Magazine Extra: Great Picture Books for Homeschool Reading
Sometimes, a great picture book is just what you want. We couldn’t squeeze all our favorite young reader titles into the summer reading guide in our summer issue, so we’re sharing some of the best here.
We’re big fans of Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends here, so it’s so surprise that we were enchanted by Beekle’s adventures as he travels from the island where imaginary friends wait to be imagined and into the real world, where he just knows the right friend is waiting for him.
Spare, simple words pair with dazzling illustrations in this Caldecott Honor Book about the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. It’s not what you expect in a typical picture book, but that’s part of its charm.
The illustrations in this simple story—about three bears who set out to sea to replace their mother’s accidentally broken seashell—are full of quirky details and literary references.
"You can have any pet you want as long as it doesn't need to be walked or bathed or fed,” says her mother. And so our young narrator adopts a pet sloth in this charmingly illustrated tale.
A bear eats a monk’s homework in this book, inspired by a note in a 12th century manuscript and featuring illustrations in the style of medieval manuscripts.
A blue crayon is mislabelled as “red” and suffers an identity crisis in this surprisingly nuanced book about learning to accept yourself for who you are.
An English girl helps her mother gather wild blackberries for a blackberry fool in 1710; in 1810, a kitchen slave and her daughter make the same dish; and blackberry fool is also on the menu for a mother and daughter in 1910 Boston and a father and son in present-day San Diego. Easily one of my favorite books of the year.
We love e.e. cummings around here, so I was delighted to discover this whimsical picture book biography, including several of cummings’ poems.
