r/childrensbooks

My 6 year old son very much admires traits like bravery and physical strength. Looking for recommendations of picture books with male protagonists who embody these traits in a positive way (brave and righteous yet also kind, using their strength to help those in need, etc)

A few examples of books in this vein he's liked recently: "New York's Bravest" by Mary Pope Osbourne, "The Mighty Lalouche" by Matthew Olshan, and "Beowulf: A Hero's Tale Retold" by James Rumford. He especially likes books with action/fighting or jokes/trickery

(And before anyone says anything, we read lots of books with strong female protagonists as well lol)

I currently finished writing several bed time stories and am about to start illustrating them to turn them into toddler books. Now, I for sure will publish them as printed versions, but I am unsure if all the extra effort to do them digitally is worth it from the beginning.

I raised my son on printed books and we kept most of them. But with everything becoming more expensive and more digital, I wonder how many young parents would like to save on shelf space and would rather get an ebook.

Also, there might be parents or grandparents who would benefit from ebook formats for accessibility reasons. But I know making a picture book accessible will be a bunch of work and I am not sure if enoigh people actually read ebooks to their toddlers to make it worth it.

Anybody experience with reading ebooks to their toddlers and young children? Like what is your preference?

I have very vivid memories of this picture book from when I was a child. Owned and read the book in the early 2000s but it could have been published before that maybe early 90s?
From what I remember of the cover it was very colorful background with a yellow dog on it. The dog wasn’t a very big dog but he looked fluffy almost like a golden retriever or golden doodle but smaller. I remember a page where the dog is crossing a bridge to go into the city. When he gets to the city he meets lots of other dogs, I believe there is a page showing a dance floor with lots of other dogs and another page where there are older dogs knitting. That’s all I can remember from the book but the pages were very colorful and the illustrations covered the entire page. Please someone help me find this book I think about it atleast once a week and I just want to be able to figure it out!!

https://preview.redd.it/5vtt4hsq0d2h1.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=9232971818f50dcbcb256c5001e49e4cb3a9ffe1

I am excited to share that six weeks ago, I published my first children's book (for ages 3-6), about my love of potatoes! I started writing this actually as I was pursuing my joint MBA and Masters of Education at Stanford University, and now feel grateful to have this out there.

Over the past 6 weeks, we've toured across 2 dozen public elementary schools, several of which are Blue Ribbon schools, reaching 3,000+ early readers while also becoming a bestseller and the #1 children's book for friendship on Ingram, one of the biggest book distributors to schools, libraries, and independent bookstores.

I've loved potatoes since I was a 5 year old. And now 30 years later, it has been a deep creative pursuit to bring this idea of potatoes to life through this children's book.

A mission I am committed to is increasing early reader literacy which we know has a 40% direct impact on high school graduation rates. 

If you happen to love potatoes, or your kid loves them too (mashed potatoes, baked potatoes, french fries, and more), sharing the link to grab a copy here on. Amazon: https://a.co/d/08JG4fiF

Best,

Wendy

Hi all–I'm looking for books for my ~2-year-old daughter about famous women throughout history, and many of them understandably include themes like women being told they couldn’t do something, or families/societies limiting them because they were girls. While we will definitely be introducing the truth about women's history to our daughter as she gets older, at this age, we’re hoping to focus on books that simply celebrate amazing women and what they accomplished in their fields—without also introducing the idea that girls or women “can’t” do certain things. Right now, she wants to be an astronaut queen of Venus, so as far as she's concerned, the sky is the limit, and we want to keep it that way. Any faves for toddlers on your bookshelves? Thanks in advance!

Books we've loved include:
Dragon Bones: The Fantastic Fossil Discoveries of Mary Anning
Jackie and the Mona Lisa by Debbie Rovin Murphy
The Little Naturalists series (Jane Goodall, Beatrix Potter, Georgia O'Keefe)
Women in Science Who Changed the World

I had been writing and illustrating books for almost 5 decades and was only selling books on local bookstores until most of them closed during the pandemic..Im from Baltimore, Maryland.. Most of my books has been sitting on my basement until my caregiver suggested to start my own website.. Surprisingly it was not that hard to start a website with the help of Wix website builder...Now im planning to start a Youtube live sessions as well to talk and interact with readers..

So far im enjoying this website thing and would be so happy to ask fellow authors and readers what else can I do to improve my website..

My website is www.thenancypatzbookshop.com ..

My youtube is Nancy Patz which I just started few months ago.

We keep hearing the same thing from authors and illustrators:

Writing the book is hard. Publishing it is hard. But figuring out how to actually get the book in front of readers, families, schools, libraries, and bookstores can feel like a whole different job.

That is one of the reasons we created The Storytellers Marketing Mastery Summit, a live online event for children’s book authors and illustrators.

The summit is June 12–14 and will focus on practical book marketing topics like visibility, outreach, social media, newsletters, websites, school/library connections, and reaching the right audience for kidlit.

I’d love to hear from other children’s book creators:

What part of marketing has felt the most confusing or overwhelming for you?

Hey!

I’m looking for recommendations for touchy feely/texture books that specifically have large targets.

We have a couple, but my 8 month old only has coordination for a select few of the pages with big targets, she loves those pages though, and we just skip the others. Any books where the textures take up a significant portion of the page?

We have:
Perfect Pets
That’s not my piglet

I know we all have favorite books now, but do you remember one you specifically enjoyed as a kid? Mine were Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and then Sally’s Room (that would send my sister and I into hysterics 😝)

A Picture Book That Hands Children a Language for Their Feelings

Terry Bean’s Abracadabra is a quiet story about big emotions — and a tool parents can return to long after the last page. A young girl runs from her front porch in tears. Behind her, her parents are still arguing. She runs until the only sound is her boots on the dirt road, and she stops at her favorite spot by a lake. She picks up a branch that looks like a wand. The water is cold against her toes. And then her reflection looks back up at her and starts to speak. That is the first quiet movement of Terry Bean’s Abracadabra, a picture book that does something many stories for young children attempt and few actually pull off: it gives a
child the words for what they feel before a parent has to ask.

A Safe Way Into Big Feelings

Children often don’t have language for sadness, fear, or worry. The feelings come out
sideways — as silence, as irritability, as running away. Dani is overwhelmed and crying,
and her reflection doesn’t fix her, doesn’t rush her, doesn’t tell her to be happy. It just
notices.
“Dani, you look sad.”

That single line is the foundation of the book. Before a feeling can be worked through, it
has to be acknowledged. Before a child can pause, choose, or self-regulate, they need
to hear from someone — even themselves, in a reflection — that what they’re feeling is
real and allowed. When the reflection tells Dani, “It’s OK to feel sad,” Terry Bean is
handing parents a phrase. The kind of phrase that, used in a kitchen or a car ride a
week later, becomes a small shortcut to a bigger conversation.

Read it Twice

Abracadabra has earned a 5-Star review from Reader’s Favorite. One reviewer
described her daughter applying the Wizard’s question to small everyday choices —
pausing to ask which option will feel better afterward before deciding whether to finish a
chore or run off to play. That kind of real-world transfer is exactly what the book is
hoping for.

“A favorite in our home for both reading and conversation.”— Asher Syed, Reader’s Favorite

Terry Bean wrote Abracadabra for the moment after the door slams. Read it the first
time for the story. Read it the second time as a conversation. Then leave it on the shelf
where a child can pull it down on a hard day on her own — which is, in the end, the kind
of magic the book is actually about.

Why This Book Exists Now

Terry Bean wrote Abracadabra more than a decade ago and let it sit. She returned to it
now, after four decades in a different professional life, because she wanted to spend
this next chapter helping children find what most of us spend adulthood searching for:
enough trust in themselves to make their own choices.
Terry is certified in Neuro-Linguistic Programming and uses those tools with adult
clients navigating hard conversations. Abracadabra is, in a sense, the same work
translated for someone half a child’s height — a way of teaching, early, that what you
pay attention to shapes what you feel, and what you feel can guide what you choose.