Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
Bill Martin Jr.; illustrated by Eric Carle · 1967
A chain of animals in bold colors each answers the question of what they see, ending with a group of children.
Books by topic
Picture Books
A picture book is not simply a short book: the words and pictures carry the story together, and the best ones leave room for the listener to notice what the text does not say. Children usually meet picture books through an adult’s voice, which is why rhythm, page turns and pacing matter as much as plot.
Board books (sturdy pages for babies and toddlers) sit at the start of this shelf; longer picture books, including picture-book biographies, reach readers well into the elementary years. Older children often enjoy rereading picture books on their own — that is real reading, not a step backwards.
- Picture Books
- Early Readers
- Chapter Books
- Middle Grade
- Graphic Novels
- Nonfiction & Biography
- Science & Nature
- History & Biography
- Fantasy & Imagination
- Diverse Books
- Feelings & Social-Emotional Learning
- Classroom Favorites
- Teen Reading
66 books
Sorted from youngest suggested age. Age ranges are editorial estimates.
Dear Zoo
Rod Campbell · 1982
A child writes to the zoo for a pet, and a series of unsuitable animals arrives in flap-covered crates until the perfect one does.
Freight Train
Donald Crews · 1978
A train of colored cars moves across the page, through tunnels and past cities, faster and faster until it is gone.
Global Babies
Global Fund for Children · 2007
Photographs of babies from around the world show how they are cared for and loved in different cultures.
Goodnight Moon
Margaret Wise Brown; illustrated by Clement Hurd · 1947
A little bunny says goodnight to each object in a green bedroom as the light fades, in quiet, repeating rhyme.
Guess How Much I Love You
Sam McBratney; illustrated by Anita Jeram · 1994
Little Nutbrown Hare and Big Nutbrown Hare try to outdo each other describing how much they love one another.
Jamberry
Bruce Degen · 1983
A boy and a bear romp through a fantastical landscape of berries in bouncy, nonsense-filled rhyme.
Moo, Baa, La La La!
Sandra Boynton · 1982
Farm animals make their sounds — except for three singing pigs — in Sandra Boynton's silly, rhythmic board book.
Pat the Bunny
Dorothy Kunhardt · 1940
A touch-and-feel book in which babies pat a bunny, play peekaboo, and feel daddy's scratchy face alongside two children.
Peekaboo Morning
Rachel Isadora · 2002
A toddler plays peekaboo through the morning, discovering family members, a puppy, and toys.
Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes
Mem Fox; illustrated by Helen Oxenbury · 2008
Babies born in different places and circumstances are celebrated in rhyme — each with ten little fingers and ten little toes.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Eric Carle · 1969
A caterpillar eats through a growing list of foods over a week, then spins a cocoon and emerges as a butterfly.
Where's Spot?
Eric Hill · 1980
A mother dog searches the house for her puppy, lifting flaps to find other animals hiding before she finds him.
Whose Toes Are Those?
Jabari Asim; illustrated by LeUyen Pham · 2006
A rhyming celebration of a baby's toes, ending with an affectionate answer to the title question.
Little Blue Truck
Alice Schertle; illustrated by Jill McElmurry · 2008
A friendly little blue truck greets the farm animals with a "beep"; when he gets stuck in the mud trying to help a pushy dump truck, his animal friends come to push them both free.
Knuffle Bunny
Mo Willems · 2004
Toddler Trixie loses her beloved stuffed bunny at the laundromat and cannot yet speak the words to tell her dad.
Press Here
Hervé Tullet · 2010
The reader is told to press, shake, and tilt the book — and the dots on the page appear to respond.
The Snowy Day
Ezra Jack Keats · 1962
Peter explores his city neighborhood after a snowfall, making tracks, snow angels, and a snowball he tries to save in his pocket.
Twenty Yawns
Jane Smiley; illustrated by Lauren Castillo · 2016
After a long day at the beach, Lucy cannot fall asleep in the moonlit house — and the reader is invited to count the yawns along the way.
Alma and How She Got Her Name
Juana Martinez-Neal · 2018
Alma Sofia Esperanza José Pura Candela thinks her name is too long, until her father explains the family story behind each part.
Blueberries for Sal
Robert McCloskey · 1948
Little Sal and her mother go blueberry picking on one side of a hill while a bear cub and its mother do the same on the other — and the pairs get mixed up.
Corduroy
Don Freeman · 1968
A teddy bear in a department store searches for his missing button at night, hoping someone will take him home.
Frederick
Leo Lionni · 1967
While the other field mice gather food for winter, Frederick gathers sun rays, colors, and words — which help the mice through the dark months.
Harold and the Purple Crayon
Crockett Johnson · 1955
Harold draws his own world with a purple crayon — a path, a moon, a boat — and draws his way back home to bed.
Horton Hears a Who!
Dr. Seuss · 1954
Horton the elephant protects a speck of dust that holds an entire tiny town, insisting that "a person's a person, no matter how small."
Last Stop on Market Street
Matt de la Peña; illustrated by Christian Robinson · 2015
CJ rides the bus across the city with his grandmother after church, and she helps him see beauty in the people and places along the way.
Make Way for Ducklings
Robert McCloskey · 1941
Mr. and Mrs. Mallard search Boston for a safe place to raise their ducklings, with help from a police officer who stops traffic.
Swimmy
Leo Lionni · 1963
A small black fish who survives a tuna attack teaches a new school of red fish to swim together as one big fish.
The Invisible String
Patrice Karst; illustrated by Joanne Lew-Vriethoff · 2000
A mother reassures her twins that an invisible string made of love connects them to the people they care about, wherever they are.
The Kissing Hand
Audrey Penn; illustrated by Ruth E. Harper, Nancy M. Leak · 1993
Chester Raccoon is nervous about starting school, so his mother kisses his palm to give him a kiss he can carry with him.
The Rabbit Listened
Cori Doerrfeld · 2018
When Taylor's block tower falls, animal after animal suggests what to do — until the rabbit simply listens.
Where the Wild Things Are
Maurice Sendak · 1963
Sent to bed without supper, Max sails away to the land of the wild things, becomes their king, and then returns home where his supper is still hot.
A Chair for My Mother
Vera B. Williams · 1982
After a fire destroys their home, a girl, her mother, and her grandmother save coins in a jar to buy a comfortable armchair.
A Likkle Miss Lou
Nadia L. Hohn; illustrated by Eugenie Fernandes · 2019
A picture-book portrait of the young Louise Bennett Coverley, who grew up to celebrate Jamaican language in poetry and performance.
Across the Bay
Carlos Aponte · 2019
Carlitos, who lives in Cataño with his mother and abuela, secretly takes the ferry across the bay to Old San Juan, Puerto Rico, to search for his absent father.
Ada Twist, Scientist
Andrea Beaty; illustrated by David Roberts · 2016
Ada asks question after question and runs experiments to discover the source of a terrible smell in her house.
Chrysanthemum
Kevin Henkes · 1991
Chrysanthemum loves her name until classmates tease her about it on the first day of school.
Dreamers
Yuyi Morales · 2018
The author's account of arriving in the United States with her infant son and finding a home, a language, and hope in a public library.
I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew
Dr. Seuss · 1965
A creature sets off for the trouble-free city of Solla Sollew and meets one problem after another on the way.
Islandborn
Junot Díaz; illustrated by Leo Espinosa · 2018
Lola, asked to draw a picture of the island her family came from, gathers memories from neighbors and relatives because she left as a baby.
Julián Is a Mermaid
Jessica Love · 2018
After seeing three women dressed as mermaids on the subway, Julián creates his own mermaid costume — and his abuela responds with love.
Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse
Kevin Henkes · 1996
Lilly loves her teacher, Mr. Slinger, until he confiscates her new purse — and she has to find a way to make things right after acting out.
Mango, Abuela, and Me
Meg Medina; illustrated by Angela Dominguez · 2015
When Mia's grandmother moves in from far away, the two must find ways to understand each other across Spanish and English.
Over and Under the Snow
Kate Messner; illustrated by Christopher Silas Neal · 2011
A child skiing with her father learns about the hidden world of animals living under the snow in winter.
Owl Moon
Jane Yolen; illustrated by John Schoenherr · 1987
A child and father walk through snowy woods on a winter night, staying quiet in hopes of seeing an owl.
Planting Stories
Anika Aldamuy Denise; illustrated by Paola Escobar · 2019
The story of Pura Belpré, the first Puerto Rican librarian in the New York Public Library, who brought bilingual storytelling to children.
Rosie Revere, Engineer
Andrea Beaty; illustrated by David Roberts · 2013
Rosie secretly builds inventions until her great-great-aunt shows her that a failed flight is a step toward success.
The Day the Crayons Quit
Drew Daywalt; illustrated by Oliver Jeffers · 2013
Duncan finds a stack of letters from his crayons, each complaining about how it is used — or ignored.
The Lonely Phone Booth
Peter Ackerman; illustrated by Max Dalton · 2010
A phone booth on a New York City street corner, ignored in the age of cell phones, gets a chance to show its worth when the power goes out.
Too Many Tamales
Gary Soto; illustrated by Ed Martinez · 1993
On Christmas Eve, Maria tries on her mother's ring while making tamales — and then fears it is lost inside one of them.
Waiting for the Biblioburro
Monica Brown; illustrated by John Parra · 2011
In rural Colombia, Ana waits for the traveling library that arrives by burro, and then writes her own story.
A Picture Book of Martin Luther King, Jr.
David A. Adler; illustrated by Robert Casilla · 1989
A straightforward picture-book biography of Dr. King covering his childhood, work, and legacy.
Be a King
Carole Boston Weatherford; illustrated by James E. Ransome · 2018
Readers are encouraged to carry Dr. King's lessons into their own lives and classrooms, paired with scenes from his life.
Each Kindness
Jacqueline Woodson; illustrated by E. B. Lewis · 2012
Chloe and her friends shun a new classmate, Maya, and Chloe later realizes she missed her chance to be kind.
I Dissent
Debbie Levy; illustrated by Elizabeth Baddeley · 2016
A picture-book biography of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, framed around moments when she disagreed and acted.
I Have a Dream
Martin Luther King Jr.; illustrated by Kadir Nelson · 2012
The text of Dr. King's 1963 speech at the March on Washington, illustrated with paintings by Kadir Nelson.
Little Melba and Her Big Trombone
Katheryn Russell-Brown; illustrated by Frank Morrison · 2014
The story of jazz trombonist and composer Melba Liston, who taught herself to play as a child and went on to tour and arrange music in a male-dominated field.
Martin's Big Words
Doreen Rappaport; illustrated by Bryan Collier · 2001
A picture-book biography of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that weaves his own words into the narrative.
Snowflake Bentley
Jacqueline Briggs Martin; illustrated by Mary Azarian · 1998
The life of Wilson Bentley, a Vermont farmer who photographed snowflakes and showed that no two are alike.
The Name Jar
Yangsook Choi · 2001
Unhei, newly arrived from Korea, considers choosing an American name, and her classmates fill a jar with suggestions.
The Watcher
Jeanette Winter · 2011
A picture-book biography of Jane Goodall, from childhood animal-watching to her chimpanzee research and advocacy.
Let the Children March
Monica Clark-Robinson; illustrated by Frank Morrison · 2018
A fictionalized account of the 1963 Children's Crusade in Birmingham, Alabama, when young people marched for civil rights.
Mario and the Hole in the Sky
Elizabeth Rusch; illustrated by Teresa Martinez · 2019
The story of Mexican chemist Mario Molina, whose research on CFCs helped lead to action to protect the ozone layer.
My Brother Martin
Christine King Farris; illustrated by Chris Soentpiet · 2003
Dr. King's older sister recalls their childhood in Atlanta and the experiences that shaped his commitment to justice.
Separate Is Never Equal
Duncan Tonatiuh · 2014
The story of Sylvia Mendez and her family's legal fight to end school segregation of Mexican-American children in California in the 1940s.
The Golden Flower
Nina Jaffe; illustrated by Enrique O. Sánchez · 1996
A retelling of a Taíno creation story from Puerto Rico about how the island and its sea came to be.
Related guides
Bedtime Books: Building a Calm Reading Routine from Baby to Big Kid
How to make books part of a bedtime routine, how to read for winding down, how to choose calm books, and bedtime picks from board books to chapter books.
Books for Preschoolers: Picture Books, Rhyme, and Real Conversation (Ages 3–5)
How to choose and share books with three- to five-year-olds: picture books, rhyme and sound play, asking good questions, longer stories, and first nonfiction.
How to Read Aloud to Children: Techniques for Every Age, from Babies to Confident Readers
Practical read-aloud techniques by age — voice, pace, pausing, pointing, predicting, rereading — plus how to read aloud to kids who already read on their own.