Picture books aren’t just for children—they hold profound lessons and beautiful insights that resonate with readers of all ages. For caregivers and teachers, these books are especially powerful tools, offering a creative and accessible way to foster emotional exploration and self-reflection. Picture books can serve as a bridge to reflective journaling, unlocking deep thoughts about life, emotions, and personal growth. They provide a unique opportunity to engage both young readers and adults in meaningful discussions, offering simple yet evocative narratives that inspire reflection. In this blog post, we’ll explore several picture books that not only tell compelling stories but also provide rich opportunities for journaling. Each book comes with a summary, a link to a read-aloud YouTube video, and thoughtfully crafted journal prompts to guide readers in exploring their inner world and nurturing personal growth.

Back-to-school season can mean immediate overwhelm and stress when it comes to lesson planning. Everyone is thrown back into the school routine, and it can be easy to not know where to start, especially with planning read alouds and book talks. I remember constantly thinking, I can’t wait to actually get to the content that I will be teaching.

So, why wait? Picture books can be used as read-alouds in the secondary classroom, and they can help access course content and building community activities. In this list, I have curated the ten best picture books that promise to ignite young minds, kindle imagination, and infuse the classroom with the joy of reading and writing. These storytime staples are here to accompany both students and educators on a captivating literary ride, setting the perfect tone for a year filled with exploration, growth, and endless possibilities.

Get ready to turn the page and dive into a world where learning knows no bounds!

The I Am series by Susan Verde and Peter Reynolds is one of the most identifiable book series in classrooms and stores. The art by Peter Reynolds is so specific to him, and the books have almost become synonymous with social & emotional text lists, mindfulness, and meditation for young people. There are 7 books in the series. This post covers 4 of them and how to use them in your classroom for teaching mindfulness through read-aloud and also writer moves for kids through mentor texts. While the recommended reading age for the books often states 3-7, these mentor texts could be used in any level classroom.

Let’s dive into using the I Am series as a whole group mentor text, and then let’s take a quick look at how 4 of the books can be broken down further for writing moves.

What could be better than working with mentor texts AND talking about food? I love The Food Group series from Jory John and Pete Oswald. All of the picture books in this series feature a type of food and then a description that hints at the story behind the food. The whole series can be used in a variety of ways in any classroom grades 4-12. These books would also make great introductory activities and back-to-school mentor texts because kids love talking about food (I mean, most of us like talking about food). This post is a breakdown of how to apply The Food Group series to lessons as a whole, and then it includes details in a few of the books so you can see the mentor text examples. I will also remind everyone of the mentor text process of how to use books to teach writing to kids.

Hope you are hungry! Let’s write.

For many years, I lived in the school of thought that my middle-school students wouldn’t want to read picture books. As with many things in teaching, we don’t know until we know. I love reading aloud to my students, and naturally, they love it because reading aloud goes back to a time when they loved reading as young children. As I could spend a lengthy bit of time here on this post about the apparent lack of love of reading that my sixth-graders come into my classroom with every fall, I will l quote Pernille Ripp from #NerdCampMI: “My goal is to make them dislike reading less.” Reading aloud to my students starts to work on this mission. The power of the read-aloud is equivalent to the power of the book talk. When kids hear stories and your recommendations for stories enough, they start to listen. Colby Sharp, a 5th-grade teacher in Parma, Mi, said this past week, “This year the picture book read aloud is as close to normal as anything we are doing in my classroom. The energy in the room is electric and I feed off it” (@colbysharp). This post contains 15 books that will spark electricity with words and stories.

If I were in my classroom’s physical space, I would plan to read one picture book aloud to my students each week. Now that I am virtual teaching, I plan at least 3-4 picture book read-alouds a week. One of my reflections from the 2018-2019 school year was that I loved how I felt solid with my growth in my independent reading program and my mentor text work, but I felt like I needed to be a driving force behind building empathy and compassion through both of these works. Empathy and reading were my two goals for 2019-2020, and they remain my two priorities in online learning. Reading aloud helps build not only a reading community but empathy and compassion in the form of community listening.