Best illustrated books all over the world
Edmund Dulac (1882–1953) was a leading illustrator and artist in France and Britain during the early 20th century. Born in Toulouse, France, he showed an early interest in art. His father worked as a restorer of old paintings, and his uncle collected and studied Eastern art, including Japanese prints and […]
Original title: Приключения барона Мюнхаузена Almost every book illustrated by Mikhail Maiofis becomes a notable event in the world of book graphics, reflecting the artist’s imagination, inventiveness, and genuine talent. His style is immediately recognizable, with a distinctive visual signature that allows readers to say at once, “This is Maiofis!” […]
Mikhail Solomonovich Maiofis (born 1939) is a Russian artist and illustrator, known for his work in graphic arts, painting, and etching. He was born in Leningrad and graduated in 1963 from the Ilya Repin Institute of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture. Maiofis began illustrating books in the early 1960s and went […]
“The Tale of Petya, the Fat Child, and Sima, the Thin One” was published by Moskovsky Rabochy in 1925 and became Vladimir Mayakovsky’s first children’s book. The poem tells the story of Petya, the repulsive son of a bourgeois, and Sima, the virtuous child of a proletarian blacksmith. It spans […]
Nikolai Nikolaevich Kupreyanov (1894–1933) was a Soviet graphic artist. He was born in the Polish town of Włocławek. In 1912, he graduated from the Tenishev School and then studied for four years at the Faculty of Law at Saint Petersburg University, while also attending the workshops of the Imperial Academy […]
The Nine Lives of Aristotle by Dick King-Smith, illustrated by Bob Graham, tells the story of a small, fearless kitten living with a kind witch named Bella Donna. Aristotle rushes headfirst into every possible danger — tumbling down chimneys, spilling milk jugs, falling into rivers, and escaping dogs and trains. […]
Bob Graham (born in 1942) is an Australian author and illustrator best known for his picture books about everyday life. His works often focus on small, real moments — families, city streets, quiet gestures — drawn with loose watercolors and a documentary kind of tenderness. In 2002, his book Jethro […]
A rhythmic, explosive picture book where pattern, sound, and color march together. Drummer Hoff retells an old folk rhyme about soldiers who build a grand cannon — the Sultan — and the drummer who fires it. Ed Emberley’s woodcut illustrations pulse with energy: bright blocks of red, blue, and yellow […]
Leo Lionni’s The Alphabet Tree (1968) is a visual and conceptual experiment in storytelling through letters. The book presents tiny letters clinging to a tree, threatened by a fierce wind, and shows them gaining strength by forming words—and eventually sentences—with a message of peace. The illustrations use wide white spaces […]
Leo Lionni (1910–1999) was a pioneering author and illustrator of children’s books. Born in the Netherlands, he grew up partly in Italy and later moved to the United States in 1939, where he worked as an art director in advertising and for Fortune magazine. In 1962, Lionni began creating children’s […]
The letter, almost like a living character, rushes across the pages: picked up by postmen, flying in airplanes, sailing on ships, riding on horseback, even sliding on sleds. Each time it finds a new messenger hurrying to deliver it to the right place. And though the letter is always a […]
Montresor’s illustrations in Mommies at Work are immediately striking. The original 1961 edition uses deep purples with bright yellow accents, giving each page a sketchy, almost theatrical feel. At first, the images seem to show the familiar — moms cooking, washing dishes, zipping coats — but as the book unfolds, […]
Beni Montresor’s illustrations for The Birthday of the Infanta and Other Tales feel like fragments of a stage performance. Every detail — from fabrics to gestures — follows the logic of theater. The figures don’t just pose; they act. Space, movement, and silence all play their part, as if the […]
In this wild, rhythmic picture book, Beatrice Schenk de Regniers spins a mischievous, folk-like tale full of repetition, humor, and absurdity. Beni Montresor’s vivid, expressionistic illustrations heighten the sense of heat, rhythm, and madness. His bold colors and surreal compositions match the feverish energy of the text, turning this simple […]
In this striking reinterpretation of the classic tale, Beni Montresor returns to Charles Perrault’s original, preserving its dark ending and omitting the moral. Inspired by Gustave Doré’s engravings, his theatrical illustrations transform the story into a symbolic meditation on innocence, danger, and transformation. Through layers of shadow and light, Montresor […]
Vladimir Radunsky (1954–2018) was an artist, writer, and designer who never liked to stay in one style for long. He was born in Perm, grew up in Moscow, and studied art, design, and architecture before moving to New York in 1982, where he discovered the world of children’s books. He […]
War takes away words — they are simply not enough to express all the pain, grief, darkness, fear, and anger that come with it. The silence in Oleksandr Shatokhin’s wordless picture book “Yellow Butterfly” resounds louder than any scream. A little girl wanders through a black, threatening world, caught in […]
Oleksandr Shatokhin (born 1988) is a Ukrainian illustrator. He has been drawing since childhood, with watercolor as his favorite medium, while also working with digital graphics. Shatokhin illustrates children’s books and magazines. His wordless picture book Yellow Butterfly (2022) gained international recognition and was translated into several languages. In his […]
Jazz ABZ: An A to Z Collection of Jazz Portraits (Candlewick, 2005) is exactly what the title promises: 26 jazz greats, one for each letter of the alphabet. The words come from Wynton Marsalis, trumpeter, bandleader, and walking encyclopedia of jazz. Instead of writing mini-biographies, he plays with form. Each […]
Paul Rogers is an American illustrator and graphic designer best known for his bold, poster-like style that often draws on mid-20th-century design traditions. He studied at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, and later worked in advertising and editorial illustration before moving more heavily into book projects. […]