2023 Children's Books · Children's Book Recommendations

Alphabet Children’s Books: The ABCs in Different Ways

Alphabet children’s book recommendations are by Angela Ferraris, The Retired School Librarian.*

Alphabet Picture Books

Ref in the blue water with a shark swimming in the blue water. There are fish at the top of the pate

A Is for Australian Reefs 

by Frané Lessac (Author, Illustrator)

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Candlewick
  • Year: 2023
  • Grades: PreK-4
  • Hardcover nonfiction picture book ‏ : ‎ 48 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1536228303

Brief summary: Everything one would like to know about the Australian Reefs. This picture book has two-page illustrations for each letter that are bright and detailed.

Comments: This could be a group read-aloud sharing the large print, or it can be an individual reading of the more specific facts in small fonts that explain the many details of plants and marine life on each page.

4/5 📗📗📗📗

Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.

A girl with her hand s on her hips at recess standing next to a large letter A with her friends running in the background

A Is for Ambitious (Ambitious Girl, 2) 

by Meena Harris (Author), Marissa Valdez (Illustrator)

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
  • Year: 2023
  • Grades: PreK-2
  • Hardcover picture book ‏ : ‎ 40 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 031635449X

Brief summary: ABCs of descriptive words of empowerment. Aimed towards girls. A “stand up and go for what you believe in” type of book. Inspirationally driven.

Sequel to Ambitious Girl, 2021.

Rating 3.5/5 📗📗📗 1/2

Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.

A banana with a pencil that crossed out bedtime that stood for the B in the alphabet; a star, bear, and crescent book with faces watching the banana

B Is for Bananas 

by Carrie Tillotson (Author), Estrela Lourenço (Illustrator)

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Flamingo Books
  • Year: 2023
  • Grades: Prek-1
  • Hardcover picture book ‏ : ‎ 32 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0593528069

Brief summary: Banana does not want to go to bed and makes “B” for banana instead of bedtime. Banana gets tired after going through the alphabet and changing or adding words.

Comments: Cute, humorous bedtime story. 

Rating: 3/5 📗📗📗

Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.

Portraits of different boys of various ethnic backgrounds with different names of the alphabet

B My Name Is Boy: A Song of Celebration from Australia to Zimbabwe 

by Dawn Masi (Author, Illustrator)

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Doubleday Books for Young Readers
  • Year: 2023
  • Grades: PreK-2
  • Hardcover picture book ‏ : ‎ 40 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0593487125

Brief summary: Twenty-six boys share their name, someone else they know, their country, and a verb, all in alliteration.

Comments: It would be a fun activity for students to copy the book’s style by developing the alliterations with their own names and then sharing them with others.

Rating: 3.5/5 📗📗📗 1/2

Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.

If you enjoy this one, there is a companion book titled G My Name is Girl, 2021.

Pink pigs playing on large  alphabet letters

Playful Pigs from A to Z 

by Anita Lobel (Author, Illustrator)

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books
  • Year: 2023
  • Grades: PreK -1
  • Hardcover picture book‏ : ‎ 40 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1534495037

Brief summary: Twenty-six pigs come across a field full of letters. Each pig finds the letter matching its name. In the evening, they all return to their pen.

Comments: Each letter is paired with a pig’s name and a verb. The pages have capital letters across the top, with small case letters on the bottom of each page.

Originally printed in 2015.

Rating 3.5/5 📗📗📗1/2

Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.

The letters in the alphabet are talking to one another. z, g, and a.

Alphabuddies: G Is First! 

by Beth Bacon (Author), Karen Kane (Author), Eric Barclay (Illustrator).

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ HarperCollins
  • Year: 2023
  • Grades: PreK-2
  • Hardcover picture book ‏ : ‎ 40 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 006305597X

Brief summary: “G” wants to be first in the alphabet song, but “A” argues it will mess up reading. The letters experiment to see if this statement is true or not.

Comments: Humorous. Speech bubbles. Individual frames or multi-panels like a graphic novel. Large letters and words.

Rating: 3/5 📗📗📗

Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.

Alphabet Board Books

A big bear and cub riding bikes with objects of the B in the alphabet

My First Brain Quest ABCs: A Question-and-Answer Book

by Workman Publishing (Author).

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Workman Publishing Company
  • Date: 2023
  • Ages: Baby-3
  • Board book ‏ : ‎ 26 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1523514124

Brief summary: Each letter has a noun and a matching alliteration with three questions at the bottom of the page about the page to encourage more conversation. Capital and small letters are featured. Bright colors. One letter per page.

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, there are other My First Brain Quest books in the series by Workman Publishing.

Two boys in a small boat on the water with a pirate's flag, monkey, parrot, and seagulls

P Is for Pirate 

by Greg Paprocki (Author, Illustrator)

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ BabyLit
  • Year: 2023
  • Ages: Baby-3
  • Board book ‏ picture book: ‎ 32 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1423661532

Brief summary: This board book ABC book is all about pirates and sea jargon. Unique illustrations in the mid-1900s style.

Comments: I could tell immediately it was a Greg Paprocki ABC book. He has several others in this cool artistic style.

Rating: 3.5/5 📗📗📗 1/2

Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.

Cartoons of various earth objects like the stars, cloud raining, and a sunflower

Mrs. Peanuckle’s Earth Alphabet (Mrs. Peanuckle’s Alphabet) 

by Mrs. Peanuckle (Author), Jessie Ford (Illustrator)

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Rodale Kids
  • Year: 2023
  • Ages: Baby-3
  • Board book picture book ‏ : ‎ 28 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0593486633

Brief summary:  Youngers will learn about earth-related topics with explanations.

Bright colors and large graphics. Capital letters.

Comment: This is one of the Mrs. Peanucle’s ABC series.

Rating: 3/5 📗📗📗

Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.

Six portraits of female musicians

A is for Aretha 

by Leslie Kwan (Author), Rachelle Baker (Illustrator)

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Kokila
  • Year: 2023
  • Ages: Baby-3
  • Board book picture book ‏ : ‎ 26 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0593406532

Brief summary: Twenty-six black female musicians with a brief explanation of their accomplishments.

Comments: I learned a few I was not aware of too. Illustrated with their portrait and colorful background. I’m unsure how much a baby or toddler could understand, but an excellent source for introducing female musicians and vocabulary.

Rating: 3/5 📗📗📗

Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.

Photographs of four baby animals

My First ABC Animal Book (Happy Fox Books)

by Editors of Happy Fox Books (Author)

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Happy Fox Books
  • Year: 2023
  • Ages: Baby-3
  • Board book picture book ‏ : ‎ 28 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1641242973

Brief summary: An animal alphabet book illustrated with photographs. Big and small letters. The back has all the animals, and the child is asked if they know them.

Rating: 3/5 📗📗📗

There is another Happy Fox book that came out this year teaching colors called My First Colors: Learn About Our Colorful World. 

Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.

Various cars

C Is for Car: An ABC Car Primer 

by Ashley Marie Mireles (Author), Volha Kaliaha (Illustrator)

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Familius
  • Year: Amazon says October 18, 2022, but the book says 2023
  • Ages: Baby to 3
  • Board book picture book ‏ : ‎ 20 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 164170725

Brief summary: A car for each letter.

Comments: I learned some new ones. Good visual introduction to specific cars.

Rating: 3/5 📗📗📗

Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.

*(This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, I may earn an affiliate commission at no additional cost to you).

2023 Children's Books · Children's Book Recommendations

Garden Picture Book Recommendations

Garden picture book recommendations are by Angela Ferraris, The Retired School Librarian.*

Children playing in a garden

Garden Walk 

by Virginia Brimhall Snow (Author). Publisher ‏ : ‎ Gibbs Smith. 2023. PreK-2. Hardcover picture book. ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1423662525.

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.

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, click here.

A grandfather giving his granddaughter a pot of peonies

Love Makes a Garden Grow 

by Taeeun Yoo (Author, Illustrator). Publisher ‏ : ‎ Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books. 2023. Prek-2. Hardcover picture book. ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1534442863.

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.

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.

 A girl in a polka dot dress on the rooftop garden gathering fruit and fegetables for her basket while a cat is chasing butterflies

Linh’s Rooftop Garden (Where In the Garden?) 

by JaNay Brown-Wood (Author), Samara Hardy (Illustrator). Publisher ‏ : ‎ Peachtree. 2023. PreK-1. Hardcover picture book.

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.

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:

A child with flowers all around them wearing a necklace of daisies.

Watch Me Bloom: A Bouquet of Haiku Poems for Budding Naturalists 

by Krina Patel-Sage (Author, Illustrator).Publisher ‏ : ‎ Lantana Publishing. 2023. PreK-3. Hardcover picture book. ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1913747992

Brief summary: A collection of twenty-four haikus about different flower species, all illustrated with lovely bright colors, including the paste-down end pages.

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.

A word on a rock with quilled plants growing beside it

Just a Worm 

by Marie Boyd (Author, Illustrator). Publisher ‏ : ‎ Greenwillow Books. 2023. PreK-3. Hardcover picture book. ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0063212565.

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?

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.

George Washington Carver as a young man with a moustache holding a large pot of white flowers

George Washington Carver: More Than “The Peanut Man” (Bright Minds): More Than “The Peanut Man” 

by Janel Rodriguez (Author), Subi Bosa (Illustrator). Publisher ‏ : ‎ Children’s Press. 2023. Grades 3-6. Hardcover narrative nonfiction hardcover. ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1338864205.

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.

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.

A child tending a garden with plants and animals. Geese are flying overhead.

Little Land 

by Diana Sudyka (Author, Illustrator). Publisher ‏ : ‎ Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. 2023.

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.

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.

A little girl in a red hoody looking at a flower with her black and white dog. She has a box of seeds.

Every Little Seed 

by Cynthia Schumerth (Author), Elisa Paganelli (Illustrator).Publisher ‏ : ‎ Sleeping Bear Press. 2023. PreK-2. Hardcover picture book. ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1534112698.

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.

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.

A little mouse inside of a red tulip

A Flower is a Friend 

by Frieda Wishinsky (Author), Karen Patkau (Illustrator).Publisher ‏ : ‎ Pajama Press; 1st edition. 2023. Prek-1. Hardcover nonfiction. ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1772782806.

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.

garden and flowers in a circle with a white picket fence with a city scape background

My First Garden: For Little Gardeners Who Want to Grow 

by Livi Gosling (Author). Publisher ‏ : ‎ DK Children.2023. K-4. Hardcover nonfiction(80pages). ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0744070866.

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.

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.

For more details or to buy, click here.

Ratings:4/5 📗📗📗📗

Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.

A young girl and her mother with henna on their hands.

A Garden in My Hands 

by Meera Sriram (Author), Sandhya Prabhat (Illustrator). Publisher ‏ : ‎ Knopf Books for Young Readers. 2023. Prek-2. Hardcover picture book. ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0593427101.

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.

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.

Children planting and tending a garden

G is for Gardening (A Gardening ABC Primer) 

by Ashley Marie Mireles (Author), Volha Kaliaha (Illustrator). Publisher ‏ : ‎ Familius. 2023. Baby-3. Hardcover board book. ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1641707503.

Brief summary: Readers will learn their ABCs of gardening, discovering tools, plants, and animals in a garden.

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.

*(This content contains Amazon affiliate links. When you buy through these links, I may earn an affiliate commission at no additional cost to you).