. With at least 15 years of experience in children’s titles and having worked at not just Penguin Random House but also Disney Publishing Worldwide, her editing skills are unquestionably good.

With a master’s degree in publishing, Brooke knows exactly how to handle all sorts of manuscripts. Her services are editorial assessments, copy editing, and developmental editing, among many others.

Her previously edited titles include the Disney Book Group’s Frozen Olaf’s Night Before Christmas , which is both a picture book and a CD, and Patricia Barnes-Svarney’s A Traveler’s Guide to the Solar System .

Brooke is available for contact here .

8. Gene Hult

You can’t go wrong with Gene Hult, a professional editor with three decades of relevant experience. He started as a managing editor for Denver Quarterly before reaching career milestones such as being the senior editor for Scholastic and executive editor for Simon & Schuster.

Situated in Houston, Texas, Gene does copy editing, editorial assessments, and developmental editing. He also specifies that his hourly rates for picture books (and poetry) are higher because they require a different degree of editing.

You should check J. E. Bright’s Heroes of the High Seas and Gail Herman’s Halloween Howl (Clifford’s Puppy Days) to see his quality editing.

Contact Gene to avail of his services.

9. Catherine Laudone

Catherine Laudone lives in New York City, New York, and knows how impactful a story can be to readers. She has a degree in writing, literature, and publishing. And since 2013, she’s been an associate editor at Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.

Her editing services include editorial assessments and developmental editing — and this applies not only to picture books but middle-grade books and YA novels too.

Two wondrous picture books she’s edited are Hanna Cha’s Tiny Feet Between the Mountains and Apryl Stott’s heartwarming Share Some Kindness, Bring Some Light .

For more details about her rates and services, message Catherine .

10. Rebecca Behrens

Since 2014, Rebecca has been an independent editor. Before that, this professional from New York City, New York, honed her skills by working for top publishing companies such as Macmillan, Penguin Random House, and Disney Publishing Worldwide.

Rebecca’s services range from developmental editing and copy editing to editorial assessments. But as of writing, picture book authors can only request her copy-editing service.

Her portfolio of children’s titles includes Henry Winkler’s Everybody Is Somebody #12 (Here’s Hank) and Michelle Schusterman’s Graveyard Slot #2 (The Kat Sinclair Files) .

Contact Rebecca online for her availability.

11. Catherine Nichols

As a magna cum laude graduate, Catherine Nichols is a brilliant individual whose educational prowess is complemented by her years of experience in the book industry. For more than 11 years, she has been an independent editor who has been sought by the likes of Dorling Kindersley Limited (DK) and Scholastic.

Situated in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Catherine offers editorial assessments, developmental editing, and copy-editing services.

From The Beast of Blackslope by Tracy Barrett and John Deere: How Does It Grow? by Parachute Press and DK Publishing, you can easily sense her splendid editing skills.

To avail of her services, just message Catherine .

12. Lynne Kelly

Residing in Conroe, Texas, Lynne Kelly is one of the best editors if you’re focused on picture books and other books for young individuals.

Apart from being an independent editor, she’s an award-winning author who got the Schneider Family Books Award and the Kentucky Bluegrass Award, among many accolades. Thus, she knows what it takes to tell a good story.

Lynne provides editorial assessments and developmental editing services.

Some of the picture books she worked on are M. G. King’s wonderful Librarian on the Roof! A True Story and Charles Trevino’s Seaside Stroll .

To have your picture book critiqued by her, start by requesting a quote .

13. Kate Lockwood

Kate Lockwood from San Diego, California, can successfully examine thousands of proposals annually.

She has been editing children’s books for at least 15 years and has worked as a developmental editor for Scholastic before becoming an editorial director for Readerlink.

Aside from developmental editing, Kate conducts editorial assessments and copy editing. Her portfolio includes picture books like Eppie the Elephant (Who Was Allergic to Peanuts) by Livingstone Crouse and How Winston Delivered Christmas by Alex T. Smith.

To know her service rates and availability, contact Kate here .

14. Jessica Lee Anderson

With accolades like the Milkweed Prize for Children’s Literature and the Shirley Henn Memorial Award, Jessica Lee Anderson has astounded critics and readers alike with her impeccable writing. Realizing her knack for crafting stories, she now helps others through editing.

Based in Austin, Texas, Jessica began her career as an independent editor in 2005.  And thanks to her master’s degree in children’s literature, she immediately became known for her valuable critiques of middle-grade books, YA novels, and picture books.

Her services include editorial assessments and developmental editing. She worked on Madeline Smoot’s The Monsters Hiding in Your Closet and the beautiful picture book titled The Texas Nutcracker by Jennifer Coleman.

If you want a quote, message Jessica online.

15. Mabel Hsu

Situated in New York City, New York, Mabel Hsu is an amazing editor who does all that she can for her clients. Aside from providing critiques, she lets writers understand how others in the publishing world may respond to their work.

Since 2016, she’s been an editor for HarperCollins. Aside from graphic novels and YA books, Mabel loves editing funny and heartfelt picture books.

Currently, her editing services are editorial assessment and developmental editing

Mabel’s portfolio includes picture books like Kelly DiPucchio’s mesmerizing Oona and Katrina Moore’s heartwarming One Hug .

Feel free to ask Mabel for a quote.

16. John Briggs

John Briggs has at least 25 years of editing experience. Located in Albany, New York, he’s a brilliant editor of children’s books because he’s authored many titles for kids as well — and these include picture books.

John has assisted individual authors and publishers like Sage Hill Books and Sterling Children’s Books with services such as developmental editing and copy editing.

One of the children’s books he critiqued is T. L. Johnson’s Tut The Generous . Similarly, John ensured that Linda Elovitz Marshall’s picture book titled Grandma Rose’s Magic (Shabbat ) would be in its best possible form.

Contact John now to have your picture book edited to perfection.

17. Jenn Bailey

In 2020, Jenn Bailey received the ALA National Schneider Family Honor Award for A Friend for Henry . If her accolade for her own picture book won’t convince you to seek her editing services, then maybe her master’s degree in writing will.

Based in Leawood, Kansas, Jenn is an acclaimed author and editor. She loves all sorts of subgenres and enjoys editing picture books.

Her services include copy editing, developmental editing, and editorial assessments.

To observe her editing skills, browse picture books such as Alastair Heim’s No Tooting at Tea and Jake Tebbit’s Woolly the Wide Awake Sheep .

For more details about her services, contact Jenn here .

18. Auriane Desombre

Auriane Desombre from Los Angeles, California, holds master’s degrees in both English literature and creative writing — and the latter is focused on crafting stories for kids and young adults. Since she’s a teacher, her style of editing is highly detailed and always yearns to motivate writers.

Whether you have worries about your characters or the plot, Auriane can improve your picture book through developmental editing and editorial assessments.

Auriane edited both Hunt (North) by Alexandria Warwick and Big Mouth Blues by Danalynn Donovan .

To get her editing rates, just message Auriane .

19. Kiley Frank

For six years, Kiley Frank was working for Atheneum Books for Young Readers as an assistant editor. Since 2011, she’s been an independent editor who’s assisted the likes of Egmont Group and Simon & Schuster.

Based in Canton, New York, Kiley conducts editorial assessments and developmental editing services on picture books, YA novels, and other reading material for kids and teenagers.

Kiley’s portfolio includes the picture book What is Your Dog Doing? by Marily Singer and the celebrated Little Dog, Lost by Marion Dane Bauer.

Request a quote from Kiley if you’re interested in her editing services.

Trending Post : Books Made Into Movies

100+ Best Picture Books

Whether you’re a parent, teacher, librarian, or grandparent, you want to find the best children’s picture books to read aloud and share with the children in your life. Over the last two decades, I’ve read tens of thousands of picture books and carefully curated book lists and book reviews of children’s picture book fiction and nonfiction for kids. I’ll share the BEST picture book recommendations in book lists on almost every topic and theme. Plus, you’ll also find the best children’s books to read aloud to different ages of readers.

My own passion for books for kids began early with weekly trips to the library and a home without a television. (Nothing else to do but read!) As a former elementary teacher, former literacy trainer, and parent of two, my passion for books grew every year. I read to share the best books with my students. I read to find good books to use in the classroom as mentor texts. And I read because I loved the stories, wordplay, and richness of the artwork. Honestly, I am devoted to children’s literature, reading thousands of books every year, from picture books to YA.

Here’s an example of one month of picture books that I review in on month from over a hundred read that month! (And isn’t my READ shirt the best!?)

What makes a great picture book?

The best picture books are spacious enough to allow the illustrations to narrate the story as well as the prose , which is the text of a non-poetry book. These beautiful books aren’t too text-heavy but balance perfectly with their text-to-picture ratio.

Young children love books about themes that resonate with their lives, such as friendship, family, growing up, identity, and more. Other young child-friendly themes in picture books that illuminate the world for readers include belonging, courage, kindness, feelings, accepting differences, problem solving, using your imagination, and grief. Look for books that explore new concepts like counting or colors!

Stories about these themes have many different storylines or plots, ranging from books with meaningful lessons to silly stories or informational topics. Read children’s book stories about different topics such as losing a tooth, getting a new sibling, finding something lost, learning about animals, or wanting a pet.

Young readers naturally love funny stories. Kids love to laugh, so hilarious, silly stories will always be on any list of favorites.

Of course, good picture books for kids also include memorable characters. Lovable characters are those beloved, quirky, and funny heroes that stay with you until you’re an adult. Who are your favorite timeless characters from your childhood reading? Maybe Lily of Lily’s Purple Plastic Purse or Elephant and Piggie or Lola.

Also, you’ll know your child’s favorite children’s books because they will love them and beg for repeated readings. Every child will prefer some picture books over others. That’s okay. They’re forming their opinions and growing into themselves. Both my kids preferred different stories and authors. Not a problem! There are so many good books; there is something for everyone.

What are the best read aloud picture books?

Children of all ages, not just young children, benefit from reading picture books with an adult or by themselves.

You don’t have to buy the best sellers. Just try a variety of different books about different topics. Funny books are my favorite to read aloud — my kids love to laugh. I bet your readers will love funny book s, too.

For young readers, it is essential to share a variety of kids’ stories, including wordless and prose books, fiction and nonfiction , classics and contemporary, about lots of different topics. This exposes them to the best children’s books that teach them about the world and introduces them to critical literary concepts like story structure, characters, predictions, and finding information.

Reading picture books builds a love of reading. It gives parents and children special time together sharing stories. Yes, I will suggest the best picture books of all time, but I also believe that ANY picture book you read with a child is best. Because it’s reading and it’s time together.

Remember that any time you can spend reading aloud to your child counts and builds important skills! When I read her stories, my oldest wiggled off my lap and ran laps around me. Instead of making her sit still, I started reading to her while she was eating. That worked much better for her. No, it wasn’t snuggle time, but it still was enriching and important.

Why read children’s stories?

As I mentioned, reading books out loud to children builds their literacy skills, including learning new vocabulary words and a child’s understanding of story elements.

Encourage your growing reader to read picture books by themselves . When children are alone with a book, they can pretend “read” the pictures and narrate the story using the pictures and parts that they might have memorized. This is a wonderful way to reinforce concepts like plot, beginning, middle, and end, characters, the importance of illustrations, and oral language. As children tell their own stories, notice their word play !

Don’t forget to include nonfiction titles in your reading selection, also. This helps readers learn new things and introduces informational reading for meaning.

Best Picture Books for Young Readers

Ages 0 to 4.

The Best Books for Babies

Best Toddler Books

Best Books for 3 Year Olds

Best Preschool Books for 4 Year Olds

Best Kindergarten Books for 5 Year Olds

Ada Twist Scientist Books

Counting & Numbers

Baba Yaga Stories

Metafiction Books That Break the Fourth Wall

Book Character Costumes

AAPI (Asian American Pacific Islander) Heritage

Berenstain Bears Books

Cooperation

Diwali Books

Grandparents

Fairy Tales for Kids

Eric Carle Books

Fairy Tales

Jan Brett Holiday Books

Interactive

Little Red Riding Hood Retellings

Graduation Books

Movies Based on Books

Mythical Creatures in Books

Nursery Rhymes

Potty Training

Positive Character Traits

Water Cycle

Winter Books

Best Picture Books for Elementary Ages

Ages 5 – 8 (kindergarten, 1st grade, 2nd grade, 3rd grade).

Addition & Subtraction

Aging, Memory Loss

Anxiety and Worry

AAPI Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage

Back to School

Black Main Characters

Books with Movie Adaptations

Black History Month Biographies

Being Yourself / Identity

Cause and Effect

Death & Grief

Fear & Courage

Fractured Fairy Tales

Greek Mythology

Growth Mindset

Immigration

Jewish High Holidays

Lunar New Year

Mindfulness

Indigenous Families & Native Cultures

Ocean Animals

Pirate Books

Physical Differences (Disabilities)

Ramadan & Eid

Soccer (Football)

Thanksgiving

Three Little Pigs

Writing a Story

Words and Wordplay

Women’s History

Best Picture Books of the Year

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The 10 Best Essay Collections of the Decade

Ever tried. ever failed. no matter..

Friends, it’s true: the end of the decade approaches. It’s been a difficult, anxiety-provoking, morally compromised decade, but at least it’s been populated by some damn fine literature. We’ll take our silver linings where we can.

So, as is our hallowed duty as a literary and culture website—though with full awareness of the potentially fruitless and endlessly contestable nature of the task—in the coming weeks, we’ll be taking a look at the best and most important (these being not always the same) books of the decade that was. We will do this, of course, by means of a variety of lists. We began with the best debut novels , the best short story collections , the best poetry collections , and the best memoirs of the decade , and we have now reached the fifth list in our series: the best essay collections published in English between 2010 and 2019.

The following books were chosen after much debate (and several rounds of voting) by the Literary Hub staff. Tears were spilled, feelings were hurt, books were re-read. And as you’ll shortly see, we had a hard time choosing just ten—so we’ve also included a list of dissenting opinions, and an even longer list of also-rans. As ever, free to add any of your own favorites that we’ve missed in the comments below.

The Top Ten

Oliver sacks, the mind’s eye (2010).

Toward the end of his life, maybe suspecting or sensing that it was coming to a close, Dr. Oliver Sacks tended to focus his efforts on sweeping intellectual projects like On the Move (a memoir), The River of Consciousness (a hybrid intellectual history), and Hallucinations (a book-length meditation on, what else, hallucinations). But in 2010, he gave us one more classic in the style that first made him famous, a form he revolutionized and brought into the contemporary literary canon: the medical case study as essay. In The Mind’s Eye , Sacks focuses on vision, expanding the notion to embrace not only how we see the world, but also how we map that world onto our brains when our eyes are closed and we’re communing with the deeper recesses of consciousness. Relaying histories of patients and public figures, as well as his own history of ocular cancer (the condition that would eventually spread and contribute to his death), Sacks uses vision as a lens through which to see all of what makes us human, what binds us together, and what keeps us painfully apart. The essays that make up this collection are quintessential Sacks: sensitive, searching, with an expertise that conveys scientific information and experimentation in terms we can not only comprehend, but which also expand how we see life carrying on around us. The case studies of “Stereo Sue,” of the concert pianist Lillian Kalir, and of Howard, the mystery novelist who can no longer read, are highlights of the collection, but each essay is a kind of gem, mined and polished by one of the great storytellers of our era.  –Dwyer Murphy, CrimeReads Managing Editor

John Jeremiah Sullivan, Pulphead (2011)

The American essay was having a moment at the beginning of the decade, and Pulphead was smack in the middle. Without any hard data, I can tell you that this collection of John Jeremiah Sullivan’s magazine features—published primarily in GQ , but also in The Paris Review , and Harper’s —was the only full book of essays most of my literary friends had read since Slouching Towards Bethlehem , and probably one of the only full books of essays they had even heard of.

Well, we all picked a good one. Every essay in Pulphead is brilliant and entertaining, and illuminates some small corner of the American experience—even if it’s just one house, with Sullivan and an aging writer inside (“Mr. Lytle” is in fact a standout in a collection with no filler; fittingly, it won a National Magazine Award and a Pushcart Prize). But what are they about? Oh, Axl Rose, Christian Rock festivals, living around the filming of One Tree Hill , the Tea Party movement, Michael Jackson, Bunny Wailer, the influence of animals, and by god, the Miz (of Real World/Road Rules Challenge fame).

But as Dan Kois has pointed out , what connects these essays, apart from their general tone and excellence, is “their author’s essential curiosity about the world, his eye for the perfect detail, and his great good humor in revealing both his subjects’ and his own foibles.” They are also extremely well written, drawing much from fictional techniques and sentence craft, their literary pleasures so acute and remarkable that James Wood began his review of the collection in The New Yorker with a quiz: “Are the following sentences the beginnings of essays or of short stories?” (It was not a hard quiz, considering the context.)

It’s hard not to feel, reading this collection, like someone reached into your brain, took out the half-baked stuff you talk about with your friends, researched it, lived it, and represented it to you smarter and better and more thoroughly than you ever could. So read it in awe if you must, but read it.  –Emily Temple, Senior Editor

Aleksandar Hemon, The Book of My Lives (2013)

Such is the sentence-level virtuosity of Aleksandar Hemon—the Bosnian-American writer, essayist, and critic—that throughout his career he has frequently been compared to the granddaddy of borrowed language prose stylists: Vladimir Nabokov. While it is, of course, objectively remarkable that anyone could write so beautifully in a language they learned in their twenties, what I admire most about Hemon’s work is the way in which he infuses every essay and story and novel with both a deep humanity and a controlled (but never subdued) fury. He can also be damn funny. Hemon grew up in Sarajevo and left in 1992 to study in Chicago, where he almost immediately found himself stranded, forced to watch from afar as his beloved home city was subjected to a relentless four-year bombardment, the longest siege of a capital in the history of modern warfare. This extraordinary memoir-in-essays is many things: it’s a love letter to both the family that raised him and the family he built in exile; it’s a rich, joyous, and complex portrait of a place the 90s made synonymous with war and devastation; and it’s an elegy for the wrenching loss of precious things. There’s an essay about coming of age in Sarajevo and another about why he can’t bring himself to leave Chicago. There are stories about relationships forged and maintained on the soccer pitch or over the chessboard, and stories about neighbors and mentors turned monstrous by ethnic prejudice. As a chorus they sing with insight, wry humor, and unimaginable sorrow. I am not exaggerating when I say that the collection’s devastating final piece, “The Aquarium”—which details his infant daughter’s brain tumor and the agonizing months which led up to her death—remains the most painful essay I have ever read.  –Dan Sheehan, Book Marks Editor

Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass (2013)

Of every essay in my relentlessly earmarked copy of Braiding Sweetgrass , Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer’s gorgeously rendered argument for why and how we should keep going, there’s one that especially hits home: her account of professor-turned-forester Franz Dolp. When Dolp, several decades ago, revisited the farm that he had once shared with his ex-wife, he found a scene of destruction: The farm’s new owners had razed the land where he had tried to build a life. “I sat among the stumps and the swirling red dust and I cried,” he wrote in his journal.

So many in my generation (and younger) feel this kind of helplessness–and considerable rage–at finding ourselves newly adult in a world where those in power seem determined to abandon or destroy everything that human bodies have always needed to survive: air, water, land. Asking any single book to speak to this helplessness feels unfair, somehow; yet, Braiding Sweetgrass does, by weaving descriptions of indigenous tradition with the environmental sciences in order to show what survival has looked like over the course of many millennia. Kimmerer’s essays describe her personal experience as a Potawotami woman, plant ecologist, and teacher alongside stories of the many ways that humans have lived in relationship to other species. Whether describing Dolp’s work–he left the stumps for a life of forest restoration on the Oregon coast–or the work of others in maple sugar harvesting, creating black ash baskets, or planting a Three Sisters garden of corn, beans, and squash, she brings hope. “In ripe ears and swelling fruit, they counsel us that all gifts are multiplied in relationship,” she writes of the Three Sisters, which all sustain one another as they grow. “This is how the world keeps going.”  –Corinne Segal, Senior Editor

Hilton Als, White Girls (2013)

In a world where we are so often reduced to one essential self, Hilton Als’ breathtaking book of critical essays, White Girls , which meditates on the ways he and other subjects read, project and absorb parts of white femininity, is a radically liberating book. It’s one of the only works of critical thinking that doesn’t ask the reader, its author or anyone he writes about to stoop before the doorframe of complete legibility before entering. Something he also permitted the subjects and readers of his first book, the glorious book-length essay, The Women , a series of riffs and psychological portraits of Dorothy Dean, Owen Dodson, and the author’s own mother, among others. One of the shifts of that book, uncommon at the time, was how it acknowledges the way we inhabit bodies made up of variously gendered influences. To read White Girls now is to experience the utter freedom of this gift and to marvel at Als’ tremendous versatility and intelligence.

He is easily the most diversely talented American critic alive. He can write into genres like pop music and film where being part of an audience is a fantasy happening in the dark. He’s also wired enough to know how the art world builds reputations on the nod of rich white patrons, a significant collision in a time when Jean-Michel Basquiat is America’s most expensive modern artist. Als’ swerving and always moving grip on performance means he’s especially good on describing the effect of art which is volatile and unstable and built on the mingling of made-up concepts and the hard fact of their effect on behavior, such as race. Writing on Flannery O’Connor for instance he alone puts a finger on her “uneasy and unavoidable union between black and white, the sacred and the profane, the shit and the stars.” From Eminem to Richard Pryor, André Leon Talley to Michael Jackson, Als enters the life and work of numerous artists here who turn the fascinations of race and with whiteness into fury and song and describes the complexity of their beauty like his life depended upon it. There are also brief memoirs here that will stop your heart. This is an essential work to understanding American culture.  –John Freeman, Executive Editor

Eula Biss, On Immunity (2014)

We move through the world as if we can protect ourselves from its myriad dangers, exercising what little agency we have in an effort to keep at bay those fears that gather at the edges of any given life: of loss, illness, disaster, death. It is these fears—amplified by the birth of her first child—that Eula Biss confronts in her essential 2014 essay collection, On Immunity . As any great essayist does, Biss moves outward in concentric circles from her own very private view of the world to reveal wider truths, discovering as she does a culture consumed by anxiety at the pervasive toxicity of contemporary life. As Biss interrogates this culture—of privilege, of whiteness—she interrogates herself, questioning the flimsy ways in which we arm ourselves with science or superstition against the impurities of daily existence.

Five years on from its publication, it is dismaying that On Immunity feels as urgent (and necessary) a defense of basic science as ever. Vaccination, we learn, is derived from vacca —for cow—after the 17th-century discovery that a small application of cowpox was often enough to inoculate against the scourge of smallpox, an etymological digression that belies modern conspiratorial fears of Big Pharma and its vaccination agenda. But Biss never scolds or belittles the fears of others, and in her generosity and openness pulls off a neat (and important) trick: insofar as we are of the very world we fear, she seems to be suggesting, we ourselves are impure, have always been so, permeable, vulnerable, yet so much stronger than we think.  –Jonny Diamond, Editor-in-Chief 

Rebecca Solnit, The Mother of All Questions (2016)

When Rebecca Solnit’s essay, “Men Explain Things to Me,” was published in 2008, it quickly became a cultural phenomenon unlike almost any other in recent memory, assigning language to a behavior that almost every woman has witnessed—mansplaining—and, in the course of identifying that behavior, spurring a movement, online and offline, to share the ways in which patriarchal arrogance has intersected all our lives. (It would also come to be the titular essay in her collection published in 2014.) The Mother of All Questions follows up on that work and takes it further in order to examine the nature of self-expression—who is afforded it and denied it, what institutions have been put in place to limit it, and what happens when it is employed by women. Solnit has a singular gift for describing and decoding the misogynistic dynamics that govern the world so universally that they can seem invisible and the gendered violence that is so common as to seem unremarkable; this naming is powerful, and it opens space for sharing the stories that shape our lives.

The Mother of All Questions, comprised of essays written between 2014 and 2016, in many ways armed us with some of the tools necessary to survive the gaslighting of the Trump years, in which many of us—and especially women—have continued to hear from those in power that the things we see and hear do not exist and never existed. Solnit also acknowledges that labels like “woman,” and other gendered labels, are identities that are fluid in reality; in reviewing the book for The New Yorker , Moira Donegan suggested that, “One useful working definition of a woman might be ‘someone who experiences misogyny.'” Whichever words we use, Solnit writes in the introduction to the book that “when words break through unspeakability, what was tolerated by a society sometimes becomes intolerable.” This storytelling work has always been vital; it continues to be vital, and in this book, it is brilliantly done.  –Corinne Segal, Senior Editor

Valeria Luiselli, Tell Me How It Ends (2017)

The newly minted MacArthur fellow Valeria Luiselli’s four-part (but really six-part) essay  Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions  was inspired by her time spent volunteering at the federal immigration court in New York City, working as an interpreter for undocumented, unaccompanied migrant children who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border. Written concurrently with her novel  Lost Children Archive  (a fictional exploration of the same topic), Luiselli’s essay offers a fascinating conceit, the fashioning of an argument from the questions on the government intake form given to these children to process their arrivals. (Aside from the fact that this essay is a heartbreaking masterpiece, this is such a  good  conceit—transforming a cold, reproducible administrative document into highly personal literature.) Luiselli interweaves a grounded discussion of the questionnaire with a narrative of the road trip Luiselli takes with her husband and family, across America, while they (both Mexican citizens) wait for their own Green Card applications to be processed. It is on this trip when Luiselli reflects on the thousands of migrant children mysteriously traveling across the border by themselves. But the real point of the essay is to actually delve into the real stories of some of these children, which are agonizing, as well as to gravely, clearly expose what literally happens, procedural, when they do arrive—from forms to courts, as they’re swallowed by a bureaucratic vortex. Amid all of this, Luiselli also takes on more, exploring the larger contextual relationship between the United States of America and Mexico (as well as other countries in Central America, more broadly) as it has evolved to our current, adverse moment.  Tell Me How It Ends  is so small, but it is so passionate and vigorous: it desperately accomplishes in its less-than-100-pages-of-prose what centuries and miles and endless records of federal bureaucracy have never been able, and have never cared, to do: reverse the dehumanization of Latin American immigrants that occurs once they set foot in this country.  –Olivia Rutigliano, CrimeReads Editorial Fellow

Zadie Smith, Feel Free (2018)

In the essay “Meet Justin Bieber!” in Feel Free , Zadie Smith writes that her interest in Justin Bieber is not an interest in the interiority of the singer himself, but in “the idea of the love object”. This essay—in which Smith imagines a meeting between Bieber and the late philosopher Martin Buber (“Bieber and Buber are alternative spellings of the same German surname,” she explains in one of many winning footnotes. “Who am I to ignore these hints from the universe?”). Smith allows that this premise is a bit premise -y: “I know, I know.” Still, the resulting essay is a very funny, very smart, and un-tricky exploration of individuality and true “meeting,” with a dash of late capitalism thrown in for good measure. The melding of high and low culture is the bread and butter of pretty much every prestige publication on the internet these days (and certainly of the Twitter feeds of all “public intellectuals”), but the essays in Smith’s collection don’t feel familiar—perhaps because hers is, as we’ve long known, an uncommon skill. Though I believe Smith could probably write compellingly about anything, she chooses her subjects wisely. She writes with as much electricity about Brexit as the aforementioned Beliebers—and each essay is utterly engrossing. “She contains multitudes, but her point is we all do,” writes Hermione Hoby in her review of the collection in The New Republic . “At the same time, we are, in our endless difference, nobody but ourselves.”  –Jessie Gaynor, Social Media Editor

Tressie McMillan Cottom, Thick: And Other Essays (2019)

Tressie McMillan Cottom is an academic who has transcended the ivory tower to become the sort of public intellectual who can easily appear on radio or television talk shows to discuss race, gender, and capitalism. Her collection of essays reflects this duality, blending scholarly work with memoir to create a collection on the black female experience in postmodern America that’s “intersectional analysis with a side of pop culture.” The essays range from an analysis of sexual violence, to populist politics, to social media, but in centering her own experiences throughout, the collection becomes something unlike other pieces of criticism of contemporary culture. In explaining the title, she reflects on what an editor had said about her work: “I was too readable to be academic, too deep to be popular, too country black to be literary, and too naïve to show the rigor of my thinking in the complexity of my prose. I had wanted to create something meaningful that sounded not only like me, but like all of me. It was too thick.” One of the most powerful essays in the book is “Dying to be Competent” which begins with her unpacking the idiocy of LinkedIn (and the myth of meritocracy) and ends with a description of her miscarriage, the mishandling of black woman’s pain, and a condemnation of healthcare bureaucracy. A finalist for the 2019 National Book Award for Nonfiction, Thick confirms McMillan Cottom as one of our most fearless public intellectuals and one of the most vital.  –Emily Firetog, Deputy Editor

Dissenting Opinions

The following books were just barely nudged out of the top ten, but we (or at least one of us) couldn’t let them pass without comment.

Elif Batuman, The Possessed (2010)

In The Possessed Elif Batuman indulges her love of Russian literature and the result is hilarious and remarkable. Each essay of the collection chronicles some adventure or other that she had while in graduate school for Comparative Literature and each is more unpredictable than the next. There’s the time a “well-known 20th-centuryist” gave a graduate student the finger; and the time when Batuman ended up living in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, for a summer; and the time that she convinced herself Tolstoy was murdered and spent the length of the Tolstoy Conference in Yasnaya Polyana considering clues and motives. Rich in historic detail about Russian authors and literature and thoughtfully constructed, each essay is an amalgam of critical analysis, cultural criticism, and serious contemplation of big ideas like that of identity, intellectual legacy, and authorship. With wit and a serpentine-like shape to her narratives, Batuman adopts a form reminiscent of a Socratic discourse, setting up questions at the beginning of her essays and then following digressions that more or less entreat the reader to synthesize the answer for herself. The digressions are always amusing and arguably the backbone of the collection, relaying absurd anecdotes with foreign scholars or awkward, surreal encounters with Eastern European strangers. Central also to the collection are Batuman’s intellectual asides where she entertains a theory—like the “problem of the person”: the inability to ever wholly capture one’s character—that ultimately layer the book’s themes. “You are certainly my most entertaining student,” a professor said to Batuman. But she is also curious and enthusiastic and reflective and so knowledgeable that she might even convince you (she has me!) that you too love Russian literature as much as she does. –Eleni Theodoropoulos, Editorial Fellow

Roxane Gay, Bad Feminist (2014)

Roxane Gay’s now-classic essay collection is a book that will make you laugh, think, cry, and then wonder, how can cultural criticism be this fun? My favorite essays in the book include Gay’s musings on competitive Scrabble, her stranded-in-academia dispatches, and her joyous film and television criticism, but given the breadth of topics Roxane Gay can discuss in an entertaining manner, there’s something for everyone in this one. This book is accessible because feminism itself should be accessible – Roxane Gay is as likely to draw inspiration from YA novels, or middle-brow shows about friendship, as she is to introduce concepts from the academic world, and if there’s anyone I trust to bridge the gap between high culture, low culture, and pop culture, it’s the Goddess of Twitter. I used to host a book club dedicated to radical reads, and this was one of the first picks for the club; a week after the book club met, I spied a few of the attendees meeting in the café of the bookstore, and found out that they had bonded so much over discussing  Bad Feminist  that they couldn’t wait for the next meeting of the book club to keep discussing politics and intersectionality, and that, in a nutshell, is the power of Roxane. –Molly Odintz, CrimeReads Associate Editor

Rivka Galchen, Little Labors (2016)

Generally, I find stories about the trials and tribulations of child-having to be of limited appeal—useful, maybe, insofar as they offer validation that other people have also endured the bizarre realities of living with a tiny human, but otherwise liable to drift into the musings of parents thrilled at the simple fact of their own fecundity, as if they were the first ones to figure the process out (or not). But Little Labors is not simply an essay collection about motherhood, perhaps because Galchen initially “didn’t want to write about” her new baby—mostly, she writes, “because I had never been interested in babies, or mothers; in fact, those subjects had seemed perfectly not interesting to me.” Like many new mothers, though, Galchen soon discovered her baby—which she refers to sometimes as “the puma”—to be a preoccupying thought, demanding to be written about. Galchen’s interest isn’t just in her own progeny, but in babies in literature (“Literature has more dogs than babies, and also more abortions”), The Pillow Book , the eleventh-century collection of musings by Sei Shōnagon, and writers who are mothers. There are sections that made me laugh out loud, like when Galchen continually finds herself in an elevator with a neighbor who never fails to remark on the puma’s size. There are also deeper, darker musings, like the realization that the baby means “that it’s not permissible to die. There are days when this does not feel good.” It is a slim collection that I happened to read at the perfect time, and it remains one of my favorites of the decade. –Emily Firetog, Deputy Editor

Charlie Fox, This Young Monster (2017)

On social media as in his writing, British art critic Charlie Fox rejects lucidity for allusion and doesn’t quite answer the Twitter textbox’s persistent question: “What’s happening?” These days, it’s hard to tell.  This Young Monster  (2017), Fox’s first book,was published a few months after Donald Trump’s election, and at one point Fox takes a swipe at a man he judges “direct from a nightmare and just a repulsive fucking goon.” Fox doesn’t linger on politics, though, since most of the monsters he looks at “embody otherness and make it into art, ripping any conventional idea of beauty to shreds and replacing it with something weird and troubling of their own invention.”

If clichés are loathed because they conform to what philosopher Georges Bataille called “the common measure,” then monsters are rebellious non-sequiturs, comedic or horrific derailments from a classical ideal. Perverts in the most literal sense, monsters have gone astray from some “proper” course. The book’s nine chapters, which are about a specific monster or type of monster, are full of callbacks to familiar and lesser-known media. Fox cites visual art, film, songs, and books with the screwy buoyancy of a savant. Take one of his essays, “Spook House,” framed as a stage play with two principal characters, Klaus (“an intoxicated young skinhead vampire”) and Hermione (“a teen sorceress with green skin and jet-black hair” who looks more like The Wicked Witch than her namesake). The chorus is a troupe of trick-or-treaters. Using the filmmaker Cameron Jamie as a starting point, the rest is free association on gothic decadence and Detroit and L.A. as cities of the dead. All the while, Klaus quotes from  Artforum ,  Dazed & Confused , and  Time Out. It’s a technical feat that makes fictionalized dialogue a conveyor belt for cultural criticism.

In Fox’s imagination, David Bowie and the Hydra coexist alongside Peter Pan, Dennis Hopper, and the maenads. Fox’s book reaches for the monster’s mask, not really to peel it off but to feel and smell the rubber schnoz, to know how it’s made before making sure it’s still snugly set. With a stylistic blend of arthouse suavity and B-movie chic,  This Young Monster considers how monsters in culture are made. Aren’t the scariest things made in post-production? Isn’t the creature just duplicity, like a looping choir or a dubbed scream? –Aaron Robertson, Assistant Editor

Elena Passarello, Animals Strike Curious Poses (2017)

Elena Passarello’s collection of essays Animals Strike Curious Poses picks out infamous animals and grants them the voice, narrative, and history they deserve. Not only is a collection like this relevant during the sixth extinction but it is an ambitious historical and anthropological undertaking, which Passarello has tackled with thorough research and a playful tone that rather than compromise her subject, complicates and humanizes it. Passarello’s intention is to investigate the role of animals across the span of human civilization and in doing so, to construct a timeline of humanity as told through people’s interactions with said animals. “Of all the images that make our world, animal images are particularly buried inside us,” Passarello writes in her first essay, to introduce us to the object of the book and also to the oldest of her chosen characters: Yuka, a 39,000-year-old mummified woolly mammoth discovered in the Siberian permafrost in 2010. It was an occasion so remarkable and so unfathomable given the span of human civilization that Passarello says of Yuka: “Since language is epically younger than both thought and experience, ‘woolly mammoth’ means, to a human brain, something more like time.” The essay ends with a character placing a hand on a cave drawing of a woolly mammoth, accompanied by a phrase which encapsulates the author’s vision for the book: “And he becomes the mammoth so he can envision the mammoth.” In Passarello’s hands the imagined boundaries between the animal, natural, and human world disintegrate and what emerges is a cohesive if baffling integrated history of life. With the accuracy and tenacity of a journalist and the spirit of a storyteller, Elena Passarello has assembled a modern bestiary worthy of contemplation and awe. –Eleni Theodoropoulos, Editorial Fellow

Esmé Weijun Wang, The Collected Schizophrenias (2019)

Esmé Weijun Wang’s collection of essays is a kaleidoscopic look at mental health and the lives affected by the schizophrenias. Each essay takes on a different aspect of the topic, but you’ll want to read them together for a holistic perspective. Esmé Weijun Wang generously begins The Collected Schizophrenias by acknowledging the stereotype, “Schizophrenia terrifies. It is the archetypal disorder of lunacy.” From there, she walks us through the technical language, breaks down the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual ( DSM-5 )’s clinical definition. And then she gets very personal, telling us about how she came to her own diagnosis and the way it’s touched her daily life (her relationships, her ideas about motherhood). Esmé Weijun Wang is uniquely situated to write about this topic. As a former lab researcher at Stanford, she turns a precise, analytical eye to her experience while simultaneously unfolding everything with great patience for her reader. Throughout, she brilliantly dissects the language around mental health. (On saying “a person living with bipolar disorder” instead of using “bipolar” as the sole subject: “…we are not our diseases. We are instead individuals with disorders and malfunctions. Our conditions lie over us like smallpox blankets; we are one thing and the illness is another.”) She pinpoints the ways she arms herself against anticipated reactions to the schizophrenias: high fashion, having attended an Ivy League institution. In a particularly piercing essay, she traces mental illness back through her family tree. She also places her story within more mainstream cultural contexts, calling on groundbreaking exposés about the dangerous of institutionalization and depictions of mental illness in television and film (like the infamous Slender Man case, in which two young girls stab their best friend because an invented Internet figure told them to). At once intimate and far-reaching, The Collected Schizophrenias is an informative and important (and let’s not forget artful) work. I’ve never read a collection quite so beautifully-written and laid-bare as this. –Katie Yee, Book Marks Assistant Editor

Ross Gay, The Book of Delights (2019)

When Ross Gay began writing what would become The Book of Delights, he envisioned it as a project of daily essays, each focused on a moment or point of delight in his day. This plan quickly disintegrated; on day four, he skipped his self-imposed assignment and decided to “in honor and love, delight in blowing it off.” (Clearly, “blowing it off” is a relative term here, as he still produced the book.) Ross Gay is a generous teacher of how to live, and this moment of reveling in self-compassion is one lesson among many in The Book of Delights , which wanders from moments of connection with strangers to a shade of “red I don’t think I actually have words for,” a text from a friend reading “I love you breadfruit,” and “the sun like a guiding hand on my back, saying everything is possible. Everything .”

Gay does not linger on any one subject for long, creating the sense that delight is a product not of extenuating circumstances, but of our attention; his attunement to the possibilities of a single day, and awareness of all the small moments that produce delight, are a model for life amid the warring factions of the attention economy. These small moments range from the physical–hugging a stranger, transplanting fig cuttings–to the spiritual and philosophical, giving the impression of sitting beside Gay in his garden as he thinks out loud in real time. It’s a privilege to listen. –Corinne Segal, Senior Editor

Honorable Mentions

A selection of other books that we seriously considered for both lists—just to be extra about it (and because decisions are hard).

Terry Castle, The Professor and Other Writings (2010) · Joyce Carol Oates, In Rough Country (2010) · Geoff Dyer, Otherwise Known as the Human Condition (2011) · Christopher Hitchens, Arguably (2011) ·  Roberto Bolaño, tr. Natasha Wimmer, Between Parentheses (2011) · Dubravka Ugresic, tr. David Williams, Karaoke Culture (2011) · Tom Bissell, Magic Hours (2012)  · Kevin Young, The Grey Album (2012) · William H. Gass, Life Sentences: Literary Judgments and Accounts (2012) · Mary Ruefle, Madness, Rack, and Honey (2012) · Herta Müller, tr. Geoffrey Mulligan, Cristina and Her Double (2013) · Leslie Jamison, The Empathy Exams (2014)  · Meghan Daum, The Unspeakable (2014)  · Daphne Merkin, The Fame Lunches (2014)  · Charles D’Ambrosio, Loitering (2015) · Wendy Walters, Multiply/Divide (2015) · Colm Tóibín, On Elizabeth Bishop (2015) ·  Renee Gladman, Calamities (2016)  · Jesmyn Ward, ed. The Fire This Time (2016)  · Lindy West, Shrill (2016)  · Mary Oliver, Upstream (2016)  · Emily Witt, Future Sex (2016)  · Olivia Laing, The Lonely City (2016)  · Mark Greif, Against Everything (2016)  · Durga Chew-Bose, Too Much and Not the Mood (2017)  · Sarah Gerard, Sunshine State (2017)  · Jim Harrison, A Really Big Lunch (2017)  · J.M. Coetzee, Late Essays: 2006-2017 (2017) · Melissa Febos, Abandon Me (2017)  · Louise Glück, American Originality (2017)  · Joan Didion, South and West (2017)  · Tom McCarthy, Typewriters, Bombs, Jellyfish (2017)  · Hanif Abdurraqib, They Can’t Kill Us Until they Kill Us (2017)  · Ta-Nehisi Coates, We Were Eight Years in Power (2017)  ·  Samantha Irby, We Are Never Meeting in Real Life (2017)  · Alexander Chee, How to Write an Autobiographical Novel (2018)  · Alice Bolin, Dead Girls (2018)  · Marilynne Robinson, What Are We Doing Here? (2018)  · Lorrie Moore, See What Can Be Done (2018)  · Maggie O’Farrell, I Am I Am I Am (2018)  · Ijeoma Oluo, So You Want to Talk About Race (2018)  · Rachel Cusk, Coventry (2019)  · Jia Tolentino, Trick Mirror (2019)  · Emily Bernard, Black is the Body (2019)  · Toni Morrison, The Source of Self-Regard (2019)  · Margaret Renkl, Late Migrations (2019)  ·  Rachel Munroe, Savage Appetites (2019)  · Robert A. Caro,  Working  (2019) · Arundhati Roy, My Seditious Heart (2019).

Emily Temple

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Picturebooks and Young Children: Potential, Power, and Practices

• Published: 14 June 2024

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• Patricia A. Crawford   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-7189-4035 1 ,
• Sherron Killingsworth Roberts   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1340-4333 2 &
• Jan Lacina   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-7455-014X 3  

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Picturebooks play a vital role in the lives and learning of young children. These complex, multimodal texts offer unique opportunities for meaning-making as readers engage with the interplay between text and illustrations. Picturebooks offer children stepping stones into the literary arts, providing information and storylines that illuminate readers’ perspectives about their own lives as well as offering opportunities to glimpse the lives of others. This article provides an overview of current perspectives of picturebooks, focusing on their potential (i.e., the unique qualities this literary format offers young readers), their power (i.e., the invitations these books provide for supporting readers’ authentic literary transactions and affective responses), and associated practices (i.e., the ways in which these texts can be used as instructional tools to support learning both within and beyond the curriculum). Through picturebooks, caring adults can nurture children’s reading and responses in supportive, developmentally appropriate, and impactful ways.

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Crawford, P.A., Roberts, S.K. & Lacina, J. Picturebooks and Young Children: Potential, Power, and Practices. Early Childhood Educ J (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-024-01701-0

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Former third grade teacher turned mother of two, sharing book recommendations and literacy tips

20+ Terrific Thankfulness and Gratitude Picture Books

If you’ve been following along on our Family Focus Traits adventure in 2020 , you might have been able to guess that thankfulness and gratitude would be our chosen traits for November… While we assigned some traits to their months randomly (like honesty in May ), and some because our girls needed them at that moment ( teamwork and cooperation in March ), others connected to themes we might already be talking about in a given month (such as growth mindset in January or compassion and empathy in February ). While we want our girls to practice and develop attitudes of thankfulness and gratitude year-round (in fact, I wrote a post about this last November !), these traits fit perfectly in with conversations our family would already be having throughout Thanksgiving month. If you want to join us, check out the booklist below of more than 20 terrific picture books to help foster an attitude of gratitude!

But first, why thankfulness and gratitude? Well, first and foremost, we want our children to look around and be grateful for what they have. We want them to feel a sense of thankfulness for the good in their lives, for their families, and for their friends. We want them to understand the value of giving over receiving; of quality time, experiences, and attitudes over “stuff;” and of the good they already have in their lives over the rest of the junk out there. We want this for many, many reasons, but a big one is that research finds that giving thanks can, indeed, make you happier ! As researchers at Harvard Medical School found,

“Gratitude helps people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve their health, deal with adversity, and build strong relationships.” “Giving Thanks Can Make You Happier,” Harvard Health Publishing Healthbeat

And as it turns out, as with most traits we hope to foster in our children, intentional conversations and family activities around thankfulness and gratitude can have a big impact on our children’s attitudes! In fact, research shows that in families that have some sort of daily conversation or action around gratitude, children display more gratitude ! We all know that simply telling our children to be thankful for what they have gets us, well, nowhere. But if we can demonstrate true gratitude and reflect on what we’re thankful for regularly, our children are more likely to do so, too !

We’ve got some great ideas in the works for how every member of our family will work to cultivate these thankful and gracious attitudes throughout November (right now, we’re thinking of regular practices in listing things we’re grateful for and writing thank you notes, as well as the traditional “thankful” tree that I’m sure many of you have seen before). And, of course, we’ll dig deep into children’s literature for inspiration! I searched long and hard for the best picture books to foster conversations about thankfulness and gratitude. The books we loved are listed below. As always, most age ranges listed are publishers’ recommendations. Always remember that you know your child best!

20+ Terrific Thankfulness and Gratitude Picture Books

*** Affiliate links used. As an affiliate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for considering making a purchase through my links! To read my full disclosure CLICK HERE .

Spoon by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, illustrated by Scott Magoon — A long-time favorite of mine since my classroom days, Spoon is a delightful reminder to be grateful for who you are and what opportunities you have. Jealous of the adventures Spoon believes his friends fork, knife, and chopsticks all get to have, Spoon doesn’t realizes his friends feel the exact same way about him! A wise reminder from his mom sets him straight and grounds him in gratitude. Ages 2-6.

The Thank You Book  by Mary Lyn Ray, illustrated by Stephanie Graegin — Stephanie Graegin has shown up a lot in my recommendations (see  Super Manny Stands Up  and  The Heartwood Hotel ), and her illustrations here are just as delightful as Ray’s reminders of all we have to say “thank you” for. You’ll love snuggling with your little (or not so little) ones and thinking of all you can be thankful for, too! Ages 2-8.

My Heart Fills with Happiness   by Monique Gray Smith, illustrated by Julie Flett — Opening with “My heart fills with happiness when…”, readers are reminded that sometimes the most simple things in life are teh ones that fill our hearts with happiness. Beautifully illustrated and gently written, Smith and Flett have done an amazing job helping children find their commonalities with other children from different cultures, as their descriptions of what makes the child’s heart full with happiness are pretty universal. Ages 3-5.

Last Stop on Market Street by Matt De La Peña, illustrated Christian Robinson — When a book wins not one, not two, but three awards, you know it’s going to be something special… And Last Stop on Market Street is indeed incredibly special. Winner of a Newbery Medal (highly unusual for a picture book), a Caldecott Honor Medal, and a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor, this story reminds us directly, but not didactically, to be “a better witness for what’s beautiful.” CJ and his Nana are making a trek across town, and all along he expresses his jealousy for what everyone else around him seems to have. And every single time, Nana reminds him that he’s already got perfect versions of these things of his own. So powerful and incredibly well done! Ages 3-5, but perfect older, too.

Apple Cake: A Gratitude  by Dawn Casey, illustrated by Genevieve Godbout — This super simple narrative comes to life through Godbout’s warm illustrations. The main character, we learn, is gathering ingredients to make cake, but along the way she stops to say “thank you” to everyone and everything that helps these ingredients to be. Yes, saying thank you to apple cake ingredients may not be a part of your gratitude practice, but maybe you can find a way to instill this practice into your family’s life, being sure to say thank you for all of the food you’re able to eat every day. And, Casey includes a recipe for apple cake at the end, so if you’re looking to diversify your Thanksgiving desserts, be sure to check that out! Ages 3-5.

It Could Always Be Worse by Margot Zemach — A Yiddish folktake retold and illustrated by Zemach, this one will have you laughing through it, but pausing thoughtfully at the end as the Rabbi’s message sinks in. A “poor unfortunate man” lives in a one-room hut in a small village, with his mother, his wife, and his 6(!) children! Life is hard, and the hut is crowded, noisy, and full of fighting. When he can’t take it any more, the man runs to the local Rabbi for help… And to his bewilderment, the Rabbi has him bring his animals in the hut also, one by one… Until one day, the Rabbi’s advice changes, and the man is able to see the true pleasures in his life. Ages 3-6.

You Hold Me Up   by Monique Gray Smith, illustrated by Danielle Daniel — This book stands out from the others on this list in that “thank you” or “thankful” or “thanks” aren’t mentioned anywhere in the story. However, I think this is a powerful reminder of being grateful for all that our loved ones, whether friends or family, do for us. Ages 3-7.

We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga by Traci Sorell, illustrated by Frané Lessac — A wonderful own voices book that teaches readers how the members of the Cherokee Nation express and celebrate gratitude year-round. Focusing on the Cherokee word used to express gratitude, ostaliheliga, we walk with the Cherokee people through the year, as they express their gratitude each season, celebrating their blessings but also reflecting on their struggles. Sorell also provides readers with Cherokee vocabulary, meanings, and pronunciation, as well as an Author’s Note and information about the Cherokee syllabary, created by Sequoyah in the early 1800s. Ages 3-7.

The THANKFUL Book  by Todd Parr — Using his traditional brightly-colored illustrations, Parr depicts a diverse group of children each thankful for something different. This book gives children wonderful reminders for different things people can be thankful for! (Be aware– my girls’ favorite pages is the one that talks about being thankful for underwear because you can wear it on your head…!). Ages 4-6.

Thankful  by Eileen Spinelli, illustrated by Archie Preston — Spinelli walks children through a day of creativity and play, reminding the reader what many real people (doctors, artists, clowns, queens…) can be thankful for… And ends with a very sweet parent-child moment! Ages 4-7, but a perfect board book for the youngest listeners to share with their parents.

Give Thank You a Try by James Patterson and friends — We love the first in this series, Give Please a Chance , and felt like it really did remind our children of the power and positive impact of the word “please.” So, I was thrilled to check out Give Thank You a Try for this list, and we loved it just as much! Designed as a series of tiny vignettes depicting children saying “thank you” for gifts, quality time, acts of kindness, love, and more, each tiny story has the ability to start deep conversations around the experiences we have and the gratitude we can show for them. Ages 4-7.

Look and Be Grateful  by Tomie dePaola— Short, sweet, and directly to the point, dePaola writes, “For today is today. Be grateful for everything you see… Today is today, and it is a gift.” This one is perfect for the youngest readers, serving as a poignant reminder to be grateful for each and every day. Ages 4-8, but short and simple enough that it’s terrific for the youngest listeners in your family.

Gracias * Thanks   by Pat Mora, illustrated by John Parra — Written fully in both Spanish and English,  Gracias Thanks  shows a young book giving thanks, in an appropriately child-like manner, to so much around him that it’s hard not to catch his attitude of gratitude. I mean, when it comes down to it, we should ALL thank the bees that don’t sting us! Ages 4-8.

A Chair for My Mother by Vera Williams — The main character’s family recently lost their house and all their belongings in a fire. Rather than focus on the toys and books she lost, the main character cares only about saving money to buy her mother a comfortable chair. With support from extended family and neighbors, this family learns all about resilience and begins to rebuild the life they lost. This book is a perfect conversation starter to reflect on what your family really needs to be as family. Ages 4-8.

Where Happiness Lives by Barry Timms, illustrated by Greg Abbott — Timms and Abbott give us a beautiful reminder to look inside our homes to see exactly what makes them so amazing, a reminder many of us might need over these next few weeks. “Whatever your home, it is happy indeed… If you love what you have… and you have what you need.” Written in easy rhythm and rhyme and including engaging cutouts to peek through and flaps to lift,  Where Happiness Lives   just begs to be read snuggled up with your little ones. And, while it’s definitely a book they’ll enjoy,  Where Happiness Lives  is a book that will touch your heart and remind you of what’s truly important —  being surrounded by those that you love and having just what you need. You can read my full review here . Ages 4-8.

Thank You, Omu! by Oge Mora — Another multiple-medal winner, this is a wonderful story of sharing and community (and the collage illustrations are stunning!). Omu (pronounced AH-moo) makes a delicious-smelling stew and shares little by little with grateful neighbors until it’s all gone. You’ll have to read and see how the gratitude her friends and neighbors felt from her generosity comes back to her! Ages 4-8.

The Secret of Saying Thanks by Douglas Wood, illustrated by Greg Shed — One thing I think many of us have realized during this crazy COVID year is how grateful we are for the natural world around us. During a long stretch of time when we couldn’t come together in community with others, if we left our houses, we went to nature. Wood offers a beautiful homage to the natural world, giving thanks for many of the wonders that, prior to COVID, many of us may have taken advantage of. From sunrises to the flight of a bird to sharing a meal with the people we love, I’m not sure Wood and Shed had any idea how powerful these reminders would be when they created this beauty in 2005. Ages 4-8.

Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig — Sylvester and the Magic Pebble  is an endearing story of learning (the very hard way, I might add) that you’ve already got everything you might want or need. First published in 1969, Steig (you may recognize his name from some of his other works, such as  Amos and Boris ,  Doctor De Soto ,  Brave Irene ,  and even  Shrek !), introduces us to Sylvester, a happy donkey who lives with his mother and father and loves to collect rocks (that’s my almost-four-year-old’s rock collection surrounding my childhood copy of this)… That is, until one fateful date when he finds a magic pebble and has a close encounter with a lion, all in the same day! I won’t give the whole story away, but you’ll encounter laughter, tears, changing seasons, and alfalfa sandwiches on the way to the resolution. Steig leaves his readers with a very direct and sincere message about realizing that maybe all you really need is what you already have. You can read my full review here . Ages 4-8.

Bear Says Thanks by Karma Wilson, illustrated by Jane Chapman — We absolutely love  Karma Wilson’s  Bear  series . In Bear Says Thanks , the friends do gather together for a feast and express their gratitude for each other and the gifts they’ve received. My parents gave it to the girls for Thanksgiving in 2016, and it’ll remain a favorite for years to come. Ages 4-8, but terrific younger, too.

Thanks a Million by Nikki Grimes, illustrated by Cozbi A. Cabrera — This collection of poetry in a variety of forms reminds the reader how good it can feel to say thanks, to be told thank you, and to feel thankful for something. Cabrera’s bright, bold illustrations tug at our hears while we read heartfelt words and acts of appreciation and gratitude for a wide variety of things, from the math tutor who helps a child not hate math quite as much, to the dad who makes time to shoot baskets with his son, to the trees that remind us to put our arms up in praise, and everything in between. Ages 4-8.

The Thank You Letter by Jane Cabrera — This one was new to me when I made this list, and I think it quickly became one of my favorites here. In the beginning of the story, we meet Grace, a young girl vigorously making her birthday wishlist. After her (delightfully diverse) birthday party, she eagerly gets to work writing her thank you notes to express her appreciation for all she received. But she doesn’t stop there! Writing thank you notes to her pets, her neighbors, her community members, and even a tree, soon people (and pets and plants) all over town are brimming with Grace’s appreciation. I won’t give away the ending, but all of that thankfulness, appreciation, and love comes back about a hundred-fold! Ages 4-8.

Ten Thank-You Letters by Daniel Kirk — I’m a big believer in hand-written thank-you notes. No, I don’t personally expect to receive them from people, but I do believe that a hand-written note of appreciation makes that thank-you extra special, much more special thank a verbal thanks or a text of gratitude. So, I had to make sure to include a book about writing thank-you letters on my list! Kirk’s  Ten Thank-You Letters  is a perfect addition, as his characters’ thank-yous remind readers that thank-you letters can be written for anything and everything, and that they can often garner more connection than simply saying “thank you.” Ages 5-8.

Those Shoes by Maribeth Boelts, illustrated by Noah Z. Jones — Those Shoes  offers children a lot of learning opportunities, but when Jeremy has an opportunities to almost literally put himself in someone else’s shoes and understand the world through his point of view, your heart will soar. You’ll cheer him along as he makes an incredibly difficult decision. And you’ll rejoice at the new friendship he finds as a result. And most importantly, you’ll remember to be grateful for the gifts that you do have, rather than coveting those that others have. Ages 5-8.

Giving Thanks: A Native American Good Morning Message  by Chief Jake Swamp, illustrated by Erwin Printup, Jr. — A beautiful message of thanks to Mother Earth traditionally said by Iroquois children each morning, wonderful reminders of all that we have to be thankful for in nature every day. According to the Author’s Note, this book is based on the Thanksgiving Address, “an ancient message of peace and appreciation of Mother Earth and all her inhabitants.” The children of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, tribes are taught to begin their days by saying than you to all living things, embracing all of nature around them like they are one big family. Ages 5-11.

The Thank You Book by Mo Willems — The last book in Mo Willems’s Elephant & Piggie series, The Thank You Book is a perfect reminder to always remember all of the good, positive people in our lives. Really, you can’t go wrong with Elephant and Piggie any time, but this one is an especially touching tale, while Piggie tries hard to thank “everyone who is important” to her! Ages 6-8, but absolutely perfect for younger audiences! (In fact, I’m not really sure why that’s the suggested age range here, because I think I’d maybe aim for ages 2-6…).

Giving Thanks: More Than 100 Ways to Say Thank You by Ellen Surrey — Ooh, I adore this one! I think this one is going to inspire many of our family activities around gratitude and thankfulness throughout November, and hopefully for years to come. Surrey opens by introducing us to a boy named Andy, who has been challenged to think of people he wants to thank. As he works his way through the process of thinking of these people and creating a plan to thank them, he includes his readers on his journey. Surrey wraps the book up with instructions on how to create a gratitude jar and how to create thoughtful, unique thank-you cards for all of your friends and family! Ages 6-9.

So, what books or actions you love that inspire your whole family to have “an attitude of gratitude”?

If you liked this list, be sure to check out our other Family Focus Trait booklists: January: Books to Foster Growth Mindsets in Children February: 50+ Books to Help Build Compassion and Empathy March: Fantastic Reads to Build Teamwork and Cooperation Skills April: Books that Model Authentic Apologies and Genuine Forgiveness May: Our Favorite Picture Books About Honesty June: Picture Books to Inspire Wild Creativity July: Books Featuring Courageous Role Models August: Picture Books to Promote Resilience September: Picture Books that Model Including Others October: Picture Books with Characters Who Stand Up to Others

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I am so happy I found this list of books. I think it is so important to find books for the family that teach valuable lessons (kindness, gratitude, self-worth, empathy, etc). A book that 100% needs to be added to a future list is “Mia and Nattie: One Great Team” by author Marlene Bell ( https://www.marlenembell.com ). This book was so wonderfully heartwarming and is actually based on a true story – the author is also a sheep herder! Mia nurses a little lamb back to health at her grandma’s farm and names her Nattie. Nattie has a hard time fitting in with the other lambs because physically she’s different. Mia also has a difficult time with kids her age and she and Nattie form an unbreakable bond. Mia’s grandma wants to sell Nattie to a neighbor and Mia has to come up with a way to show her family just how wonderful and special Nattie is. I have read and reread this book to my kids multiple times just this month alone. Not only is Mia thankful for Nattie as a pet (and a friend) but Nattie is thankful that Mia took care of her and gave her a family! I can’t recommend it enough.

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The 10 best books of 2024 so far, according to BookTok

We're six months in, but where are we at? Join Mashable as we look back at all the viral moments, movies, memes, dating trends, hyped up tech, scientific discoveries, and more that have delighted and amazed us so far in 2024.

In recent years, TikTok has had a remarkably significant impact on book sales, and 2024 is no different.

BookTok has the power to make or break a bestseller, has its eponymous display tables at bookstores, and has turned authors into superstars . There's a constant debate over how to track your reads (Goodreads or Storygraph), whether audiobooks count as reading (they do), and how the most popular book should be cast if adapted into a film. But despite this consistent drama, BookTok stays reading.

Just six months into the year, the TikTok reader community has already crowned their favorite books.

Where Sleeping Girls Lie by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

This novel follows a young woman at a boarding school who begins to discover some dark secrets after her roommate disappears. All the while, she's navigating the friendships and politics of a new school. @ earlgreypls , a BookTok creator with more than 44,500 followers, said in her TikTok review of the book that the novel is a "slower-paced mystery" that is really focused on character development.

"The author did a great job creating the characters in this story, in my opinion," she said in her TikTok review of the book . "My biggest complaint about this book is that I do think it was longer than it needed to be."

Funny Story by Emily Henry 

Romance novelist Emily Henry, the reigning queen of BookTok, managed to keep the community in her grasp with her fifth book released in the last four years. Known for beloved, bookish protagonists and her playful use of tropes, her latest, Funny Story , follows Daphne, whose fiancé leaves her for his childhood best friend. Left stranded by her ex, she moves in with Mike, the woman her fiancé left her for's ex. After a panicked lie, the unlikely pair pretend to date to keep up appearances in a classic fake-dating story.

BookTok is awash with fancasts, incoherent reactions, and reviews. As one BookTokker, @edensarchives, told her nearly 70,000 followers, "This is some of Emily Henry's best work, and I can say that confidently." 

The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo

Leigh Bardugo's most recent book follows a main character in early 1600s Spain who has a small amount of magical ability, which is discovered, forcing her to compete with other people with magical abilities. One BookTok creator with more than 25,000 followers, @ greekchoir , said while the book was "slower paced," Bardugo has a "rich, dark, luscious writing style."

"I was hooked by the beginning. The middle, however, really lost me in its execution," @greekchoir said in a video about the book. "As talented a writer as Leigh Bardugo is, and as much as I liked what she was doing with her prose and her characters and her themes, once you started stripping that away and getting to the actual meat of the story, it's very very tropey." 

But, greekchoir says, "The end of the story redeems it."

The Husbands by Holly Gramazio

A work of speculative fiction about a young woman named Lauren, whose attic generates a never-ending supply of husbands, each reforming her life in different ways, gives readers a lot to laugh about. In a TikTok video, Finnish author and BookTokker Lottie Saahko called it the funniest book she's read in recent years.  

One creator who posts under the handle @geminibookish recommended it to fans of rom-coms and Emily Henry. 

Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors

Blue Sisters depicts three very different sisters as they confront grief and heartbreak following the death of their fourth sister. It's a look at familial love and reconnection. It's a multi-point-of-view novel that goes deep into character development.

"This book was everything I never knew I needed, and it scratched an itch so deep in my brain that I could not put this down," @ samfallingbooks , a creator with more than 51,000 followers, said in a video about the book. "This book shows sisterhood in all of its forms — in all its messiest forms, but also its purest and most beautiful."

Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez

Romance writer Abby Jimenez doesn't just bake up cinnamon roll book boyfriends; she's also a bonafide baker. But that's not why her latest romance novel, Just for the Summer, has the BookTok community talking. In the book, a traveling nurse named Emma agrees to temporarily date the romantically doomed Justin, but as is the case with all stories, things get more complicated as feelings get involved. 

"She just created the best book boyfriend ever," BookTokker @emmalouisebooks raved to her audience of over 45,000. "A million stars for this book."

Perfume and Pain by Anna Dorn

"If you like matching your perfume to your outfit, toxic romantic relationships, and books about writers in the age of social media, then I highly recommend Perfume and Pain by Anna Dorn."

That's how @ glutenfreeangelfoodcake , a TikTok creator who matches books she reads to fragrances, describes Dorn's newest novel in a video with more than 46,600 views . The book follows a writer who is lightly canceled and throws herself into some sexy, sapphic distractions, all in homage to the genre of lesbian pulp.

"This does fall into the genre of a woman making bad choices, blowing things up, choosing the wrong people to date, and missing meetings with her editor, but I do feel like she experiences decent character growth, which doesn't always happen in these novels, and I felt like that was refreshing," @glutenfreeangelfoodcake says.

Wild Love by Elsie Silver 

Elsie Silver's latest features a love story between Rosie and her brother's best friend, Ford. The romance writer's stories are in the same universe, so Ford is the brother of Willa from the Chestnut Springs series. Silver's books are on the spicer end of the romance spectrum, and her TikTok devotees love them. 

"The easiest five stars ever," BookTokker @yannareads told her nearly 230,000 followers.

Housemates by Emma Copley Eisenberg

Dakota Bossard, a creator on TikTok and Instagram, told Mashable earlier this year that Housemates by Emma Copley Eisenberg was a coming-of-age story she was "most excited to read this year." TikTok also showed up to support Eisenberg's newest release. It's a story about two queer housemates in Philly who travel across the U.S. and create an art installation together.

"This book moved me," @ tellthebeees , a BookTok creator with over 80,000 followers, said in a video about the book . "It was so beautiful, it was so lyrical, it was so tender."

Fruit of the Dead by Rachel Lyon

Rachel Lyon's newest release retells the story of Persephone and Demeter, and BookTok was not disappointed. 

"I think this is already my favorite release of 2024, even though it was the first book I read this year," Bossard said in a video about the book . "Perfect for fans of Emma Cline, Raven Leilani, Ottessa Moshfeg, and Megan Nolan."

Topics Books TikTok

Christianna Silva is a Senior Culture Reporter at Mashable. They write about tech and digital culture, with a focus on Facebook and Instagram. Before joining Mashable, they worked as an editor at NPR and MTV News, a reporter at Teen Vogue and VICE News, and as a stablehand at a mini-horse farm. You can follow them on Twitter @christianna_j .

Elena is a tech reporter and the resident Gen Z expert at Mashable. She covers TikTok and digital trends. She recently graduated from UC Berkeley with a BA in American History. Email her at  [email protected]  or follow her  @ecaviar_ .

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From stars of children's books to the best in crime writing: Here's the best UK book festivals in 2024

Our pick of the book festivals to look out for in 2024

Illustration by Lizzie Lomax

Rub shoulders with your favourite authors and support new writing at Britain’s best book festivals.

ESSEX BOOK FESTIVAL  

Until 30 June, Essex 

Rather than hosting at just one venue, the festival hosts more than 100 events spreading over 40 venues all over Essex, from libraries to lightships. Set to headline the month-long event is Dr Sarah Perry, Essex University chancellor, with her highly anticipated new novel Enlightenment . An expected highlight is a parade of 500 flags celebrating hidden gems of the east coast, proceeding from St Leonard-at-the-Hythe church on Hythe Hill to the university campus.  

BARNES CHILDREN’S LITERATURE FESTIVAL  

22-23 June , Barnes, South London 

The UK’s largest kids’ book festival is back with more than 100 events. Over the course of two days children will have the opportunity to engage with The Gruffalo illustrator Axel Scheffler, learn how to write interesting articles from The Week Junior team and listen to Captain Hook tell his side of the story about what really happened with Peter Pan in Neverland.  

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BRADFORD LITERATURE FESTIVAL  

28 June-7 July , Bradford, West Yorkshire

One of the largest literature festivals in the UK, the Bradford Literature Festival considers itself Europe’s most eclectic and diverse. Topics like AI, the climate emergency and global feminism are up for discussion, featuring speakers like Miriam Margolyes, Corinne Bailey Rae and Shaparak Khorsandi. Attendees can enjoy workshops on creative writing, poetry and storytelling from well-respected authors and poets.  

LEDBURY POETRY FESTIVAL   

28 June-7 July , Ledbury, Herefordshire 

Poets from all over the world gather to read, debate and share their poetry with readers, surrounded by orchards and hills. Award-winning poets such as Fleur Adcock, Liz Berry, Imtiaz Dharker, Jackie Kay, Zaffar Kunial and Paul Muldoon will stand alongside upcoming talents in a thrillingly electric mix of events and workshops, music, exhibitions and bike rides. Dig deep into interesting ideas, take in poetry over a pint, craft your own writing style or showcase your skills in the slam. 

PENZANCE LITERARY FESTIVAL  

2-6 July, Penzance, Cornwall

Known for its eclecticism, the five-day event on the most south-westerly tip of the UK will feature farming, football and fairy tales, plus some fabulous folk music. Ann Cleeves, famous for featuring coastal locations for dark deeds, is set to join in to discuss her forthcoming novel The Dark Wives . In addition to hearing from a variety of creatives, attendees can take part in novel writing workshops to hone their skills.  

THE IDLER FESTIVAL   

5-7 July , Fenton House & Garden, Hampstead, North London

Dreaming of beekeeping, foraging, and plenty of time resting under apple trees? You can do it all while attending a dream garden party at 17th century Fenton House. Novelist Zadie Smith, former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and poet Tim Key will be there too, talking and workshopping with attendees.  

NEWARK BOOK FESTIVAL  

11-14 July , Newark, Nottinghamshire 

Exploring the “power of play”, this year, the four-day festival will feature street performances, music and workshops under a myriad of tents set up in Newark’s Royal Market. Newark Town Hall, the Palace Theatre and the National Civil War Centre will host a series of conversations with internationally renowned and local authors.  

PRIMADONNA FESTIVAL

26-28 July , Food Museum, Stowmarket, Suffolk 

Celebrating women, Black and Asian artists, the LGBTQ+ community, disabled and working-class people, the three-day event promises a community of friendship, openness, curiosity, tolerance and fun. It’s the festival for people who don’t think book festivals are ‘for them’. Alongside the planned conversations and interviews with authors, there will be live music, comedy and therapies.    

LLANGWM LITERARY FESTIVAL  

9-11 August , Llangwm, Pembrokeshire

Pembrokeshire’s youngest literary festival boasts a variety of international and local Welsh writers, all set to give talks and lead discussions in a former fishing village on the Cleddau in Llangwm.  While this year’s programme has yet to be announced, previous years have offered everything from crime-writing panels to nature writing workshops, with a village choir performance livening up the evenings.  

EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL  

10-25 August , Edinburgh, Midlothian 

Should events go ahead as planned, 500 events will take place over the festival. Highlights include Richard Osman talking about his new series in a worldwide exclusive interview with Ian Rankin at the festival’s pop-up village and Dolly Alderton chatting about her modern novel, Good Material .

NAIRN BOOK AND ARTS FESTIVAL  

31 August-8 September , Nairn, Highland region

Gaelic language events are sprinkled through this weekend of live music, drama, book chat and dance performances in the seaside town of Nairn. On the outskirts runs a fringe festival with local creative and performance groups. Two family days will include free outdoor activities for adults and children alike.   

BLOODY SCOTLAND  

13-15 September , Stirling 

Don’t be put off by the name – this celebration of crime writing attracts the best authors in the genre. Past guests have included Val McDermid and Sir Ian Rankin. There’s also a pitching event for aspiring authors and a hotly contested quiz.  

MARLBOROUGH LITERATURE FESTIVAL  

26-29 September , Marlborough, Wiltshire 

Set in the picturesque market town of Marlborough, the long weekend offers a chance to immerse in literary arts while meeting fellow book lovers and discovering new perspectives. Sarah Perry, Robert Peston and Martin Sixsmith are the first guests who’ve been announced, with a long list of others to come. 

NORTH CORNWALL BOOK FESTIVAL  

26-29 September , St Endellion, Cornwall 

An intimate event curated by best-selling author Patrick Gale, the festival welcomes attendees to engage with author events, live music, workshops and an art exhibition on and around the ancient St Endellion hamlet. Expect signing sessions with favourite authors and advice surgeries for emerging authors.  

BATH CHILDRENS’ LITERATURE FESTIVAL  

27 September-6 October , Bath, Somerset 

Books and stories will come to life through narrative readings of kids’ favourite plot lines and characters. Workshops in the past have included creative writing sessions, illustration masterclasses and storytelling activities.  

WIGTOWN BOOK FESTIVAL 

27 September-6 October , Wigtown, Dumfries & Galloway

Wander through Scotland’s national book town to find a festival of books, music, theatre, food and visual arts. A bagpipe procession through the second-hand bookshop-lined streets, followed by fireworks and a hog roast kicks off 10 days of 200 events and activities.  

CHELTENHAM LITERATURE FESTIVAL  

4-13 October , Montpelier Gardens, Cheltenham 

For 10 days, book lovers can drift through Montpellier Gardens to hear from some of the most talked about authors and discover brand new writers. While some events are ticketed, free family activities and fringe events are scattered through the Regency town.  

WELLS FESTIVAL OF LITERATURE  

18-26 October , Wells, Somerset 

Entries are flying in for the four international writing competitions which will be judged during the festival. The literary quiz and lunches were last year’s highlights, alongside talks from guests including Emily Kenway. 

BRIDPORT LITERARY FESTIVAL  

3-9 November , Bridport, Dorset 

Inspired by the Bridport Prize for short story writing and poetry, the festival is celebrating its 20-year anniversary. The Bridlit Bursary offers £9,000 to two local Year 13 students who intend to apply for an undergraduate course.  

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Anthony Fauci, a Hero to Some and a Villain to Others, Keeps His Cool

In a frank but measured memoir, “On Call,” the physician looks back at a career bookended by two public health crises: AIDS and Covid-19.

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ON CALL: A Doctor’s Journey in Public Service , by Anthony Fauci, M.D.

In his new memoir, Dr. Anthony Fauci bares all. After he’s unthinkingly opened a typewritten letter containing a mysterious white powder that could be anthrax (treatable with Cipro), ricin (almost certainly fatal in an Agatha Christie kind of way) or perhaps confectioner’s sugar, guys in hazmat suits arrive and order him to strip.

Following a “Silkwood” shower, Fauci has a few tense if resigned hours with his wife, Christine Grady, a nurse and bioethicist, and adult daughters before getting the all-clear. Having personally eased many patients’ passage into the Great Beyond over his almost six-decade career, he writes, “I do not fear death.”

Aside from this episode, “On Call” is a well-pressed gray flannel suit of a book with a white coat buttoned over it: a calm reply to deranged calls for this distinguished public servant’s head on a pike . Is it measured and methodical in sections? Sure. So is science.

These days, Fauci is most closely associated with Covid-19, hero or rogue depending on your political persuasion, under repeated and heated scrutiny for his messaging about masks, vaccines and the lab-leak theory . (“We must keep an open mind to the origin of Covid,” he writes with seeming weariness. “As I do.”) People blame him for their bad pandemic experience, as if he’s a waiter who served them the wrong meal and might be hiding what is going on in the kitchen.

Gently, “On Call” reminds us that Fauci oversaw an entire Seder plateful of plagues, from AIDS to Zika, as the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Washington, D.C., saving millions of lives around the world before stepping down in 2022.

He speeds through his early background. Born on Christmas Eve 1940, to first-generation Italian immigrants living in Bensonhurst, with a sister three years older, Fauci recalls the “extraordinarily soothing” sounds of foghorns in Gravesend Bay and his mother crying over photos of the mushroom cloud on the front page of the New York Daily News after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

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