My daughter, age 7, loves picture books, but I find that many of them lack the complex plotting and sophisticated language she’s come to enjoy in the easy readers & middle-grade chapter books we read together.
I asked the good people of Twitter to help me — jog my memory, give me some fresh ideas — of longform picture books.
Herewith, a list, in no particular order. The list is a mix of authors & specific titles (with authors):
- Canterbury Tales, retold by Marcia Williams
- Patricia Polacco
- Hattie & The Wild Waves, by Barbara Cooney
- The Oxcart Man, by Barbara Cooney
- The King’s Stilts, The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins & Bartholomew and the Oobleck, all by Dr. Seuss
- Jill Barklem
- Babar series by de Brunhoff (warning: racism/colonialism)
- Polo series, by Regis Faller (wordless)
- Trina Schart Hyman’s many retellings of fairy tales
- Wizardology/Pirateology/Dragonology/Mythology books
- Babymouse series by Jennifer L. Holm
- Rapunzel’s Revenge by Shannon Hale
- Mouse Guard, by David Peterson
- Minpins, by Roald Dahl
- Melisande, by E. Nesbit
- A Bad Case of Stripes, by David Shannon
- The Girl in the Castle Inside the Museum, by Kate Bernheimer
- Archie Comics
- The Invention of Hugo Cabret, by Brian Selznick
- Wonderstruck, by Brian Selznick
- Mercy Watson series by Kate DiCamillo
- Douglas Florian
- The Pet Project, by Lisa Wheeler
- Talking Eggs, by Robert San Souci & Jerry Pinkney
- Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters, John Steptoe
- Wizard of Oz & Peter Pan (both pop-ups) by Robert Sabuda
- Beatrix Potter
Many thanks to everyone who responded to my query with such great suggestions!
Do you have other suggestions? Let us know in the comments!
lizburns
Kelly @ STACKED
ReadAdv: The Reader's Advisory Twitter Chat 
I thought of several more since the Twitter conversation!
– Tomie De Paola, especially Strega Nona
– Harry the Dirty Dog
– Paul Zelinsky’s fairy tale books
– Jan Pienkowski, especially his fairy tale collection
– books by both Arnold and Anita Lobel
– Amanda and Her Alligator by Mo Willems–one not as many people know, and a little more in the early reader direction
– Atinuke’s Anna Hibiscus series (early chapter books)–these are more chapter books but do have illustrations as well
– Lucy’s Summer & Lucy’s Winter by Donald Hall–nice old Americana books–possibly a bit dated in attitude, though I don’t remember anything specific
We have big Babymouse fans over here, and Zara the Space Girl and the Mal and Chad series have been nice additions to that not-too-scary graphic novel collection.
When Jessie Came Across the Sea is a personal favorite.
Dinotopia by James Gurney and Gnome by Rien Poortvliet