Best picture books for kids 📚 Inspiring the love of reading🚸Splash of library media💻
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Fall Children’s Books: Picture Books and Nonfiction book recommendations–2023 are by Angela Ferraris, The Retired School Librarian.
(The content below contains Amazon affiliate links. When you buy through these links, she may earn an affiliate commission at no additional cost to you.)
by Renée Kurilla (Author, Illustrator)
Brief summary: A young girl shares what the fall season brings with back-to-school, Halloween, and Thanksgiving.
Comments: Illustrations are in yellows, reds, and oranges. The story is in rhyme.
What a fun book to share with young readers that introduces fall vocabulary.
Large single-page, double-page spreads, and vignette illustrations make this a read-aloud recommendation.
Rating: 4/5 📗📗📗📗
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.
by Aimée M. Bissonette (Author), Erin Hourigan (Illustrator)
Brief summary: Young readers will read how humans, wildlife, and nature prepare in the fall for the winter months ahead. Some will harvest and stock up on food, others will build places to sleep, while others will migrate to warmer weather.
Comments: This season series would be an excellent choice to have in any library. I’m looking forward to seeing When Spring Comes.
Rating: 4/5 📗📗📗📗
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.
by Buffy Silverman (Author)
Brief summary: When fall arrives, nature changes in many ways to prepare for winter.
Comments: Large and brilliant illustrations with fun adjectives, adverbs, and verbs to read aloud.
More in-depth explanations of fall changes are at the end of the book.
The back section includes What Treasures Will You Find in Fall?, Further Reading, and Glossary.
Rating: 4/5 📗📗📗📗
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.
by Ailynn Collins (Author)
Brief summary: Mid-Autumn Festival, also called the Moon or Mooncake Festival, is globally celebrated by Asian people. Young readers will learn the origins of the holiday, the lunar calendar, and what traditions and foods people have to observe this holiday.
Comments: The back sections are Glossary, Read More, Internet Sites, Index, and About the Author. Bolded words are found in the glossary.
I wish we had these Traditions and Celebrations books when I was a child. I’m learning so much from reading them as an adult, which has broadened my understanding of other cultures.
Rating: 3.5/5 📗📗📗1/2
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.
by Ursula Pang (Author)
Brief summary: There are many orchards (farms where trees grow)producing fruit, nuts, seeds, syrup, and Christmas trees. Young readers will learn about each type of orchard.
Comments: I placed this book in the fall section as when I think of orchards, I think of apple or fruit orchards because those are the ones in my area that are harvested in the fall. I also had those teachers book requests for fall units before they went and visited a nearby apple orchard.
I enjoyed reading and learning about the different types of orchards and when they were harvested.
Rating: 3.5/5 📗📗📗1/2
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.
Children’s book titles are carefully handpicked by a certified elementary school librarian who, although retired, still enjoys reading children’s books, especially picture books, and recommending them to busy teachers, school librarians, parents, grandparents, and other book lovers.
Most of the books Mrs. Ferraris reads before recommending are checked out from the public library, except for those much-appreciated complimentary copies sent to her for an honest review. Those are noted.
Garden picture book recommendations are by Angela Ferraris, The Retired School Librarian.
(The content below contains Amazon affiliate links. When you buy through these links, Mrs. Ferraris may earn an affiliate commission at no additional cost to you.)
by Virginia Brimhall Snow (Author)
Brief summary: Grammy and her four grandchildren walk through the forest and to the garden, learning about plants, animals, and insects. They place a blanket on the ground and picnic while Grammy reads to them. Narrated by one of the children.
Comments: Blue ink illustrations with the plants, animals, or insects highlighted with full-colored words that match the subject.
Picnic recipes are in the back.
Rating: 4/5 📗📗📗📗
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.
If you enjoy this book, you may be interested in Virginia Brimhall Snow’s Seasonal Walks series. For more details or to buy, continue reading o this book’s Amazon page.
by Taeeun Yoo (Author, Illustrator)
Brief summary: A young girl and her grandfather tend a garden together until he moves to an apartment where he brings some of his plants.
She grows up and lives far away, but her grandfather sends her a gift of peonies. When her daughter grows, the granddaughter visits the man showing her little one how to tend the house plants and flowers like he taught her.
Comments: An Author’s Note in the back explains how this story is based on her relationship with her grandfather.
Rating: 3.5/5 📗📗📗 1/2
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.
by JaNay Brown-Wood (Author), Samara Hardy (Illustrator)
Brief summary: Lihn needs to find blueberries for their brunch and walk around the rooftop looking at all the fruits and vegetables. The girl describes what a blueberry looks like and compares those characteristics to each plant methodically until she finds them.
Comments: There is a blueberry and banana pancake recipe in the back.
Rating: 3.5/5 📗📗📗 1/2
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.
If you enjoy this book, you may be interested in the other three books of the Where in the Garden? series:
by Krina Patel-Sage (Author, Illustrator)
Brief summary: A collection of twenty-four haikus about different flower species, all illustrated with lovely bright colors, including the paste-down end pages.
Comments: There are Floral Fun Facts in the back of the book.
Rating: 3.5/5 📗📗📗 1/2
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.
by Marie Boyd (Author, Illustrator)
Brief summary: Worm begins its day crawling through the garden when two humans cause it to have self-doubt. The worm crawls through a garden talking with each insect and creature it comes across, asking what it can do. Will the worm realize its importance to a garden and regain self-confidence?
Comments: The back pages include Make Your Own Quilled Butterfly, Earthworm Facts, and a Glossary. Illustrated using quilling techniques to make the plants.
I recommend that this picture book be read to supplement a quilling unit.
Rating: 4/5 📗📗📗📗
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.
by Janel Rodriguez (Author), Subi Bosa (Illustrator)
I’ve only known George Washington Carver as the “peanut man” and updated my education when reading this narrative nonfiction about this knowledgeable and talented man nicknamed “Plant Doctor.”
Brief summary: This book begins with his life as a child who studied plants and painted them. It continues with his young adulthood of going to college, learning, and experimenting with plants. The book tells of his adulthood of going around in a Jesup wagon, educating farmers on improving their crops and livestock. Readers will learn about many of his inventions and personal life too. I enjoyed reading about this remarkable man.
Comments: This book is full of a variety of nonfiction text features. The back sections include Your Turn!, Glossary, Index, and Further Reading.
Rating: 4/5 📗📗📗📗
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.
by Diana Sudyka (Author, Illustrator).
Brief summary: This is an ecological/environmental story from the beginning of the earth to its present of how the land and its inhabitant have changed and how to live in balance.
Comments: I included this book under gardening(although it could be under ecology or environmental) as it highlights how to tend a little bit of land.
Rating: 4/5 📗📗📗📗
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.
by Cynthia Schumerth (Author), Elisa Paganelli (Illustrator)
Brief summary: A young girl with her mother and grandfather plant seeds in the spring garden and tend them to grow, observing how the seed changes to develop. Birds and bugs visit the garden. Soon fall comes when the plants begin to produce seeds they gather for the next planting.
Comments: A plant’s cycle.
A story in rhyme.
Facts about seeds are in the back of the book, including a seed diagram.
Rating: 4/5 📗📗📗📗
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.
by Frieda Wishinsky (Author), Karen Patkau (Illustrator)
Brief summary: An animal/creature is paired with a flower in the garden, and readers are asked why they coexist so well. Answers are in the book of how they benefit each other.
Symbiosis.
Rating: 3/5 📗📗📗
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.
by Livi Gosling (Author)
Brief summary: This nonfiction book is a beginning guide to gardening with step-by-step instructions. Everything one needs to know is covered with illustrations.
Comments: This is for the primary children to learn by looking at the lovely illustrations or for older elementary students who want to start a gardening club.
I usually stick to picture book reviews, but this nonfiction book’s illustrations make a difference with the covered topics by clarifying the lesson.
Ratings:4/5 📗📗📗📗
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.
by Meera Sriram (Author), Sandhya Prabhat (Illustrator)
Brief summary: A little girl has her hands Painted by her mother for a wedding the next day. Her mother tells her memories as she paints a garden of flowers and decorations. She sleeps with gloves on over the henna to wake and brush the flakes off to reveal her red garden of stories and the fragrance of henna.
Comments: Facts about henna are in the back of the book.
Rating: 3/5 📗📗📗
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.
by Ashley Marie Mireles (Author), Volha Kaliaha (Illustrator)
Brief summary: Readers will learn their ABCs of gardening, discovering tools, plants, and animals in a garden.
Comments: Large and colorful illustrations. A good builder of garden vocabulary.
Rating: 3/5 📗📗📗
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.
Children’s book titles are carefully handpicked by a certified elementary school librarian who, although retired, still enjoys reading children’s books, especially picture books, and recommending them to busy teachers, school librarians, parents, grandparents, and other book lovers.
Most of the books Mrs. Ferraris reads before recommending are checked out from the public library, except for those much-appreciated complimentary copies sent to her for an honest review. Those are noted.
Grandparent picture book recommendations are by Angela Ferraris, The Retired School Librarian.
(This content contains Amazon affiliate links. When you buy through these links, I may earn an affiliate commission at no additional cost to you).
by Mojdeh Hassani (Author), Samira Iravani (Author), Maya Fidawi (Illustrator). Publisher : Dial Books. 2023. K-2. Hardcover. ISBN-13 : 978-0593110614.
Brief summary: Samira is a bit nervous about going to the bazaar with her grandmother for the first time to buy groceries. She repeatedly asks Mama Shamsi to hide in her chador, but the woman wisely resists using humor to soothe her granddaughter’s fear.
For more details or to buy, click here.
Rating: 4/5 📗📗📗📗
by Élise Fontenaille (Author), Violeta Lópiz (Illustrator), Karin Snelson (Translator), Emilie Robert Wong (Translator). Publisher : Enchanted Lion Books. 2023. K-3. Hardcover. ISBN-13 : 978-1592703821.
Brief summary: A grandson visits his Grandpa Luis every Wednesday and Sunday. His grandpa is not only a talented artist but can make anything grow, creating the beautiful garden where they spend their days. The six-year-old is learning to read and write and tells us that his Grandpa does not know how as he was an immigrant from Spain to France who had to work in the fields as a child.
This is a French translation and captures the two kindred spirits. I like the mixed-up idioms and how the grandson narrates how he is getting to know Grandpa Luis.
For more details or to buy, click here (in ENGLISH).
Rating: 3.5/5 📗📗📗1/2
For more details or to buy, click here (in FRENCH).
by Ana Siqueira (Author), Elisa Chavarri (Illustrator). Publisher : HarperCollins. 2023. K-3. Hardcover. ISBN-13 : 978-0063113657.
Brief summary: Luis and his abuela have fun every Saturday going around the neighborhood being superheroes. One Saturday, she does not visit. Luis learns that his abuela is very sick in the hospital. She comes to stay with them as she recovers. Although Luis is saddened that his abuela is unable to be as active, he tries to come up with a way to have fun and realizes his sister, Isabel, can be his new sidekick and fight and do adventures together in their capes.
There is a glossary of the Spanish words used in the book.
For more details or to buy, click here(in ENGLISH).
Rating: 3.5/5 📗📗📗1/2
For more details or to buy, click here in SPANISH.
by Marla Frazee (Author, Illustrator). Publisher : Beach Lane Books. 2023. PreK-2. Hardcover. ISBN-13 : 978-1665912488.
Brief summary: The text has seven lines with seven words each(except for the last line). Each line is across the top of a two-page spread with small illustrations below, and then the next two-page spread is an illustration matching that color scheme.
The words are calm and straightforward. The stunning illustrations are done with pencil and gouache and are detailed little scenes of family members with everyday interactions. I stopped and looked at the details of each one before continuing to the following line and was glad to see that grandparents were included.
For more details or to buy, click here.
Rating: 5/5 📗📗📗📗📗
by Patricia Toht (Author), Jarvis (Illustrator). Publisher : Candlewick. 2023. PreK-1. Hardcover. ISBN-13 : 978-1536223514.
Brief summary: A grandmother and her grandchild put on rain gear to play in Spring’s rain. Summer arrives with them cooling off from the hot sun. Autumn brings the wind they need to fly a kite and enjoy the falling leaves. Winter comes with them getting cozy and watching the snow from inside. Each season is spent with one another.
The seasonal color schemes go in hand with this gentle and calming book that blends from one season to the next.
For more details or to buy, click here.
Rating: 4.5/5 📗📗📗📗1/2
The selected children’s books are chosen by a highly qualified retired elementary school librarian, who passionately reads and recommends picture books to teachers, school librarians, parents, grandparents, and other book enthusiasts.
Most of the books Mrs. Ferraris recommends are checked out from the public library. The only exception is for the complimentary copies that she receives for an honest review, which are duly noted
