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MaryM
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The topics on favorite picture books and reading this recently published picture book - The Chicken Thief got me thinking about wordless picture books. Wordless picture books can be such a fun and creative read.
What are the best wordless books you've discovered? How do you use wordless books? Who tells the story?
Peter Spier has several wordless (or almost wordless books). What a great storyteller he is just with illustrations - such detail. Love them. Favorites are:
Rain
Noah's Ark - almost wordless
I love Tomie de Paola's Pancakes for Breakfast - very cute and lots of fond memories for me as a new mom of my first toddler.
Another classic is The Snowman by Raymond Brigss. I see that they now have some versions with words - that to me would destroy the magical nature of that book.
A recently published one that is spectacular (Caldecott Honor Book) is The Lion & the Mouse illustrated by Jerry Pinkney. 
I have always loved quality wordless books because even the youngest ones can "read" the story. It is great to get the insight they have in telling a story from the illustrations. We would take turns telling the story and it was interesting to hear the variations.
Tell us about your favorites...
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Mary M. in Denver
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Karen T
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The Carl books - the ones about the Rottweiler who babysits? can't recall the author, but we "read" those over and over and over.
and the Christmas one where the old woman gets her accordion stolen and the creche figures help her out - someone help me with the name; it's put away until Advent and I can't remember it!
Karen
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MaryM
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Karen T wrote:
| The Carl books - the ones about the Rottweiler who babysits? can't recall the author, but we "read" those over and over and over. |
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Oh, yes, Good Dog Carl - very enjoyable. The original and the "going shopping" ones were our favorites, though I like the recent Carl's Snowy Afternoon one a lot. Very fun especially if you like adventures in the snow.
Author - Alexandra Day.
Can't help with the other one though, Karen. Hopefully someone will know.
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Mary M. in Denver
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lapazfarm
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We like Flotsam by David Weisner.
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SeaStar
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Peter Collington's A Small Miracle is a great one for the holidays.
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Erin
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Mary
Will you throw tomatoes at me for admitting I don't like wordless picture books? 
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MaryM
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Erin wrote:
Mary
Will you throw tomatoes at me for admitting I don't like wordless picture books? |
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Of course not...  but really, how can you resist Peter Spier books, I want to know  .
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Mary M. in Denver
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Erin
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MaryM wrote:
| but really, how can you resist Peter Spier books, I want to know . |
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Well because, other than the Jonah book I haven't seen any of his books. So perhaps I could be persuaded otherwise??
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MaryM
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Yes, I think maybe you could be...
And I guess this is why I started the thread. To get a listing of real quality and engaging wordless books - the ones that are fabulous even though they don't have words. There definitely are wordless books I don't care for. To simple and trite.
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Karen T
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SeaStar wrote:
| Peter Collington's A Small Miracle is a great one for the holidays. |
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that's the one I couldn't remember the title for!
karen
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seeker
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The only wordless book I think we have is You Can't Take a Balloon Into The National Gallery which is adorable... Whoa, umm... it must be out of print... The authors also have two more in the "series" that look just as wonderful.
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Oh, we just love this one! I'll have to check out the others.
I don't always like wordless books to read together. It is a book a child should spend time alone. I feel like I'm intruding if I'm talking through or explaining pictures.
But, we love our wordless books.
Peter Spier, love all his books. Peter Spier's Christmas
and his Noah's Ark and Jonah are some of our favorites.
(Sorry, Erin. I love them!)
Tomie dePaola's The Knight and the Dragon was one of our first wordless books.
Almost wordless favorite, Good Night, Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann
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chances
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I second Flotsam and also like Tuesday.
As to how we "read", for Flotsam I gave a very general plot outline, pointing to picture elements that guide the sequence of events. After that, I'd point to details in the pictures and ask how they contributed to the story, or I'd ask "what do you think happens next?" and let them find elements in the picture to support their story. They also spend time looking at the book without me.
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Thanks so much for starting this topic, Mary. I wish I had a book to add, but our favorites have already been shared.
I don't tend to "tell the story". When my first was young, I remember trying to tell a story along with a wordless picture book and she became frustrated when I couldn't repeat it exactly, over and over . After that, we tended to just look at the pictures together and I answer children's questions when asked or listen to their stories. Sometimes I point out something I like or and I never tire of sharing our enjoyment together...like laughing at the last page of Tuesday or the "eyes" in Good Night Gorilla.
Love,
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MaryM
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This book -Magpie Magic: A Tale of Colorful Mischief by April Wilson has recently recommended by Ellie on her blog bibliozealous and I added it to the colors picture book thread.
After "reading" it felt it was a worthy addition to this thread of wordless book recommendations. Very clever visual story telling.
So now I'm again on a wordless book kick - trying to see what is new from when this old thread started - or what I missed. I've requested a few from the library and will add the favorites.
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My boys enjoy the Boy, Dog, Frog series by Mercer Mayer. They are not very big books but in little boys hands they are perfect. They come up with some great stories and dialog every time
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I wrote an article on this for this spring's issue of my mother's journal!
I'll c & p an excerpt (some were already mentioned... you know, "great minds...")  :
The Arrival by Shaun Tan. This book is stunning and the artwork will weave you right into its spell. I spent the better part of an hour reading this book by myself; it is living proof that picture books aren’t just for kids. I’d happily keep this surrealistic story of an immigrant on my coffee table. While it was fun to go through with my children, the message really can be quite profound for adults too.
Rain by Peter Spier. A perfect springtime book full of lovely, poetic imagery. Peter Spier is one of those wonderful authors that the world seems content to forget. So many of his gems (some others are wordless also) are out of print and I curdle my nose in disgust sometimes to think of some the fodder that’s replacing his books at stores everywhere.
Anno’s Counting Book by Mitsumasa Anno. Get all of Anno’s books; you won’t regret it! This book doubles as a superb and innovative counting book with folky artwork that I adore. Anno’s Journey is another title in this category that is a lot of fun to follow with children.
Tuesday by David Wiesner. Wiesner is the master of the wordless genre. While we love his Flotsam, Free Fall and Sector 7 too, this book about flying frogs (yep, that’s me!) on an adventure in the middle of the night wins my boys over every time. These pictures are feast-worthy indeed.
The Lion & The Mouse by Jerry Pinkney. Now Pinkney lucked out here in that the story was already provided for him-- remember that fable from Aesop about the mouse who helps out the lion? Pinkney just happens to be an incredible artist who took this story for a beautiful spin in 2009 with the release of this book.
Rainstorm by Barbara Lehman. Lehman is more well known for her Caldecott honored The Red Book but this one tickles me just a bit more. A young, well-to-do boy feels the restlessness and boredom of a rainy day before finding a magic key that offers him a magic portal into his imagination. There’s something clean about Lehman’s illustrations that make her a refreshing read.
A Boy, a Dog, and a Frog by Mercer Mayer. My first introduction to wordless books was this one. I love the size; I love the limited color scheme. I love all the sequels to this book. I have to admit that I came into it biased because Mercer Mayer illustrated my all-time, very favorite series of childhood chapter books--The Great Brain by John Fitzgerald-- and I was delighted to see this kind of art again. One way to sneak out of the limiting Top Ten is to throw out other titles to reference by the same author. In this case, I’d point you to a very recent fun title by Mayer called Octopus Soup.
The Silver Pony by Lynd Ward. This is a sort of strange, magical book that might not be guaranteed to win everyone’s hearts... but its peculiarity won mine. I love the old fashioned, black and white sketches here.
The Boy, The Bear, The Baron, The Bard by Gregory Rogers. How refreshing! Are you studying Shakespeare? Add this to your unit to round out all the romantic, poetic imagery of the man. Here a contemporary boy gets lost on a stage hosting the Bard himself who becomes enraged at the interruption and chases the boy through old London. The great thing about graphic novels is that you get lots of bonus perspectives to complete the comic book boxes... so an extreme close up of Shakespeare’s face or a panoramic bird’s eye view of the city fill out the pages quite nicely.
Mirror by Jeannie Baker. Baker is a collage artist and she uses an assortment of materials, fabric and natural foliage to construct this very novel book. It is testament again that wordless stories aren’t just for preschoolers; in fact I think you’d really need to be about eight years old at least to really appreciate what’s going on here. When you open this book you have two stories side by side on each side the outside covers, so you are flipping pages from the inside binding to show the daily lives of an Australian child and a Morrocan child. It’s a beautiful social studies lesson on the uniqueness of two very different cultures but the same threads of family, meals, and home life bind us all together. Jeannie Baker is also well known for her other wordless story called Home which will be one of the subjects for some other season in this Book Basket column as I explore a couple of books that reflect on urban relationships. Ooh, I tremor with excitement!
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MaryM
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Thanks Ellie for the great list and reviews!
knowloveserve wrote:
| Rain by Peter Spier. A perfect springtime book full of lovely, poetic imagery. Peter Spier is one of those wonderful authors that the world seems content to forget. So many of his gems (some others are wordless also) are out of print and I curdle my nose in disgust sometimes to think of some the fodder that’s replacing his books at stores everywhere. |
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I totally agree with everything you say here. I LOVE his books. It's a shame they aren't more widely available anymore.
The Mirror, The Boy, The Bear, The Baron, The Bard and the Arrival are three that I had requested last week when I started thinking about this topic again. They looked great and I am glad you give them a thumbs up.
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A blast from the past reminded me to check out Picnic by Emily Arnold McCully. Sentimental mom here...this was a favorite for a period with my now 24 year old. I had forgotten it, but just reread. It is very cute. From reading Amazon reviews it looks like it was reissued in 2003 with a written story added. Very negative reviews on that from the purists who love the wordless version. So make sure you get the correct edition from 1984. She has a second book with the same characters - First Snow. Again look for the pre-2003 edition for wordless. I'm not linking them because all the Amazon versions are the revised.
Another Emily Arnold McCully book I just found is Four Hungry Kittens. Cute story. The Amazon reviews do a good job of describing it.
Jan Ormerod was an author I liked as a new mom (loved the 101 Things to Do with a Baby which isn't wordless - but almost). One I just found in my search is Sunshine. Very simple and enjoyable book about the ordinary. I think children would relate to the morning routine. Has a funny ending.
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I picked up Free Fall by David Wiesner recently for $0.50.
We enjoy A Small Miracle by Peter Collington every Advent. The kids just absorb the pictures and talk about what they see. It really is a good book and is recommended in Christmas Mosaic by Cay Gibson.
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4Real Forums : Picture Book Discoveries
Topic: Best Wordless Books
