This content material incorporates affiliate hyperlinks. If you purchase by these hyperlinks, we might earn an affiliate fee.
Laura Sackton is a queer e-book nerd and freelance author, identified on the web for loving winter, despising summer season, and going overboard with extravagant baking initiatives. Along with her work at E-book Riot, she critiques for BookPage and AudioFile, and writes a weekly publication, Books & Bakes, celebrating queer lit and attractive treats. You possibly can catch her on Instagram shouting concerning the queer books she loves and sharing images of the walks she takes within the hills of Western Mass (whereas listening to audiobooks, after all).
View All posts by Laura Sackton
There may be nothing I like extra in an image e-book than creator’s be aware. Typically creator’s (and illustrator’s) notes present vital context and interesting insights into how a specific e-book got here to be. Typically authors and illustrators share their private connection to a narrative. My favourite type of creator’s notes are those that make books greater. These tales are all wonderful on their very own, however the creator’s notes flip them into one thing expansive, one thing that lives past the web page.
When You Can Swim by Jack Wong
I teared up a number of occasions studying this lovely ode to swimming, our bodies of water, and the ability of feeling welcomed. The story strikes by numerous our bodies of water, following characters of various races, ages, and genders as they swim. Each sentence begins with: “When you may swim…” and goes on to call among the wonders of swimming—diving deep, floating quietly and looking out on the sky, observing seaweed. In his creator’s be aware, Wong shares his personal fraught relationship with swimming as an immigrant child in Canada, and the way he got here to fall in love with swimming as an grownup. He writes about how he hopes the e-book can be a part of constructing a welcoming world the place swimming belongs to everybody. It is a poignant, superbly illustrated story that a variety of youngsters (and adults) will discover a house inside.
Let’s Go! by Julie Flett
When was the final time you learn an image e-book about skateboarding? Julie Flett’s books are all the time a deal with, and this pleasant celebration of skateboarding, group, and creativity isn’t any exception. It’s a easy however transferring story a few boy who loves skateboarding and the methods his family and friends assist him discover that love. In her creator’s be aware, Flett writes about how this e-book was impressed by her son’s love of skateboarding and the skate group they’re a part of. She talks about circulate state (and offers some phrases for circulate state in Cree), and this e-book looks like a textual circulate state—nothing a lot occurs, it simply rolls alongside, the whoosh and whir of a child doing one thing they love, even once they’re not good at it, as a result of it brings them pleasure.
Maples within the Mist by Minfong Ho, Jean Tseng, & Mou-Sien Tseng
I take into consideration this e-book of youngsters’s poetry no less than as soon as every week. The poems themselves, written by a dozen or so poets throughout the Tang Dynasty (618-807 CE), are brief and delightful. They’re about nature—timber and mountains and birds—in addition to journeys, the altering seasons, hardship, climate. In her in-depth creator’s be aware, Minfong Ho explains why she determined to translate the poems within the first place—as a strategy to share one thing of her personal childhood along with her kids. The private and historic context she gives transforms an already fantastic e-book into one thing extraordinary.
Stage up your studying life! Turn into an All Entry member and discover our full library of unique bonus content material, together with must-reads, deep dives, and studying problem suggestions. Join now for under $6/month!
One thing Concerning the Sky by Rachel Carson & Nikki McClure
This image e-book is such a cool collaboration! The textual content is from the transcript of a brief function Rachel Carson did about clouds in 1956. The textual content itself is straightforward and direct. Carson explains what clouds are, how the water cycle works, and what really occurs throughout a storm. Nikki McClure illustrates her phrases with attractive, wispy, wild illustrations of clouds, the sky, and the pure world. The illustrator’s be aware is so particular, and highlights the distinctive and considerably magical nature of inventive collaboration, even throughout many years. McClure describes how, alone in her home throughout the pandemic, as she was experimenting with alternative ways of bringing the sky to life, and making the washes for the illustrations, she felt like Carson was within the room along with her.
On the lookout for extra glorious image books? Take a look at The 20 Most Influential Image Books of All Time and these 2025 Image Books to Have On Your Radar.
Should you’re studying this article on-line and need kids’s e-book suggestions in your inbox, signal up for The Youngsters Are All Proper right here.