Best illustrated books all over the world
Dizzy (2006) is Jonah Winter’s picture-book biography of jazz great Dizzy Gillespie, brought to life with Sean Qualls’s bold, rhythmic art. Winter tells Gillespie’s story with a text that bounces and swings, echoing the playful, unpredictable nature of Dizzy’s music. It isn’t a dry retelling of dates and facts — […]
In 1897, the Gallery Arnold in Dresden exhibited several unusual watercolors with scenes from the life of flowers, created by a young and little-known Swiss artist, Ernst Kreidolf. The drawings caught the attention of several children’s book publishers, and a year later Kreidolf’s first illustrated story, “Flower Fairy Tale” (Blumenmärchen), […]
David Wiesner is known for his surreal, wordless picture books. One of his most celebrated works is “Tuesday”. On a Tuesday evening, around eight o’clock, a group of frogs suddenly takes off from their swamp and soar over the town, flying into houses and scaring people around — only to […]
In Alessandro Sanna’s nearly wordless book, the reader follows the four seasons along the Po River, witnessing the flow of time and the lives of characters who become part of the current. Soft watercolor transitions capture the first rays of dawn, twilight in the reeds, and storm-darkened skies. The horizontal […]
The river can symbolize the flow of life: at first clear and untouched, gradually filling with new colors, events, and encounters. In Michael Roher’s book, the reader follows the river, drifting alongside the red-haired girl who is the main character. As she journeys, the girl grows up, falls in love, […]
In his book, Peter presents fascinating facts about landmarks, animals, and historical events through the shapes of real rivers. His rivers become living witnesses to both momentous global events and smaller, yet no less intriguing ones. Thus, the book makes room for stories ranging from the evolution of men’s headwear […]
In Marc Martin’s book, the power of children’s imagination transforms an ordinary river into an endless journey: cities, jungles, sunlit fields, forests with deer, and the ocean. The girl floats along the river in a small boat, and on each spread a new landscape unfolds before her. Martin uses collage, […]
Original title: Река Elena Safonova presents the river as a symbol of human progress in her 1930 picture book. Its course carries the reader from villages and wooden bridges to steamships, railways, power stations, and apartment blocks, and finally flows into the open sea. Here, the river becomes a force […]
Original title: История старой квартиры A large-scale, bright work by artist Anya Desnitskaya and writer Alexandra Litvina, “The History of an Old Apartment,” reveals the history of everyday life in the Soviet and, to some extent, pre-revolutionary periods. The reader is presented with a panorama of events in a large […]
Original title: Белая лебёдушка 33 illustrations are made in black and white lithography, and will certainly cause another discussion about whether a book with such pictures can be considered a children’s book. The artist himself said in one of his interviews that all his fairy-tale characters are the personification of […]
This tender story follows a little girl who wants to find just the right birthday present for her mother. Unsure what to choose, she turns to Mr. Rabbit for advice, and together they imagine gifts as colorful and delightful as the world around them. Charlotte Zolotow’s lyrical text is paired […]
In this small, rhythmic book, Sendak takes the reader through all twelve months of the year, with each month linked to the cozy idea of eating chicken soup with rice. The simple rhymes are fun to read aloud, and the drawings are full of little jokes and charm. It’s a […]
Thomas Perino is a French artist and illustrator who draws in a minimalist and abstract manner. His illustrations are reminiscent of Art Deco arabesques, referring to the pure geometry of Art Nouveau.
Woody Guthrie’s song text bounces with the rhythm of hammers, saws, and nails. The words echo the clatter of tools — “bling blang, hammer with my hammer, zing-o zang-o, cutting with my saw…” — and turn the work of building into a noisy game. The lines move like a chant, […]
Discovery opens with waves crashing against shores — fish, birds, then people appear. Brodsky’s poem suggests the first discoverers of America, but it’s more than just a history lesson. There are hints that discovery is ongoing: land still holds secrets, and humans are never done exploring. Radunsky’s art, in collage […]
Maurice Sendak’s The Nutcracker offers a strikingly original vision of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s classic Christmas tale. Created in conjunction with Sendak’s celebrated set and costume designs for the Pacific Northwest Ballet’s 1983 production, this book presents the familiar story of Clara, her mysterious godfather Drosselmeier, and the enchanted journey to the […]
The Maestro Plays (1994), written by Bill Martin Jr. and illustrated by Vladimir Radunsky, is a lively, rhyming picture book that follows the eccentric Maestro as he takes the stage with a parade of instruments. The language bursts with rhythm and invention: the Maestro plays reachingly, beseechingly, flowingly, glowingly – […]
Here and There is the story of Dan, the owner of a small seaside café, and Aki, a sailor who is always on the move. Two people, two different worlds: one cherishes stability, the other seeks novelty. Yet both sometimes feel lonely. When their paths cross, the world suddenly feels […]
In 10 (Ten), Radunsky follows Mr. and Mrs. Armadillo, a newly married couple who soon discover that their family will be much bigger than expected. Mrs. Armadillo gives birth not to one baby, but to ten — each simply named One through Ten. The story unfolds with playful exaggeration as […]
This book feels more like music than a story. Chris Raschka takes a few simple words — “Charlie Parker played be bop” — and mixes them with playful sounds and rhythms that bounce across the page like a saxophone solo. The text begs to be read out loud, chanted, or […]