This book is a classic. “The Five Chinese Brothers,” written by Claire Huchet Bishop and illustrated by Kurt Wiese, was first published in 1938, predating the start of World War II. Surviving this long on a library shelf (six cultural generations) requires a memorable story, great visuals, and a bit of luck. Based on a Chinese folktale, the story is about five quintuplet brothers who have each been blessed with different, extraordinary superpowers but who all equally love their mother. When one brother gets into serious trouble, the other four do not hesitate to help. The drawings are simple yet expressive, giving the brothers a rascal edge that informs you how worried they were of their fate.

I enjoyed this book as a kid, and I still enjoy it today. At its heart, it’s a story about brothers using their collective strengths to get them through life, all for sibling loyalty and parental love. I read that some people criticize this book for depicting somewhat racist Chinese stereotypes. I didn’t see it that way. In 1938, China had to be a foreign afterthought for most Americans. This book at least highlighted that familial love was one similarity between citizens of the West and the East.

Postworthy #25: “The Five Chinese Brothers,” written by Claire Huchet Bishop and illustrated by Kurt Wiese (1938, ISBN: 978-0-399-23319-7)

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Date started: 11 Apr 2026
Date revised: 14 Apr 2026

We all have had visions of ourselves steeped in fantasy that have kept us from opportunities in reality. Learning to keep an open mind can help you avoid life’s cracks. Such is the case in “I Am Not a Dog Toy,” written by Ethan T. Berlin and illustrated by Jared Chapman, a comical story about a toy that has big aspirations for himself, despite others not sharing the same vision. The writing and cartoonish art are at times laugh-out-loud funny. Most of the books that I’ve read would have ended with the main character becoming anything he wants to be. I thought the approach taken in this story is more true to life in that opportunity and real friendships provide extraordinary chances to become something special.

Postworthy #24: “I am not a dog toy,” written by Ethan T. Berlin and illustrated by Jared Chapman (2021, ISBN: 978-0-593-11901-3)

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Date started: 4 Apr 2026
Date revised: 5 Apr 2026

“The Tall Man and the Small Mouse,” written by Mara Bergman and illustrated by Birgitta Sif, is a deceptive story of perfect matches. Our two main characters are a tall man who does odds and ends around town that only a tall man can do, and a little mouse with an entrepreneurial spirit for finding lost items. The tall man finally meets his match and must enlist a business partner to solve his latest problem. The prose is lyrical and the pictures whimsically cartoonish. We never feel in any danger or doubt, but by the end the story makes us realize that this is more an origin tale of two characters destined to become friends.

Postworthy #23: “The Tall Man and the Small Mouse,” written by Mara Bergman and illustrated by Birgitta Sir (2018, ISBN: 978-1-5362-0168-0)

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Date started: 4 Apr 2026
Date revised: 5 Apr 2026

Simplicity is a strength of “Little Big,” written and illustrated by Jonathan Bentley. In this tale, a little brother covets being as big as his older brother, imagining how great life would be if he were as big as some of the biggest animals his imagination can conjure. The story has a patient pace. The watercolor and pencil pictures set the stage and do most of the storytelling. I think all kids want to be bigger at some point in their youth, especially when they have older siblings around the house. Although slightly unrealistic, it is refreshing to see a child appreciating the size he is in the present, especially knowing that there’s a parent in the other room who will be very sad to lose his baby boy to maturity, as Father Time stops for no one.

Postworthy #22: “Little Big,” written and illustrated by Jonathan Bentley (2015, ISBN: 978-0-8028-5462-9)

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Date started: 2 Apr 2026
Date revised: 5 Apr 2026

I read most of these piles and piles of picture books at home in my corner nook. My oldest son commandeered my previous home office for his bedroom, and my wife took our other extra bedroom for her official office. That left me with the corner of our master bedroom. It’s small for an office but large for a nook. I’ve made it my Dad Cave. I have a poster from a Jack White concert at the Salt Shed, a shelf with a few random books and homemade gifts from my kids, a cluttered Ikea kitchen table that I use as a desk, and a red reading chair with a shaky footstool. I stack the picture books on the side of the desk nearest the chair and read book after book until I get tired or need to do something else. This is usually done during the day so that I can look out into my backyard and lament my patchy lawn. Every once in a while it’ll be raining or snowing, and I’ll be thankful to be indoors with a messy nook to complain about.

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Date started: 14 Feb 2026
Date revised: 5 Apr 2026

“The Last Zookeeper,” written and illustrated by Aaron Becker, bucks the idea that children are not equipped to handle the concept of an apocalypse. This wordless tale begins in a decaying zoo managed by a robot aptly named nöa, who does his best caring for the remaining animals. The water level is rising, and as their sole guardian, nöa must figure out what to do to save his wards. The watercolor and ink illustrations are effective in creating vibrant but gritty scenes. The details in the images are worth a second read, like how nöa keeps the tigers in a giant birdcage, probably to keep them from acting out their apex predator tendencies. nöa comes across as a nonjudgmental robot. He is better individual than myself, who constantly wondered what humanity did to revert the world into something out of the Old Testament.

“The Last Zookeeper,” written and illustrated by Aaron Becker (2024, ISBN: 978-1-5362-2768-0)

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Date started: 31 Mar 2026
Date revised: 2 Apr 2026

“I Ain’t Gonna Paint No More!,” written by Karen Beaumont and illustrated by David Catrow, reads more like a song than a story. Our hero is a little boy who loves to paint color onto his black-and-white world, despite his mother’s wishes to keep things orderly. The artwork is as if a gifted spray-paint tagger wreaked havoc on a Shel Silverstein mural. And like a great song, the writing keeps us in rhythm as we turn the pages to see what our great boy artist has come up with next. The biggest question of the story is whether the mother is truly unhappy with the outcome. She certainly plays the part of an unhappy mother laying down the law, but like those of us who found revelation in parenthood, surely she must realize that color trumps monochrome any day of the week.

Postworthy #20: “I Ain’t Gonna Paint No More!,” written by Karen Beaumont and illustrated by David Catrow (2005, ISBN: 978-0-15-202488-8)

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Date started: 28 Mar 2026
Date revised: 31 Mar 2026

“The Wolf, the Duck, and the Mouse,” written by Mac Barnett and illustrated by Jon Klassen, is a story about what to do when life gives you lemons. In this case, our protagonist mouse is swallowed by a wolf and learns how to make the best of an awkward situation through his friendship with a duck. Unique premise? Partially, with surprises at every turn, but at the end of the day, this is a tale of two friends learning how to survive in the dark, harsh world around them. The writing is crisp, longer in text than most Barnett storylines I’ve come across, but no word is out of place. Klassen outdoes himself here with wonderful images of his classic side-eying animals in revelatory situations.

This story is my favorite of the Barnett/Klassen partnership and will most likely go down as one of my all-time great picture books. The book has everything: stellar writing, emotive illustrations, dynamic backgrounds, spirituality, surrealism, nationalism, immigrationism, mythologism. It is the Beatles’ White Album to the picture book world. The story has one of the best lines I have come across in literature: “I may have been swallowed, but I have no intention of being eaten.” Inspirational words to live by at any age or species. I hope that this book will be on shelves decades from now for my future grandkids to read. The writing and artwork are timeless and will be relevant for generations to come.

Postworthy #19: “The Wolf, the Duck, and the Mouse” written by Mac Barnett and illustrated by Jon Klassen (2017, ISBN: 978-0-7636-7754-1)

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Date started: 22 Mar 2026
Date revised: 28 Mar 2026

Let me take you back to 1995. The internet was just emerging as a reliable source of misinformation. People used pagers to communicate. What is a pager? It was a pre-smartphone messaging device that allowed you to write cryptic numerical messages to your friends. 143! “Zoom,” written and illustrated by Istvan Banyai in 1995, is a wordless story highlighting how all pictures are just smaller pieces of a larger pie. I am sure that this picture book is not the first example of a picture-within-a-picture trope, but it certainly was not prevalent in 1995, when zooming in on a computer just enlarged pixels, showing us how far we’d need to go before getting remotely close to mimicking the complex world before our eyes.

Postworthy #18: “Zoom,” written and illustrated by Istvan Banyai (1995, ISBN: 978-0-670–85804-0)

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Date started: 22 Mar 2026
Date revised: 24 Mar 2026

“Max’s Words,” written by Kate Banks and illustrated by Boris Kulikov, is a story about three brothers trying to find their place in the world. While the two older brothers have standard collections of stamps and coins, Max separates himself by collecting words and using them to create stories. The story is a love affair with diction, and its artwork is effective in riding the boundary between the real and the imaginative. Perhaps the biggest takeaway of the story, though, is that collectibles are meant to be shared with friends. The desire, discussion, and competition created by collections are potent enough to spark relationship threads between even the most stubborn of brothers.

“Max’s Words,” written by Kate Banks and illustrated by Boris Kulikov (2006, ISBN: 978-0-374-39949-8)

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Date started: 18 Mar 2026
Date revised: 21 Mar 2026

I’ve come across a few gifted storytellers thus far, and Mac Barnett is one of them. In this unusual, entertaining story, “How This Book Was Made,” written by Mac Barnett and illustrated by Adam Rex, the narrator summarizes how a story goes from an idea to a picture book, with a few embellishments and editorials. This should come as no surprise to the reader, considering that the title sums up everything presented, but what you do not get from the cover is that this is a story for adults that kids can also enjoy. The drawings will keep kids entertained, but the words give an epic account of what an author goes through to bring picture books to life. It turns out that being a children’s book author is not for the faint of heart.

Something I’ve noticed is that many successful picture books are by authors who serve as both the writer and the illustrator. My guess is that controlling everything syncs the vision cleanly. So how does Mr. Barnett do it? I heard an interview with Elton John in which he described regularly receiving manila envelopes of song lyrics from Bernie Taupin, his long-time collaborator, and running through them at the piano until something clicks musically. This strategy may work with a long-time partner, but Barnett works with everyone. My guess is that he either provides incredibly detailed notes for the artist, or is a good communicator and a great hang, or all of the above. Whatever he’s doing has worked across many different projects and serves as a role model for those of us who collaborate frequently to bring a project to the people.

“How This Book was Made,” written by Mac Barnett and illustrated by Adam Rex (2016, ISBN: 978-142315220-0)

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Date started: 18 Mar 2026
Date revised: 21 Mar 2026

“Home,” written and illustrated by Jeannie Baker, is a story of both growth and rejuvenation. Through a window, we see a young girl and her community develop before our eyes. The surprise of this story isn’t the girl, who checks the classic boxes on the way to womanhood, but the environment, which transforms from a dilapidated urban street corner to an organic, vibrant neighborhood. The pictures appear to have been created through a well-conceptualized collage of paper and other organic materials. These textures jump out of the window we look through. All we are missing are the noises of kids screaming and cars driving by, and the occasional gust of wind that brings the fragrance of the flowering trees our family worked so hard to grow.

“Home,” written and illustrated by Jeannie Baker (2004, ISBN: 978-0-06-623935-4)

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Date started: 17 Mar 2026
Date revised: 18 Mar 2026

At Night” is an upside-down book done right. Written and illustrated by Helga Bansch, this is a story about animals going to sleep and what happens when those animals suddenly swap homes in a world turned upside down. Indeed, this is an upside-down style book, where you read the book one way and then flip and read it the other way, with both stories ending in the middle. The upside-down books I have read thus far are usually two perspectives of the same story. This book is no different, but the magic is in its simplicity and its distinct artwork, which appears to be a combination of colored pencil, cutouts, painting, and paper maché. You could stare at the images for weeks and still never completely figure out how the illustrator pulls it off. The upside-down style is critical to the story. We read the book one way for a logical goodnight tale and then flip it over to enjoy the illogical. Children may hopefully read this book and replace their conventional dreams with innovative ones that change the world.

“At Night,” written and illustrated by Helga Bansch (2013 (Austria), 2016 (US); ISBN: 978-0-8028-5471-1)

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Date started: 12 Mar 2026
Date revised: 17 Mar 2026

The images in “Moon Pops” are haunting. Each picture is a 3D diorama with equal parts realism and cartoon, mixed together with lighting and focus that puts us right in the middle of a world between fantasy and reality. The story, written in Korean and illustrated by He-ena Baek, is about characters trying to keep cool on a night so hot it even melts the moon. There is a surrealism similar to “Sato the Rabbit,” but with a darker, noir edge of uncertainty. Translations make me uneasy, in that I am always concerned that I am missing a key aspect removed in the transfer from one language to another. Pictures, however, have no language barrier, and it was quite an honor to experience a master craftsperson at play.

“Moon Pops,” written and illustrated by Heena Baek (2021 (English), ISBN: 978-1-77147-429-0)

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Date started: 11 Mar 2026
Date revised: 12 Mar 2026

Expectations come in two basic flavors: our own and everyone else’s. A central question of “I’m Going to Build a Snowman,” written and illustrated by Jashar Awan, is whose expectations matter more. The story is about our protagonist and his desire to create the best snowman ever. It’s a simple story that still managed to get a laugh out of me. The art is also simple but expressive. I ended the tale admiring our hero and reflecting on how I’ve sometimes wrongly let others put a frown on my own personal successes.

“I’m Going to Build a Snowman,” written and illustrated by Jashar Awan (2023, ISBN: 978-1-6659-3817-4)

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Date started: 9 Mar 2026
Date revised: 11 Mar 2026

Experience is mostly a blessing, but we do quickly lose memory of our first-time encounters and how we interpret them. In “Mr. S,” by Monica Arnaldo, first-time students are negotiating whether a sandwich left on the table may be their teacher while other supervision is managing chaos outside. The possibility of a sandwich being their teacher seems outrageous, or is it? The students have no framework on which to base their expectations and end up learning quite a bit on their first day. The artwork is fantastic, rich with personality and vibrant color, and the visual perspectives keep us bouncing around the classroom like a kindergartner.

My youngest, a 10-year-old, read this book and found the kids ridiculous, which is ironic because I find his naïve, childish perspectives ridiculous all the time. I don’t tell him this, of course. I also don’t tell him that it’s always a joy to hear his naïve perspectives, literally unadulterated by age, because it’s a view that I lost some time ago. Seeing the world from a fresh vantage point requires us to have a clean slate without heavy biases. Only then can we consider the possibility of a sandwich leading us in song.

“Mr. S” written and illustrated by Monica Arnaldo (2023, ISBN: 978-0-06-300395-8)

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Date started: 1 Mar 2026
Date revised: 8 Mar 2026

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Date started: 9 Feb 2026
Date revised: 19 Feb 2026

I have read a fair number of true stories- a story based on the life of a person or thing. They are typically informative but hit or miss in terms of all the other things that can go wrong in a picture book. What makes Elsa’s Chessboard, written by Jenny Andrus and illustrated by Julie Downing, a different entry is its minimalist approach to the story. The story tracks Elsa falling in love with chess and how she uses the game to interact with a world filled with love, war, immigration, loss, and age. The repetitiveness of the phrase “how about a game?” means more at the end as we see her life unfold. This is a story of a normal human using a game and a chess set to manage her roll of the dice in life. As someone interested in the craft of the picture book, this was a good example of how patience adds value to an object for a great payout. We are Elsa at the end of the book and are appreciative of how life delivers precious nuggets when we need them most.

“Elsa’s Chessboard,” written by Jenny Andrus and illustrated by Julie Downing (2025, ISBN: 978-0-8234-5408-2)

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Date started: 20 Feb 2026
Date revised: 28 Feb 2026

A fight between lizards and rectangles is as ridiculous as it sounds. In “Green Lizards vs. Red Rectangles,” written and illustrated by Steve Antony, we come onto the battlefield well past the start of an epic battle between smooth-contoured, green lizards and angular, red rectangles. We don’t really understand the reason for fighting, but we assume that part of the prize is space on the page and that these guys hate each other. The story and art literally show the push and pull between these two mini powers. The unrelenting red boxes versus the organic green lizards refresh memories of the Cold War ‘80s for anyone over 40: USSR versus the West, Communism versus Democracy, Drago versus Rocky. Ironically, red and green pairings are not recommended anymore due to colorblind people not being able to tell them apart. Being colorblind and reading this book may reveal the hidden truth about all wars. At the end of the day, we’re all around the same shade of gray and could be doing far more productive things with our space and time.

Postworthy: “Green Lizards vs. Red Rectangles, written and illustrated by Steve Antony (2015, ISBN: 978-0-545-84902-9)

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Date started: 18 Feb 2026
Date revised: 19 Feb 2026

Inspirational themes abound in picture books to varying degrees of success. What makes “Sometimes You Fly” work is its construction. Written by Katherine Applegate and illustrated by Jennifer Black Reinhardt, the book is a collage of childhood experiences overcoming adversity. There’s a sticker on the front of my copy that states that this book is the Dr. Seuss’ “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” of its generation. I don’t think that description does either book justice, and I’m not sure it’s true. The Seuss tale is more of a soliloquy to a child from a wizened man imparting his final, parental thoughts. This book emphasizes that all highs start with a low. A great lesson here for all of us is that you need to turn the page to get to the good part.

“Sometimes you Fly,” written by Katherine Applegate and illustrated by Jennifer Black Reinhardt (2018, ISBN: 978-0-547-63390-9)

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Date started: 14 Feb 2026
Date revised: 19 Feb 2026