Looking for inspiration? A different way to see? Step into the children’s section of your library or bookstore, and you’ll find it. A really good picture book doesn’t complicate life. In fact, they take big ideas such as transformation, personal perspectives, social pressure, and making assumptions and illustrate them clearly—for children and adults. Below are a few to start you off on your picture book journey.

The Big Orange Splot (1977) by Daniel Pinkwater explores what can happen if you choose to pause and think about what you want rather than doing what was and/or going with what people pressure you to do.  Your house can be the house of your dreams rather than “all the same.”

The Book of Mistakes (2017) by Corinna Luyken transforms “mistakes” into new ideas. 

Lost and Found (2005) by Oliver Jeffers invites readers on a journey of transformation that starts with an incorrect assumption (Penguin is lost).

They All Saw a Cat (2016) by Brendan Wenzel explores the concept of the lense through which you see the world.  The cat is a cat always, but the mouse sees the cat very differently (the cat is a terrifying thing) than the dog than the fish than the boy.  

The Shrinking of Treehorn (1971) by Florence Parry Heide highlights the experience of a child trying to be seen as himself in a world of adults creating their own explanations for how he is rather than listening.