November 2024 List of the Month: Favorite Picture Books

Hi All! In honor of the fact that November is National Picture Book Month, our List of the Month this time around is dedicated to our Favorite Picture Books!

Each participant may vote on ten titles (and add other, non-weighted titles). Please feel free to add notes, explaining your choice. Please only downvote titles which don't fit the theme of the list.

For a complete list of topics covered so far in our project, please see the new section for Lists of the Month on the Zeitgeist page

We would welcome suggestions for future lists. Please add them here, and we will keep them in mind, going forward.

I just added 3 Jan Brett books. I used to buy them for my children when they were young because I loved the artwork so much. I wonder what happened to them. Hmm...

>2 perennialreader: Jan Brett's books are wonderful! I particularly love her decorative borders.

>3 AbigailAdams26: Me too! The borders have got their own plot points.

Wow! That list is already intriguing and will give me plenty of winter activity.
Only ten, huh? I will need to think about my choices.

Is there a proper term for the technique that shows one view over a period of time, with changes on each next page?

Grrrr. A couple of people clearly didn't read the list description and downvoted my addition of The Curious Sofa.

>6 amanda4242:

In fairness, there isn't any list description, other than "our Favorite Picture Books".

It looks as though most people are interpreting that as meaning "picture books for children" (and that is rather supported by the illustration), though the description doesn't limit it in that way.

>7 lilithcat:
Picture books bring to my mind children's books. The only "adult" picture books I have would be cookbooks and gardening books. But I didn't think of those when I was adding to the list.

I'd say that Picture Books means books for children, yes. Cartoon collections are not Picture Books in the way the term is commonly used, nor are graphic novels with illustrations and text underneath. But The Powers that Be usually prefer to err on the side of inclusiveness, so I'm sure they would be on your side, amanda4242.

>9 anglemark: Edward Gorey’s books are not graphic novels or cartoon collections. I think they’re best characterized as picture books.

>10 Charon07: We have several and I disagree. But let's agree to disagree.

>8 perennialreader:

The only "adult" picture books I have would be cookbooks and gardening books.

Lynd Ward and Edward Gorey's books are arguably "picture books". Any book with a story told solely or primarily through images could be called a "picture book".

If this list is meant to be confined to children's books, then the list description should say that.

The Mysteries is a picture book not written for children. It is not a graphic novel nor a cartoon collection. (Tags claiming otherwise are simply incorrect.)

>14 paradoxosalpha: Arguably, some of Shaun Tan's books are that, too. So yes, there are exceptions, I admit that.

I too added an adult picture book to the list, though Dominoes has a cover and title that looks like a children\s book, so it hasn't been downvoted yet.

I can never figure out how to add non-weighted titles to these. I voted for 10 that I love but could easily elect another 10 on the list for my favorites. I would add two more - Pete's a Pizza always ended in helpless giggles when I read it to my daughter. The other I need to go look up the title. It's about hats.

Oh my, I just stumbled on this one and don't have time to figure out now how to add books officially, unless it's just to bracket everything. If I could I'd add Blueberries for Sal and One Morning in Maine (McCloskey), Silvester and the Magic Pebble and basically anything else by William Steig, Alligators All Around, Chicken Soup with Rice illustrated by Sendak, Are You My Mother?, Go Dog Go!, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, Horton Hears a Who.
The Story of Ping is probably not PC now because of the slant-eyed pigtailed characters - but for the time, not so inaccurate and did describe some people's lives on the Yang-tze River in the 1930s. But that story still resonates anytime I am running late and potentially holding up a group. It was a favorite on Captain Kangaroo if you are old enough to remember that. Another Marjorie Flack one is Angus and the Ducks, from 1930 and idyllic. Madeline? Eloise?
Other books I loved as a child but see with different eyes now - Babar (colonialism, racism), Curious George (ditto). But I'll cling to On Beyond Zebra (Seuss) until they have to pry it out of my dead cold hands. It was so LIBERATING at age 4 or so to discover that you could make up your own LETTERS...yes, there's a stereotyped pasha on an elephant, but the lesson of the book was worth it, and I never associated the pasha with my South Asian playmates and their families.
One more ancient one: Millions of Cats, by Wanda Gag. Beautiful pictures, marital bliss and millions of cats.

>18 S4sh4:

Oh my, I just stumbled on this one and don't have time to figure out now how to add books officiallyl

On the right hand side of the List page: https://www.librarything.com/list/45998/Favorite-Picture-Books at the top you will see "Add Work to List". Click that and do a search for the work you want to add.

>19 lilithcat: When you see the "Add Work to List" and you follow the rest of the instructions - how do you know if it is actually on that part if the site? I did this for one book but I don't see it in the long list of books.

>20 alco261: I can see you added In the Traces: Railroad Paintings of Ted Rose, it ended up at position 131 on the list on the second page (subject to change), you should also now have a tab at the top of the list between "LibraryThing" and "Your Books" called "Your List" that shows that book.

I'm humbled, awed, and grateful, as my life in picture books flashes before my eyes. Please look at this list of illustrators/authors (picture books, remember???)

About Ping: I've lived in China and watched cormorant fishermen in the 21st century working on Changjiang. It's a story about a duck. Let's not get too worked up.

Rather than blacklist, let's curate the cultural background of these works to our kids.

These books teach children independence how to dream e.g. (Harold and his crayon). What the world looks like through another's eyes. How to separate the wheat from the chaff in these days of infosaturation.

I celebrate each of these works, their authors and illustrators, and the fine folk who bear their legacy.

Thanks, AbigailAdams26! You went ahead and made my day.

So glad others have added some of my favorites! I could hardly limit myself to which 10 to pick!

>18 S4sh4: or Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf with it's smouldering ladies in mantillas and dashing, flashing men. The stereotypes are all there and I don't know if I'd love it if I were Spanish, but Ferdinand the pacifist bull ought to be in every childhood.

>24 nessreader: Aye!