7 Beautiful Picture Books To Read With Your Little Ones

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Everyone has a picture book that holds a special place in their heart. Maybe it’s that book you made your mom read you multiple times a day when you were a toddler, or the one that sparked your love of art, or a treasured and doggy-eared copy of your own child’s.

Picture books as a whole are a special kind of book; the pictures draw us in and create a world, and concise prose or rhyme gives them that quality of re-readability. In fact, picture books hit all the beats that novels do, just in a shorter format. Because of this, picture books aren’t just for kids.

I’d love to be the one to convince you of this fact and lead both you and the little ones in your life on a journey through picture books. So, with that in mind, below are seven picture books both old and new. Old ones that my mother read me as a child and new ones I found as an adult and read to my siblings. They all received the stamp of approval from our family. I hope you love them as much as we have.

01 | How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World by Marjorie Priceman

Ever wanted to make an apple pie, got to the grocery store, and found it was closed? What could be more reasonable than to start out on a trek of the globe to find your own apples, flour, and butter?

Our main character wants only the finest ingredients, so she goes straight to the sources, getting a bit of cinnamon off a tree right under a leopard’s nose and milk from a cow in England (who, incidentally, has a lovely accent). 

The illustrations are also beautifully old-fashioned and are sure to captivate children.

02 | Stuck by Oliver Jeffers

My siblings couldn’t stop laughing when I read them this book. It starts out typical enough. Floyd gets his kite stuck in a tree. He throws his shoe up to knock it down. The shoe gets stuck too. So he throws something bigger…until finally he is picking up his own house and chucking it into the tree — but his kite still won’t come down! 

Floyd is indeed a boy “of very little brain,” but the absurdity is what makes the story so hilarious. The illustrations are simple and quaint. The text is handwritten, which makes for surprisingly easy reading and an all-around aesthetically pleasing picture book.

03 | Katie and the Impressionists by James Mayhew

What if you could travel inside one of Monet’s paintings? What would you see and who would you talk to?

Katie is a small girl in a red coat on a trip to an art gallery with her grandmother. She stops by Monet’s painting of a garden luncheon and suddenly realizes she is really smelling the flowers and feeling the breeze. 

From there the story continues through various impressionist paintings, all coming alive. Katie travels through Monet (stopping for a bit of tea and a chat with Monet’s wife and son, who are represented in many of his paintings) and others, ending up with a group of Edgar Degas’ ballerinas and doing an impromptu bit on stage.

The final image, Katie in her red coat, trailing flowers, tumbling out of the last painting, is one that captured my imagination as a child.

04 | Home in the Woods by Eliza Wheeler

Eliza Wheeler is an exquisite artist, and this lovely story is the best of her work, both writing and painting. 

It follows a Depression-era family with eight children, making their way to a new home after their father’s death. The little house in the woods is run down and sad, but everyone pitches in and soon they make it a beautiful place. As the seasons pass, they learn to provide for themselves through hard work and have plenty of adventures while they’re at it.

The themes of courage and overcoming are ones every child should be exposed to; not to mention the beautiful art and prose.

05 | How Groundhog’s Garden Grew by Lynne Cherry

Another wonderful book about the good fruit of hard work is this one that my mom read over and over; so much so that she recorded herself on a cassette tape so we could listen whenever we wanted.

One spring, Groundhog is caught pilfering from someone else’s garden. When he realizes his mistake, he decides the only solution is to plant his own. The seasons progress, and Groundhog and his friends take loving care of their garden until Autumn when they finally harvest and feast. 

Resplendent with detailed pictures of plants from seed to full-grown, life-like paintings of squirrels, badgers, and birds, this book is a must-have for every family's bookshelf!

06 | Mel Fell by Corey R. Tabor

Mel is a kingfisher and she decides that today she will fly. Instead, she falls. But no worries, in the end, she does find her wings and soars back to her mother with new confidence.

This book was one of 2022’s Caldecott award winners, and it deserves every bit of it. From its theme to its retro art to its hilarious side characters, it shines as a beautifully simplistic tale that takes about five minutes to read, yet conveys a powerful message. It also has an unusual and charming format: as Mel falls and then begins to fly, you have to turn the book upside down and sideways to read it.

07 | Wonder Walkers by Micha Archer

I’ve always been a fan of collage art in picture books (think Eric Carle), so I was excited that another Caldecott from last year features this lovely style in stunning blues, and greens, with pops of red and yellow. And that’s not all this story offers.

A brother and sister are hanging out indoors, but the outdoors looks too good to miss today, so they head out to take a wonder walk. They wonder about all sorts of magical things, all conveyed through lyrical prose: is the sun the world's lightbulb? Is fog the river’s blanket? 

The natural world holds wonders, and things to wonder about if only we’ll stop and see it from a fresh perspective. This book conveys that message as well as any sprawling nature book. 

In short…

We all love the classics — Miss Rumphius, Beatrix Potter, Goodnight Moon, Corduroy. But these are seven that, in my opinion, deserve more attention. I hope both you and the little ones in your life will fall in love with the characters, the illustrations, and the enduring storytelling in these beautiful picture books.