The best picture books that have beautiful, detailed, color illustrations. Obviously a good storyline as well! NOT CARTOONISH or "CUTE"

FELLOW LIBRARIANS PLEASE HELP US RID THIS LIST OF SELF PROMOTING SPAM.

Caldecott Contenders aka Mock Caldecotts by year:
2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017

Picture Books by Decade:
2020s, 2010s, 2000s, 1990s, 1980s, 1970s, 1960s, 1950s, 1940s and before

Picture Books by Year:
2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019
2020, 2021, 2022

See also:
Best Popular Picture Books on Goodreads
Best Picture Books
Charlotte Zolotow Award Winners and Honors
Children's Picture Books With Beautiful Illustrations
Caldecott Medal Winners
Caldecott Honor Books
Wordless Picture Books
1

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17

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18

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19

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20

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21

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22

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23

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24

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25

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4.21 avg rating — 53,903 ratings
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25

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4.22 avg rating — 189,828 ratings
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27

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4.24 avg rating — 18,204 ratings
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28

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4.33 avg rating — 229,815 ratings
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29

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4.32 avg rating — 6,342 ratings
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30

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4.38 avg rating — 12,720 ratings
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31

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32

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4.23 avg rating — 1,390 ratings
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33

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4.27 avg rating — 47,197 ratings
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34

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4.05 avg rating — 12,407 ratings
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35

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4.37 avg rating — 2,200 ratings
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36

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4.35 avg rating — 21,041 ratings
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37

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4.30 avg rating — 42,388 ratings
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38

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4.21 avg rating — 8,109 ratings
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39

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4.08 avg rating — 59,600 ratings
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40

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4.16 avg rating — 3,620 ratings
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41

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4.26 avg rating — 13,353 ratings
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42

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4.16 avg rating — 25,016 ratings
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43

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4.18 avg rating — 16,680 ratings
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44

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4.22 avg rating — 7,647 ratings
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45

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4.57 avg rating — 782 ratings
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46

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4.35 avg rating — 60,081 ratings
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47

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4.45 avg rating — 1,944 ratings
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48

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49

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4.24 avg rating — 27,102 ratings
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50

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51

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4.42 avg rating — 62 ratings
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52

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53

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54

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4.34 avg rating — 7,205 ratings
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55

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4.38 avg rating — 13,572 ratings
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56

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57

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58

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4.25 avg rating — 59,529 ratings
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59

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60

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4.23 avg rating — 18,771 ratings
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61

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4.35 avg rating — 370,444 ratings
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62

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63

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64

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65

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66

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68

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73

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4.39 avg rating — 147,542 ratings
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80

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81

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4.32 avg rating — 195,866 ratings
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82

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4.27 avg rating — 2,438 ratings
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83

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4.24 avg rating — 3,463 ratings
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84

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4.30 avg rating — 29,510 ratings
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85

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4.16 avg rating — 1,800 ratings
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86

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4.36 avg rating — 36 ratings
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87

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4.58 avg rating — 540 ratings
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88

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4.35 avg rating — 137 ratings
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89

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4.20 avg rating — 116,775 ratings
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90

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4.17 avg rating — 6,349 ratings
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91

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92

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93

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4.26 avg rating — 11,487 ratings
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94

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95

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3.87 avg rating — 8,940 ratings
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96

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4.38 avg rating — 247,895 ratings
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97

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4.27 avg rating — 3,063 ratings
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98

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4.31 avg rating — 4,406 ratings
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99

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4.26 avg rating — 90,321 ratings
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100

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4.41 avg rating — 2,279 ratings
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2,176 books · 1,309 voters · list created December 7th, 2008 by Emily (votes) .
333 likes · 
Lists are re-scored approximately every 5 minutes.


Emily 1518 books
20 friends
Susanna - Censored by GoodReads 3386 books
851 friends
Heidi 950 books
25 friends
Dara S. 7590 books
389 friends
Caitlin 1971 books
77 friends
Sári 1341 books
23 friends
Katty 2199 books
144 friends
Liaken 1614 books
12 friends

More voters…


Comments Showing 1-9 of 9 (9 new)

dateUp arrow    newest »

message 1: by Bernadette (new)

Bernadette An ABC Escapade through Egypt

has beautiful photos of modern Egypt


Debbie is on Storygraph I removed some graphic novels that appeared on the list - 300, Wolverine: Weapon X, and Batman: Year One. Definitely not children's books.


message 3: by Mitchell (new)

Mitchell Friedman and as with many lists, what looks like author spam, rules. A minimum of 500 ratings or being a book at least 10 years old would seem to make a difference.


message 4: by Capn (last edited Jun 21, 2022 02:41AM) (new)

Capn I was just wondering if there has been a spin-off list for this made since? I know some "beautifully illustrated picture books" that ARE cartoony and cute, but still very worthy of being listed in view of their illustrations alone.

Any thoughts or suggestions? Here are some examples of the books I would like to include, but which aren't 'realistic', which I presume is a crucial aspect of the inclusion criteria for this list:

Phileas's Fortune: A Story about Self-Expression
Rosa
Strega Nona
Days of the Blackbird
I Ate Sunshine for Breakfast: A Celebration of Plants Around the World
and virtually all of Bettina Ehrlich's and Kaya Doi's books

Cartoonish does not necessarily equate with unskilled or hurried... it seems a shame to not be able to list these purely by dint of their artistic merit. :S


message 5: by Mitchell (new)

Mitchell Friedman Capn wrote: "I was just wondering if there has been a spin-off list for this made since? I know some "beautifully illustrated picture books" that ARE cartoony and cute, but still very worthy of being listed in ..."

feel free to create a new list


message 6: by Capn (new)

Capn What's one more when you have 172, right? ;)

I'm always interested in reducing redundancy on Listopia.

Does anyone have any suggetions of extant lists, or is making a new list really the only option at this point? ;)


message 7: by Mitchell (new)

Mitchell Friedman Capn wrote: "What's one more when you have 172, right? ;)

I'm always interested in reducing redundancy on Listopia.

Does anyone have any suggetions of extant lists, or is making a new list really the only opt..."


I looked up lists tagged as picture-book and picturebook and picturebooks and found nothing more relevant.

My issue with creating a new list is how to make it so specific that any librarian would be comfortable removing any intentional or unintentional spam. And I don't have a way of describing this concept in that manner. And I've created 236 lists.


message 8: by Mitchell (last edited Jun 22, 2022 04:36PM) (new)

Mitchell Friedman Using Flotsam as a starting point I was reminded of https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/6... and https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

both would seem to fit your bill from a concept - but most likely the lists themselves will be disappointing


message 9: by Capn (new)

Capn Oh Mitchell - THANKS! :) Exactly the sort of thing I was hoping to find. There's just so much to sort through, and the search function is abyssmal. A clever way to find lists - I will use your trick in the future.

I think the "Picture Books with Amazing Art" will be the one I'll add these less-realistic-but-still-impressive-picture books to (your first link, or: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/6... for ref).


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