Tag Archives: Animals
Cinderella
This beautifully illustrated picture book features the original Brothers Grimm version of the fairy tale, featuring artwork by the renowned British illustrator Bernadette Watts. Often known throughout Europe simply as “Bernadette,” Watts first created the distinctive illustrations for this book in the 1970s using a unique, rich, textured, scratch-on-acrylic style. The illustrations provide a warm, textured, and distinctively nostalgic, old-world European charm. The rich color palettes use deep earth tones juxtaposed with sudden, luminous bursts of golds, deep reds, and soft creams, making the forest and palace scenes look lit from within. Unlike the popular Charles Perrault or Disney adaptations, this version shows a pious Cinderella who receives magical help from doves and a hazelnut tree at her mother’s grave—rather than a fairy godmother.
Title: Cinderella
Author: Brothers Grimm. Jacob (1785-1863). Wilhelm (1786-1859)
Illustrator: Bernadette Watts
Publisher: North South Books. New York
Copyright: 2026
Original Language: German
Translator: Edgar Taylor and Marian Edwards
Original Title: Aschenputtel
Original Publisher: NordSud Verlag AG
Original Copyright: 1812, (1978)
ISBN: 978-0-7358-4643-2
Hardcover pages: 32
Age range: 4-8
Genre: Picture book, Fairytale
Author’s ethnicity: German
Illustrator’s ethnicity: English
Illustrator’s residence: Northampton, England
Subjects: Fairytales, Folktales, Golden slipper, Princes, Self-esteem. Stepmothers, Stepsisters.
Tom And Momo
This warm and comforting story follows Tom (a bear) and Momo (a rabbit), two lonely children who recently moved into the exact same city apartment building but have yet to meet. Throughout the book, they constantly cross paths like “ships in the night”—Tom is on a bus while Momo cycles past, or Tom’s family walks into a diner just as Momo’s family is leaving. On Christmas Eve, both children are out running holiday errands with their parents, and both happen to be wearing bright canary yellow. After noticing each other in a crowd at a Christmas cake shop, they end up walking the same path home and finally realize they live in the same building, sparking an instant friendship. The illustrations feature a blend of soft charcoal textures and digital rendering. This gives the city scenes a grainy, tactile, and nostalgic quality. The backgrounds feature a moody palette of grays, muted blues, and warm earth tones. This captures the vastness and slight loneliness of city life.To contrast the muted city, both Tom and Momo wear bright canary-yellow outfits. This serves as a brilliant visual anchor for young readers, making the two main characters instantly recognizable in crowded urban scenes.
Title: Tom And Momo
Author: Akiko Miyakoshi
Illustrator: Akiko Miyakoshi
Publisher: Kids Can Press. Toronto
Copyright: 2026
Original Language: Japanese
Translator: Shana Rieko Shimizu
Original Title: Tomo to Momo
Original Publisher: Fukuinkan Shoten Publishers, Inc. Tokyo, Japan
Original Copyright: 2024
ISBN: 978-1-5253-1447-6
Hardcover pages: 32
Age range: 3-7
Genre: Picture book
Author’s ethnicity: Japanese
Author’s residence: Japan
Illustrator’s ethnicity: Japanese
Illustrator’s residence: Japan
Subjects: Apartment buildidngs, Bears, Christmas, City life, Friendships, Holidays, Rabbits
Mother Goose Goes To India
Mother Goose takes a trip to India in this unique collection of 15 classic European nursery rhymes with a distinctly Indian flair. This creative book introduces young readers to basic Hindi vocabulary by smoothly weaving in Hindi words. “This Little Piggy” becomes “This little sooar goes to the bazaar”, and Little Miss Muffet eats dahi (yogurt) instead of curds and whey. The artwork features bright, saturated jewel tones like turquoise, deep saffrons, and rich fuchsias. The characters are drawn with soft, round features and joyful expressions that appeal directly to toddlers and preschoolers. Each page spreads the action across the entire layout, drawing the child’s eye to small cultural details. Characters are dressed in beautifully detailed, authentic Indian attire like colorful saris, lehengas, and kurtas. Key scenes depict recognizable Indian settings, from bustling local bazaars to illuminated homes decorated with diyas (clay lamps) for Diwali. Traditional European animals are replaced with native Indian fauna, showing playful monkeys, decorated elephants, and local birds.
Title: Mother Goose Goes To India
Author: Kabir Sehgal and Surishtha Sehgal
Illustrator: Wazza Pink
Publisher: Beach Lane Books, an imprint of Simon and Schuster
Copyright: 2021
Original Language: English
ISBN: 978-1534439603
Hardcover pages: 32
Age range: 4-8
Genre: Picture book. Poetry
Book setting: India
Author’s ethnicity: Indian
Illustrator’s residence: Vietnam
Awards: NCTE Notable Book in Poetry
Subjects: Asia, Counting, Diversity, Hindi, Numbers, Nursery rhymes, Poetry, Rhymes
Click! Snap! Picture That!
This smart and quirky story focuses on how we present ourselves to the world and how we want to be seen by others. It features a series of animals sharing their grand, playful aspirations. The rock star pig imagines performing on stage alongside a wild boar. The elegant cockatoo, a highly fashionable bird, dreams of being painted by a famous artist. A high-jumping athletic frog wants to become the greatest soccer goalie ever. Gottwald uses a bright, saturated color palette that immediately captures a child’s attention and matches the book’s energetic tone. The backgrounds are kept simple and clean, which keeps the focus entirely on the animals’ highly expressive faces and comical body language. The artwork combines flat shapes with mixed-media textured layers, giving the characters a tactile, slightly retro feel. The book uses a repetitive, rhythmic structure that works perfectly for reading aloud, and it concludes with an empty frame that invites young readers to imagine how they would capture themselves in a photo.
Title: Click! Snap! Picture That!
Author: Dieter Boge
Illustrator: Benjamin Gottwald
Publisher: North South Books. New York
Copyright: 2026
Original Language: German
Translator: David Henry Wilson
Original Title: Alle wollen ein Bild: Aber nicht irgendeins
Original Publisher: Aladin in Thienemann-Esslingen Verlag
Original Copyright: 2024
ISBN: 978-0-7358-4638-8
Hardcover pages: 48
Age range: 4-8
Genre: Picture book
Author’s ethnicity: German
Author’s residence: Germany
Illustrator’s ethnicity: German
Illustrator’s residence: Hamburg, Germany
Awards: German Youth Literature Award (illustrator)
Subjects: Identity, Imagination, Pictures, Visual literacy
The Boy Behind The Wardrobe: How C.S. Lewis Grew Up To Create Narnia
This inspiring picture-book biography captures the imaginative and sometimes painful childhood of C.S. Lewis. It beautifully connects Lewis’s early losses, boarding school struggles, and close friendships to the ultimate creation of Narnia. The warm, whimsical illustrations, created with graphite pencil and Procreate, perfectly evoke a sense of nostalgic wonder and anchor the emotional depth of the story. By highlighting how real-world hardships can fuel creative storytelling, the book serves as a powerful testament to the resilience of imagination. It is an enchanting read for young fans eager to discover the real-life magic behind the world of Narnia. Included are an author’s note, an illustrator’s note, a timeline of Lewis’s life, suggestions for further reading, and recommended resources.
Title: The Boy Behind The Wardrobe: How C.S. Lewis Grew Up To Create Narnia
Author: Suzanne Poulter Harris
Illustrator: Mia Miroslavova
Publisher: Eerdmans Book for Young Readers
Copyright: 2026
Original Language: English
ISBN: 978-0-8028-5616-9
Hardcover pages: 56
Age range: 6-12
Genre: Picture book, Biography
Book setting: Ireland, England
Author’s ethnicity: Irish
Author’s residence: Washington, DC
Illustrator’s ethnicity: Bulgarian
Illustrator’s residence: England
Subjects: Biography, Books, Boxen, Imagination, J.R.R. Tolkien, Narnia, Reading, Wardrobe
People Are Weird
Written from the perspective of an inquisitive child going about an average day, this delightful book explores the many strange habits, fears, and eccentric outfits of the diverse, multigenerational humans around him. It delivers a lighthearted and comforting message: it is entirely normal to be weird, and it might even be weird to be normal. The bold, vibrant, and quirky mixed-media illustrations were rendered with various dry media, watercolor, and wet charcoal digital brushes.
Title: People Are Weird
Author: Victor D.O. Santos
Illustrator: Catorina Sobral
Publisher: Milky Way Picture Books. Canada
Copyright: 2025
Original Language: Portuguese
ISBN: 978-1990252488
Hardcover pages: 32
Age range: 5-8
Genre: Picture book
Author’s ethnicity: Brazilian-American
Illustrator’s ethnicity: Portuguese
Illustrator’s residence: Lisbon, Portugal
Awards: White Ravens Catalog
Subjects: Emotions, Feelings, Humor, Self-esteem, Urban world












