Best illustrated books all over the world
The Hungry Moon is a collection of Mexican nursery tales, including two songs and thirteen stories, illustrated by Mérida for American publishers. Though original artworks by Mérida are rare and valuable, his illustrations bring his characteristic style to the realm of children’s literature, merging cultural motifs with modernist aesthetics.
In this Caldecott-winning book, Ed Young works simultaneously as author and illustrator, offering his own retelling of the traditional Chinese “Granny Wolf” story — a tale that shares roots with the European Little Red Riding Hood but unfolds with different dynamics. Instead of one child walking through a forest, Young […]
Dahlov Ipcar’s book about an underwater farmer, published in 1961, sheds light on the hidden world beneath the water, where a tireless merman tends to his marine farm. With the help of two seahorses, he patrols his domain, protects manatees from fierce tiger sharks, and frees creatures caught in the […]
This Is Rome is one of those books where you open the first spread and immediately feel the weight of centuries settling around you, but in Šašek’s playful way, never solemn, never heavy. Rome in his hands is not a postcard city polished for tourists, it’s a living place, a […]
The Adventures of Cipollino tells the story of the brave little onion boy who stands up against injustice in a world of fruit and vegetable characters. Gheorghe Zlobin’s illustrations bring this playful tale to life with bright, energetic drawings full of movement and personality. Zlobin’s style is unusual and lively: […]
Paul and Peter are twins, and from the first page, the book opens a window into a world where numbers take shape. Father Lion tends three cubs, Mother Mole keeps track of four little ones, and a barn owl watches over five eggs. Each family is shown with small, thoughtful […]
Who Dreams of Cheese? is a picture book built around simple riddles about what different animals might dream of. Each riddle becomes an entry point into a small dream world, and the reading experience turns into a journey through shifting moods and images. Weisgard uses a warm palette, soft transitions, […]
Leonard Weisgard’s 1949 edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass is one of those rare encounters with a classic that feels both familiar and completely new. His illustrations, bold and textured, bring a distinctly mid-century sensibility to Carroll’s world — a mix of graphic clarity and imaginative […]
In Look at the Moon, Leonard Weisgard uses collagraph, a layered printmaking technique in which a collage is inked, pressed, and then hand-colored to create images that feel rich, textured, and vivid. The visual result is striking: depth and detail emerge from what might otherwise seem simple, turning each page […]
The Little Island is a classic picture book written by Margaret Wise Brown under the pseudonym Golden MacDonald and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard. Released in 1946, it won the Caldecott Medal for illustration in 1947. The story centers on a small island in the ocean and the creatures that inhabit […]
Renowned German artist and acclaimed master of book illustration Binette Schroeder has received many of the most prestigious international awards, including the Silver Medal at the Leipzig International Fair, the Golden Apple of the Bratislava Biennale, the Japanese Owl Prize, and many others. Her first picture book, Lupinchen, is set […]
Black and White is a postmodern picture book and recipient of the 1991 Caldecott Medal. Each two-page spread is divided into four quadrants, with each quadrant presenting a separate story: Seeing Things, Problem Parents, A Waiting Game, and Udder Chaos. While the stories can be read independently, they are interconnected […]
Carlos Mérida was a Guatemalan-born artist who became a major figure in Latin American modernism. He studied at the Instituto de Artes y Artesanías in Guatemala and, in 1910, moved to Paris, where he lived for four years and worked alongside artists such as Pablo Picasso, Piet Mondrian, and Amedeo […]
I Never Saw… (1972) is a collaboration between poet Judson Jerome and illustrator Helga Aichinger. The book presents a series of short poems describing things a child sees in dreams—scenes that are imaginative, sometimes ordinary, sometimes unusual. Each poem is paired with Aichinger’s dark, dream-like paintings, where limited, carefully placed […]
Original title: Бочонок собачонок Boris Zakhoder’s The Barrel-Pup is a joyful collection of poems filled with humor, imagination, and that unmistakable spark of childlike wonder. Here live an elephant, a bear, a goat and, of course, countless dogs and puppies. They are not just animals, but characters with their own […]
Stephen Gammell is one of the most recognized masters of visual horror. His most famous work in this genre remains the series of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz. These collections were published over the course of a decade, until Schwartz’s death in 1992. Decades later, […]
Original title: Чудесная волынка Rafail Volsky brings to life magical and everyday tales, richly infused with authentic Czech and Slovak customs and historical realities. Among these, the stories of Jánošík, the legendary Slovak hero and defender of the oppressed hold a special place in the hearts of readers. The books […]
Halloween ABC (Eve Merriam, illustrations by Lane Smith) is a darkly playful alphabet book of twenty-six short poems, each keyed to a Halloween word. Published in 1987, the volume pairs Merriam’s rhythmic, often macabre verses with Smith’s moody, painterly images; the illustrations (oil on board) use shadow and a restricted […]
In this book, Ipcar plays with contrast in a very direct, visual way. The cat moves through the dark, and each spread shifts between deep nighttime tones and bright, fully colored scenes that suggest what he perceives. The alternation feels almost rhythmic — quiet, shadowed pages followed by sudden bursts […]
In this seek-and-find story, a little girl sets out to locate her missing pets, convinced they’ve vanished—though they’re actually hiding in plain sight on every page. Ipcar fills the spreads with clear, bright artwork packed with animals, giving young readers plenty to spot without making the search overwhelming. Told in […]