Best illustrated books all over the world
A classic picture book biography of the 16th President of the United States. With luminous lithograph illustrations and a warm narrative, the d’Aulaires bring to life Lincoln’s childhood on the frontier, his love of learning, and his journey toward leadership. Winner of the 1940 Caldecott Medal, this book remains a […]
Will sleds down a hill and crashes into a hunter, a dog, a fox, a rabbit, and a bear, all tumbling together on the sled. The text is short, rhythmic, and playful, full of Kharms’ absurd humor. Vladimir Radunsky’s illustrations capture the wild energy of the ride. Snow flies and […]
Original title: Цветные стеклышки Galina Demykina looks at the world through the colored glasses of imagination, turning familiar, everyday things and events into incredible miracles and revelations. The writer knows the secret inner life of children, about whom she writes with captivating warmth and love. She is helped in this […]
Original title: Ворон, карась, медведь и лиса
Pim is the youngest in his family, but he’s determined to be captain of the boat. While the grown-ups doubt him, Pim is busy fighting “ice people” with hot pancake cannonballs and steering the table upside-down like a ship. Imagination makes him taller than his years, until the day comes […]
Chris Raschka’s The Blushful Hippopotamus (1996) is about a little hippo named Roosevelt. He blushes easily, especially when things go wrong or he feels clumsy. At first, his older sister teases him, and she looks so big on the page that Roosevelt seems tiny and unsure. He has a friend, […]
«Secret River», illustrated by Leonard Weisgard, was first published in 1955, after the death of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. The story follows a girl named Calpurnia from a poor family, who, during the Great Depression, sets out with her puppy in search of a mysterious river to help feed her village. […]
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 […]
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: 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 […]
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 – […]
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 […]
Moosey Moose bursts with the voice of a little moose who suddenly decides: “I’m going to sit here!” He is loud, stubborn, and full of energy, and the rhythm of the words matches his mood perfectly — short, emphatic, almost like stomps on the page. Raschka’s brushstrokes echo that energy. […]
Original title: Волшебник Изумрудного города “The Wizard of the Emerald City” is a fairy tale story by Alexander Melentyevich Volkov, written in 1939 based on the fairy tale by the American writer Lyman Frank Baum “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” with some changes. The illustrator of the original edition of […]
Swiss artist Alois Carigiet was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Prize, the most prestigious award in the field, for his contribution to the development of children’s literature. The category for illustrators was introduced in 1966, ten years after the prize was founded, and Carigiet became its first laureate. In fact, […]