100 Picture Books

[osprey_archer]

Mad with the power of list-making, I've made yet another list, this one focused on picture books. We've reached a slow time at work and I simply must keep myself occupied somehow!

For obvious reasons, this list leans heavily on books that were available when I was young, but I've included as many newer favorites as I can, as well.

Comments

[thisbluespirit]

16/100! I think we've talked before about how marked the lack of overlap is between UK and US picture books, even more so than older children's lit - so that's just 16 even with me being a children's librarian for over a decade, reading pretty much every picture book in the entire library service at one time or another and endlessly discussing them, Greenaway training & judging, *and* doing a module on children's lit at uni for the ILS course, even aside from my own reading. I did know some, though, as you can see!

[osprey_archer]

I'm trying to figure out if there's a way that it will let me see which books you checked, as I'm very curious to know which ones DID manage to cross the Atlantic.

[thisbluespirit]

Some of the Frances ones, The Very Hungry Caterpillar (of course; and I knew the other Carles, I just hadn't read them), Dr Seuss (although I'd only personally read 1), Dogger (a UK Kate Greenaway winner & one of the best known of our picture books), Flower Fairies; Brambley Hedge; I've heard & seen but not read the Berenstein bears; Emily; The Mousehole Cat; the Jane Hisseys, Castle, the Lynley Dodd - oh and it should have been 17 as I see I somehow completely missed the Ahlbergs (also UK), The Polar Express I think, and weirdly Martine fait le cuisine, but translated into English with a different name - we had it and another one of the same series at home, growing up at some point.

I have definitely heard of some of the others but if I've seen them before in the wild, I may have forgotten. I think I've read books on child lit that mentioned them, possibly US published, idk.

[osprey_archer]

I remember one time telling someone from a Commonwealth country that I never read Enid Blyton as a child, and the expression on their face is probably the expression on mine when I read that you've only ever read one Dr. Seuss. Clearly we both grew up just fine! AND YET.

My mother had a copy of Martine fait la cuisine that she must have bought when she and Dad lived in France (they were there for sabbatical before my brother was born) and I was completely fascinated by the idea of a book that it was impossible to read because it was in another language. Loved the pictures, too.

The Lynley Dodds have I think now been published in the United States, but we first picked them up on a family trip to New Zealand in 2005 and were thrilled by our find.

[thisbluespirit]

and the expression on their face is probably the expression on mine when I read that you've only ever read one Dr. Seuss.

Oh, no - just only one out of those you've included on your list! I mean, he's not quite such a staple in the UK but he's pretty well known. I had a wonderful pop-up Dr Seuss that I have no idea what the name was, but it had lots of mice in it. It's just there are LOTS and I had said pop up one of my own, and then I read a few of the most famous ones when I was a librarian, but they didn't happen to be the ones you picked out here.

(I just don't personally seem to remember reading many picture books as a child, really. I think I only had access to them at school. My middle sis and I were very close in age, so it was probably a bit much for Mum to get to the library when we were both tiny. We had a little home collection of illustration fairy tales, Bible stories and old Ladybird books that she used to read to us at night, plus I learned to read at 3 or 4 and moved onto the younger end of Enid Blyton fairly swiftly - we had some Noddy books, too. Little Sis, though, we used to get her picture books from the library and she definitely had favourites - including Dogger!)

[qian]

5 lolol. I agree with commenter above that the popular UK picture books are very different, like I feel a bit dazed reading a 100 picture books list that doesn't have a Julia Donaldson on it (though I think she did start publishing too late for millennials to have read her growing up). I also don't really remember the picture books I read when I was little, save one or two.

[ethelmay]

Thirty. I have read several Jan Bretts, but you kept hitting ones I hadn't.

[skygiants]

My rate on this one is a measly 8 but I'm always cheering for Miss Rumphius!

[lirazel]

I am the same--never read any Blyton but cannot imagine a childhood without Dr. Seuss!

[lirazel]

I got 28, but there are several here that I now want to hunt down for my niblings!

[minutia_r]

13, in part because I just can't remember which of the Franceses I've read--until I hit Best Friends for Frances and then I went, oh yes, I know that one.

(You managed to include an Eric Carle that I haven't even heard of, also.)

[genarti]

28! This one was hard, though, because so many of them I encountered young enough that I don't 100% remember them from the cover and title; I'd have to actually flip through to see how familiar it felt. So there's some margin for error here... Several ones sparked immediate recognition of books I'd entirely forgotten, though. The Ox-Cart Man! I don't remember anything that happened but the cover evoked immediate memory!

One I can tell you for sure I read is The Owl and the Pussycat, because there's family lore on this one: I loved it so much when I was 3 that I memorized it, which my parents discovered when my mom found me "reading" it aloud to myself before I had actually learned to read. Thereafter I would recite it as a party trick if prompted to do so. I can still mostly recite it, though I think I'd have to get occasional next-line prompting.

[sovay]

Mad with the power of list-making, I've made yet another list, this one focused on picture books.

55 of 100, which is less than I have been getting with non-picture books! Fascinating. I wonder if the generational stuff hits more strongly with picture books than with the other kind, too.

[asakiyume]

You had so many Frances books, but not the one that was up there with Bread and Jam as my favorite: A Baby Sister for Frances. I loved that! But admittedly "Frances" as a name is close to "Francesca" and "Gloria" (the little sister) is sorta-kinda like "Gabriella," so I was sure the picture book was for me. Also Baby Gloria is in one of those baby sacks with a pull string at the bottom, which Baby Gabriella had, too.

... But baby sister books maybe are not such a hit with readers who **are** the younger sister.

It's a lovely three pages to gaze on. Picture book covers are so fun.

[osprey_archer]

I'm pretty sure all the childhood favorites that I've listed here are ones we owned, which I've reread in the years since I was small. Anything we got from the library and didn't like enough to buy a copy of has long since been forgotten!

[osprey_archer]

I had to look Julia Donaldson up, and she did start publishing a bit after I would have been in prime picture-book reading season (although a number of these books are books I read later when they came through check-ins at the library, for instance).

The Gruffalo is big here, though. I've definitely heard of it, though not read it.

[osprey_archer]

Jan Brett has published SO many books. I think I know her work pretty well but truly it is so vast that I don't at all.

[osprey_archer]

I almost FORGOT Miss Rumphius. Truly it was a shocking moment for me when I finally remembered to put her on!

[osprey_archer]

Oh yay! Always happy to help find books for niblings!

[osprey_archer]

Eric Carle is another one of those authors who published so many books. SO. MANY.

[osprey_archer]

I think picture books often are more generational, because it's very common for people to just quit reading them after they pass picture book age - often until there's a younger family member who needs to be read to.

[osprey_archer]

We had all the Franceses! And we read them all! But probably that one least because as a youngest child myself I was not terribly interested in reading about a child getting a younger sibling.

Picture book covers are such a delight. Making this list definitely made me want to go raid the picture book section at the local bookstore, haha.

[osprey_archer]

The other danger with picture books is that sometimes they'll get re-illustrated down the line, like Mary Stolz's Belling the Tiger, which was originally illustrated by Beni Montresor and then re-illustrated in the 2000somethings by... I forget who, someone less striking than Beni Montresor, but I guess they wanted to reissue the book with full-color illustrations.

I first read it with the new illustrations and then was MOST put out when I happened upon an earlier copy and realized I could have had Beni Montresor all along.

[lirazel]

:D

I'm also making my own list, but I've stalled out at 96 and yet I know I'm forgetting things, so I'm putting off posting it!

[osprey_archer]

Most of my childhood favorites I've never posted about, so I had to make up the list all out of my own head without any help from looking at old DW posts, and coming up with the last few were a real challenge.

[lirazel]

I know! For the others I could pull on other lists I've made at other times, but not for the picture books one!