Hello! Iām a picture book author and former educator and bookseller. I also spent over a decade as a professor of Childrenās Literature. More importantly, Iāve spent hundreds of hours of enjoying picture books with kiddos on my lap or circled up for storytime. (Is there a greater joy?) I was also a queer kid at a time when acknowledging LGBTQIAP2+ kids exist was unthinkable. But that is changing! Especially every time we buy, check out, and share diverse picture books with kids. Or treasure them for ourselves. I do!
Iāll never forget reading this tale of a blue crayon in a red wrapper, struggling to draw red. I stood in the childrenās book shop, a grown lesbian, feeling the hair on my arms rise, my eyes fill. This story is full of humor as fellow crayons and art supplies offer advice: āhe wasnāt warm enoughā āHeās got to press harder.ā But his struggle also breaks our hearts: āI think heās lazy,ā one crayon says. āThe masking tape thought he was broken inside.ā The dread of feeling that you canāt be what everyone wants is visceral. Clearly a perfect allegory for gender identity, this story also rang through me. Then, Red tries to draw an ocean. And āIt was easy!ā Soon he was āreally reaching for the sky.ā
1
author picked
Red
as one of their favorite books, and they share
why you should read it.
This book is for kids age
4,
5,
6, and
7.
What is this book about?
A blue crayon mistakenly labeled as "red" suffers an identity crisis in this picture book by the New York Times-bestselling creator of My Heart Is Like a Zoo and It's an Orange Aardvark! Funny, insightful, and colorful, Red: A Crayon's Story, by Michael Hall, is about being true to your inner self and following your own path despite obstacles that may come your way. Red will appeal to fans of Lois Ehlert, Eric Carle, and The Day the Crayons Quit, and makes a great gift for readers of any age! Red has a bright red label, but he is, inā¦
I am no expert on kindnessāthough more than twenty years at Sesame Workshop, working on a TV show that focuses on kindness, may give me a slight edge. And I am not unfailingly kind, though I try my hardest. But I am passionate about nurturing this quality in children. At the risk of sounding naive, I feel that itās our last best hope of solving some of the worldās biggest problems.
Adapted by the author from her bestselling Wonder, this bookis more of a wish for kindness than an actual portrayal of kindness. Auggie looks different from anyone else, but inside he wants the same things: to have friends, to go on adventures, to be loved for himself. Besides, isnāt everyone different in one way or another? Itās a lovely book to read with young children, leading them to the realization that acceptance is not only the best choice, but also the choice that opens up an enormous world of possibilities. As the author concludes, Look with kindness and you will always find wonder.
I know I can't change the way I look. But maybe, just maybe, people can change the way they see...
For younger readers, the unforgettable story of August Pullman and Wonder reimagined in this gorgeous picture book.
With spare, powerful text and richly-imagined illustrations, We're All Wonders shows readers what it's like to live in Auggie's world - a world in which he feels like any other kid, but he's not always seen that way.
We're All Wonders taps into every child's longing to belong, and to be seen for who they truly are. It's the perfect way for familiesā¦
In grade school, when Apollo 11 landed on the moon, I was immediately swept up in the craze for space and dreamt of being an astronaut. Until I was told by my teacher that girls werenāt allowed to be astronauts. I added that to a growing list of things I was told girls couldnāt do. Flash-forward to 2017, when a prominent man insisted that females should ādress like a womanā at work. Women from all walks of lifeāathletes, astronauts, emergency workers, and scientists posted photos of themselves in gear appropriate for their jobs, not the dress-and-heels implied. I was inspired by those photos and my childhood feelings of injustice.
This book captured my heart from the first time I read it. As a toddler, the main character is praised for being āa big girl,ā but as she continues to grow, she discovers that being a ābig girlā soon becomes a negative thing that prevents her from doing what she wishes.
The illustrations are amazing, and fold-out pages can barely contain the growing main character and the empathy youāll have for her.
A book you will hug when youāre done reading it, then immediately read it again.
3
authors picked
Big
as one of their favorite books, and they share
why you should read it.
This book is for kids age
4,
5,
6, and
7.
What is this book about?
Once there was a girl with a big laugh and a big heart and very big dreams. She grew and grew and grew. And it was good... until it wasn't.
When the girl grows big, the world begins to make her feel small. She feels out of place and invisible, and soon she isn't herself at all. But with the girl's size comes huge inner strength - and this helps her look past the hurtful words to see how perfect she really is.
With beautiful illustrations and a gatefold flap, this quietly reassuring story explores the experience of being bigā¦
A former microbiologist and attorney turned childrenās book author, Iām delighted to advocate for childrenās self-confidence and critical thinking skills in literature. I like to write about things that I know, to share my passion, and about things I donāt knowāto learn more. Stories have been an escape and a learning tool for me and I want to share stories that do the same for children today.
This recent titleās combination of silly and earnest has quickly become a favorite. Blob is able to shape itself into being anything it wants to be and it reminded me of my cloud character Lola. But unlike Lola, Blob isnāt sure at first what it wants to be, and the shapes it makes are a journey of self-exploration. As a grownup who has held many varied jobs over the years, the idea of not picking to be any one thing resonates with me. People, and blobs, get to be themselves, whatever that is.
1
author picked
Blob
as one of their favorite books, and they share
why you should read it.
This book is for kids age
4,
5,
6, and
7.
What is this book about?
A humorous picture book featuring a blob (n. a creature that can be anything they want) about embracing who we are and the many things we can be.
Blob is a creature of indeterminate kind. Blob can be a giraffe, cotton candy, and even an octopus. It's not until a certain someone continuously calls them "Bob" that Blob starts to question who they really are.
After a series of funny yet enlightening discoveries about all the possible things they can be, Blob realizes that the best thing to be is . . .
My kid
absolutely adores this book! He's a big fan of anything related to cats and
funny stories featuring these furry creatures. So, when he discovered Tiger
Trouble with its one little kitty and one giant cat - a tiger, he was over the
moon.
It's such a clever twist on the typical cat story, and he finds it very
smart and entertaining. This book has become a favorite in our household,
delivering both giggles and valuable life lessons about friendship. I highly
recommend it to any young cat lover!
Lions, Tigers, and . . . a house cat?! Oh my! Life at the zoo gets complicated when a tiger finds out she as a new roommate. A purr-fect graphic chapter book series!
What makes a tiger, a tiger? Is it the stripes? The roar? This is something that Lily, the tiger at the local zoo, has never had to worry about -- until she meets the fiercest animal of them all . . . her new roommate. Tig might look like a house cat, might sound like a house cat, but Tig knows he is a Tiger.
I have always loved unicorns because they are magical and mysterious. They also represent individuality and uniqueness that makes them different. I love the different takes we see now ā the grumpy unicorn, the difficult unicorn, the stereotypical unicorn, and the kittycorn.
I love Itty Bitty Kitty-Corn because it celebrates the magic of friendship. The book is about Kitty who wants to be a unicorn but her friends try to prove she isnāt one. This book encourages kids to be exactly who they want to beāno matter what anyone says. The art is adorable to create the most heart-bursting, tail-twitching, fuzzy-feeling, perfectly unicorn-y story imaginable. You canāt help but fall in love with Kitty Corn.
From bestselling superstar duo Shannon Hale and LeUyen Pham comes a
delightful kitty and unicorn story that celebrates the magic of
friendship-and being exactly who you want to be!
Kitty thinks she might be a unicorn.
She feels so perfectly unicorn-y! "Neigh!" says Kitty.
But when Unicorn clop clop clops over, sweeping his magnificent tail and neighing a mighty neigh, Kitty feels no bigger than a ball of lint.
Can this unlikely pair embrace who they are, and truly see one another?
In their first picture book together, the magical, bestselling team of
Shannon Hale and LeUyen Pham put theirā¦
Iāve always identified as a weirdo and felt misunderstood, which led to lots of wasted time ātrying to fit in.ā As an adult, Iāve learned to love myself for exactly who I am, but it took a lot of work and self-reflecting. Looking back, I realize there were actually many kids who felt the same way as me and we just never managed to connect with each other! Finding people who āget youā is an important taskābut I truly believe self-love and self-acceptance is the greatest goal for all humans. I hope my books speak to the āweirdosā and non-weirdos a like, and encourages all readers to love themselves just the way they are.
Quakers thinks he is a duck and discovers heās really a cat! As a person who often felt pulled between many worlds (like being an introvert sometimes and an extrovert other times) and never really āfit inā I was cheered to see a relatable journey with a sweet, satisfying ending.
1
author picked
Quackers
as one of their favorite books, and they share
why you should read it.
This book is for kids age
3,
4,
5, and
6.
What is this book about?
Jumpstart's Read for the RecordĀ® selection!
A cat who thinks heās a duck? He must be Quackers!! This quirky funny book is about standing out, fitting in, and building a life with room for all.
Quackers is a duck. Sure, he may have paws and whiskers. And his quacks might sound more like...well, meows, but he lives among ducks, everyone he knows is a duck, and he's happy.
Then Quackers meets another duck who looks like him (& talks like him, too!)ābut he calls himself a cat. So silly!
Quackers loves being among his new friends the cats, but heā¦
As the Black American daughter of Jamaican immigrants born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska, I love stories that depict the beauty of being multifaceted human beings. Stories steeped in broad understandings of place and home. Stories that encourage us to delight in being the people we are. I also believe our children are natural poets and storytellers. Lyrical picture books filled with rich language and sensory details encourage the thriving of such creativity. In addition to writing All the Places We Call Home, I'm the author ofAll the Colors We Will See, an essay collection about race, immigration, and belonging.
Where Are You From?boasts breathtakingly gorgeous text and expansive illustrations. I love this book because it first draws attention to how our world wants to simplify a personās story. The book then counters with the beautiful reality that we are complex. As the child of immigrants, I could relate to this little girl seeking answers to the narrow question people keep asking her. She turns to Abuelo, who refuses to answer in ways that might categorize her. Instead, his poetic words sweep her up in a triumphant story rooted in deep ties to generations past and ongoing connections with place. Ultimately, this story transforms that feeling of not belonging into a celebration of who you are. What a joy!
This resonant and award-winning picture book tells the story of one girl who constantly gets asked a simple question that doesn't have a simple answer. A great conversation starter in the home or classroom-a book to share, in the spirit of I Am Enough by Grace Byers and Keturah A. Bobo.
When a girl is asked where she's from-where she's really from-none of her answers seems to be the right one.
Unsure about how to reply, she turns to her loving abuelo for help. He doesn't give her the response she expects. She gets an even better one.
Hello! I am Jane Yolen, author of almost 450 books. I write picture books and novels, poetry, and graphic novelsāmostly for children. I have published books about just about every subject imaginable. But Iāve always loved fantasy books especially. I grew up on the Alice in Wonderland books and the Arthurian legends. I, of course, carried that love into my writing lifeāhaving written about monsters, mermaids, and unicorns. Iām fascinated by fairies; they show up in a lot of what I write. Give me a real kid and a mythical creature of some sort, sprinkle in a bit of magicāIām in!
This gorgeous book is both metaphoric and literal. A young boy learns about dragons (and himself, his grandmothers, and life) on a mythical bedtime story-walk to find two very different paths.
I love the message here (and that it isnāt too in-your-face message-y; the story is really primary). But the art is so gorgeous that I could dive back into it over and over again for that alone.
Lean in close, my darling bao bei, and I will whisper a most precious secret about a powerful magic that lives inside you.
Brought to life with lavish and ornate illustrations, The Truth About Dragons follows a young child on a journey guided by his mother's bedtime storytelling. He quests into two very different forests, as his two grandmothers help him discover two different, but equally enchanting, truths about dragons. Eastern and Western mythologies coexist and enrich each other in this warm celebration of mixed cultural identity.
I love reading, partly because I believe in the power of books to feed curiosity, promoting understanding, inclusivity, and belonging. While growing up, my favorite books didnāt have anyone that looked like me. Through reading diverse books to my kids, I realized Iād missed out on this meaningful experience as a child. Even more, I wanted my son, who has bilateral cochlear implants, to be able to read a picture book with a main character with cochlear implants. I hope you enjoy the books on this list as, in unique ways, they all celebrate curiosity about our differences.
I read this book to my son when he was in second grade because his classroom was paired with a seventh-grade classroom in his school buddy system.
One of the seventh graders was transgender, and the school recommended this book. In simple prose, the book introduces the concept of being transgender in a way that both my son and I could understand, and we both appreciated that it is based on the authorās real-life experience.
Two favorite lines: āBe who you are.ā And, āDifferent is special!ā
From the time she was two years old, Jazz knew that she had a girl's brain in a boy's body. She loved pink and dressing up as a mermaid and didn't feel like herself in boy's clothing. This confused her family, until they took her to a doctor who said that Jazz was transgender and that she was born that way. Jazz's story is based on her real-life experience and she tells it in a simple, clear way that will be appreciated by picture book readers, their parents, and teachers.
