I’ve done a lot of buying used books online — there are a ton of children’s books for under $5 on Ebay, with free shipping in the US. Most of the best children’s books weren’t published in the last few years, and there are a lot of old copies floating around. Compared to used book stores or thrift shops where you manually browse through, large sites with search make it much easier to find specific books you want.
Of course libraries are another great source, but I’ve enjoyed having a lot of our own books around (and not needing to find lost library books.) We do use the library service a lot for audiobooks.
I like this method best for younger kids who want a picture book read over and over. When kids move on to novels that they’ll likely only read once, libraries or ebooks might make more sense.
Search terms
- Anything from lists like Goodreads’ Best picture books or BBC’s 100 greatest children’s books, which are mostly easy to find used for a few dollars on sites like Ebay.
- Books recommended by What We Do All Day. A lot of the chapter books I’ve read to my kids came from those lists.
- If you like one story and know there are more in the series, see if there are results for “treasury”, “complete”, or “anthology.” e.g. The Complete Tales and Poems of Winnie-the-Pooh, The Great Big Enormous Book of Tashi, An Elephant & Piggie Biggie, A Beatrix Potter Treasury.
- For trips, we’ve brought books that collect stories by different authors, like the 20th Century Children’s Book Treasury or The World Treasury of Children’s Children’s Literature. This gives a good amount of variety, and only one item to find when you’re packing up. There tend to be fewer and smaller picture than the originals, though.
- “Lot” or “bundle,” as in “Magic Schoolbus lot,” when you don’t especially care which books in a series you get.
- Names of awards like “Caldecott” or “Newbury medal”
- Most things by the publisher Usborne.
- The “Look Inside” lift-the-flap books on space, the human body, etc.
- Puzzle Adventures series – we tried the Young Puzzle Adventures, there are also standard Puzzle Adventures for older kids.
- Probably ask an LLM for some search terms based on books your kids already like.
Favorites about specific topics
About bodies: Japan seems to have mastered this genre. All about Scabs, The Holes in Your Nose, Contemplating Your Bellybutton, Everyone Poops. See Inside Your Body is pretty good even if you don’t read most of the text.
About reproduction: It’s So Amazing! about where babies come from. Aimed at elementary school age, but the pictures of gestating babies were popular from age 2 at our house. Doesn’t cover anything about transgender. It’s Perfectly Normal is the version for older kids. I hear good things about Sex Is a Funny Word but haven’t read it.
Let’s Read and Find Out science series: picture books on science concepts on topics like weather, the human body, space
About evolution: The Story of Life by Catherine Barr (one of several books with the same title). Our Family Tree: an Evolution Story by Lisa Westberg Peters
About diversity for young children: “We’re Different, We’re the Same” about how people’s bodies look different (Sesame Street, but you don’t have to know those characters for the book to work). “Happy in our Skin” is more specifically about color.
About how people live around the world: DK’s People and Places, Unicef’s A Life Like Mine and Children Just Like Me, Peter Spier’s People. (These last two were favorites of mine in the 90s, and some facts are outdated but much of the material is timeless).
The book I’d take to a desert island with a 1-year-old: a book with photos of lots of things, like First 100 Words.
Some favorite authors of picture books
You likely already have favorite children’s books, but in case you want more ideas:
Byron Barton does good board books for preschoolers on vehicles and dinosaurs and such.
Sandra Boynton does excellent silly board books like Moo, Baa, La La La!
Maurice Sendak is delightfully weird.
Margaret Wise Brown: I like Goodnight Moon, The Color Kittens, and The Sailor Dog
Ezra Jack Keats: The Snowy Day, A Letter to Amy, and other books about Peter
Robert McCloskey: Blueberries for Sal, Make Way for Ducklings (especially good for the age when my kid was obsessed with ducks, but very old-fashioned on gender)
Virginia Lee Burton: Katy and the Big Snow is an ode to infrastructure and vehicles, Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel
Arnold Lobel: Frog and Toad books, Mouse Tales. Our kids also loved these as audiobooks at preschool age.
Early readers
My kids were on the slow side of learning to read, and preferred books where the words were in speech bubbles, especially graphic novel type formats. You can break up the reading by having an adult read one character and the child read the other.
Mo Willems: Elephant and Piggie books and others. Each story is short, so you might want a collection like the Elephant and Piggie Biggie collections.
Yeti and Unicorn and other Acorn books
Dr. Seuss: Hop on Pop and other beginner books are better for short attention spans because each few pages can stand alone.
Books with detailed illustrations
One of my kids really liked looking through detailed pictures, especially before she was comfortable reading text.
Some favorites:
- Richard Scarry books: the vintage ones have outdated gender roles and national stereotypes, but newer editions have often been adapted somewhat. “Funniest Storybook Ever” and “Busy Busy Town” are some that have been updated a bit.
- Anything with “visual dictionary” or “visual encyclopedia” in the title, like the DK series.
- DK Eyewitness Books or Our World in Pictures: photo-rich books about animals, history, etc
- The Wonders of Nature or Animalium and the other books from Welcome to the Museum: large, beautifully illustrated science books, although I think I like them more than the kids do.
- In the Town All Year Round – big, detailed pictures of different scenes / buildings in a town through the four seasons (my kids are looking at it above)
- Our Animal Friends at Maple Hill Farm
- National Geographic books of interesting photos
- If they like architecture: Castle and other books by David Macaulay, or City by Nicholas Harris (shows London in different eras from village to modern times)
Note that many of these have a lot of words as well as pictures, but you don’t have to read them all! When I read a book like this to a young kid, I’m not attempting to read most of the text. It’s more like “There are a lot of kinds of beetles! They’re different sizes and colors.” Then we talk about the pictures for as long as the kid is interested, and move on to another page.
Holiday books
I find it useful to have some books outlining why and how we celebrate a holiday, so that kids who aren’t really old enough to remember past years well get oriented before we’re in the middle of a holiday season.
Chanukah: My first Chanukah board book, Tomie Da Paola. Good for age 1-4, not too wordy.
Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins: a fairy tale set at Chanukah, doesn’t aim to explain the holiday.
Passover: The Passover Seder, Emily Sper. If your kids aren’t apt to immediately destroy pop-up books. Still pretty good after the parts have been ripped out.
The Story of Passover, David Adler
If you live in North America and someone in your family is Jewish, PJ library will mail you Jewish kids’ books for free each month. A lot of PJ library books are on Ebay too.
Christmas: Hark! A Christmas Sampler, Jane Yolen and Tomie da Paola. A mix of Bible text, descriptions of how Christmas has been celebrated in different places and times, poems, carols, and short stories.
Easter:
The Story of Easter: An Easter And Springtime Book by Aileen Fisher covering both the basics of the Christian story, and various customs around the holiday.
The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes. Delightful 1930s story of a mother bunny joining the all-male Easter Bunny workforce. (There’s a weird outdated bit at the end praising a child who was sick for a year and never complained; I might edit that bit on the fly rather then valorize silent suffering.)
Some types of books I found overrated
Amazon shows me a lot of new children’s books about emotional skills, mindfulness, and such, but we haven’t loved any of the ones I’ve bought.
But if there’s a topic you’re struggling to figure out how to talk about with your child (grief, divorce, difficult behaviors), these might be helpful!
Happy reading!