Children's Picture Books With Beautiful Illustrations

The best picture books that have beautiful, detailed, color illustrations. Obviously a good storyline as well! NOT CARTOONISH or "CUTE"

FELLOW LIBRARIANS PLEASE HELP US RID THIS LIST OF SELF PROMOTING SPAM.

Caldecott Contenders aka Mock Caldecotts by year:
2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017

Picture Books by Decade:
2020s, 2010s, 2000s, 1990s, 1980s, 1970s, 1960s, 1950s, 1940s and before

Picture Books by Year:
2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019
2020, 2021, 2022

See also:
Best Popular Picture Books on Goodreads
Best Picture Books
Charlotte Zolotow Award Winners and Honors
Children's Picture Books With Beautiful Illustrations
Caldecott Medal Winners
Caldecott Honor Books
Wordless Picture Books
1

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4.25 avg rating — 90,549 ratings
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10

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4.26 avg rating — 217,630 ratings
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11

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4.18 avg rating — 17,332 ratings
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12

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4.20 avg rating — 118,685 ratings
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13

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4.22 avg rating — 73,860 ratings
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14

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4.37 avg rating — 93,984 ratings
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15

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4.23 avg rating — 24,375 ratings
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16

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4.16 avg rating — 27,414 ratings
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17

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4.21 avg rating — 17,658 ratings
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18

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4.40 avg rating — 126,701 ratings
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19

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4.29 avg rating — 6,498 ratings
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20

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4.22 avg rating — 12,464 ratings
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21

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3.99 avg rating — 18,787 ratings
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22

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4.28 avg rating — 13,012 ratings
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23

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4.29 avg rating — 47,628 ratings
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24

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4.21 avg rating — 53,723 ratings
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25

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4.18 avg rating — 8,510 ratings
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26

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4.24 avg rating — 18,073 ratings
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27

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4.22 avg rating — 188,535 ratings
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28

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4.33 avg rating — 227,950 ratings
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29

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4.32 avg rating — 6,323 ratings
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30

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4.35 avg rating — 20,949 ratings
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31

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4.38 avg rating — 12,630 ratings
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32

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4.15 avg rating — 3,777 ratings
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33

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4.22 avg rating — 1,370 ratings
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34

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4.27 avg rating — 46,988 ratings
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35

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4.05 avg rating — 12,334 ratings
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36

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4.37 avg rating — 2,187 ratings
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37

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4.30 avg rating — 42,158 ratings
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38

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4.21 avg rating — 8,010 ratings
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39

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4.08 avg rating — 59,417 ratings
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40

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4.16 avg rating — 3,569 ratings
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41

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4.26 avg rating — 13,323 ratings
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42

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4.15 avg rating — 24,897 ratings
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43

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4.18 avg rating — 16,579 ratings
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44

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4.06 avg rating — 18,491 ratings
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45

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4.22 avg rating — 7,602 ratings
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46

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4.57 avg rating — 750 ratings
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47

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4.35 avg rating — 59,324 ratings
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48

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4.44 avg rating — 1,905 ratings
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49

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4.06 avg rating — 1,488 ratings
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50

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4.33 avg rating — 4,028 ratings
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51

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4.24 avg rating — 27,011 ratings
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52

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4.36 avg rating — 17,372 ratings
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53

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4.42 avg rating — 62 ratings
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54

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4.04 avg rating — 2,799 ratings
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55

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4.32 avg rating — 9,699 ratings
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56

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4.38 avg rating — 13,445 ratings
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57

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4.25 avg rating — 59,280 ratings
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58

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4.09 avg rating — 22,641 ratings
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59

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4.23 avg rating — 18,623 ratings
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60

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4.35 avg rating — 365,233 ratings
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61

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4.15 avg rating — 16,940 ratings
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62

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4.46 avg rating — 14,025 ratings
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63

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4.34 avg rating — 1,486 ratings
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64

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4.27 avg rating — 8,403 ratings
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65

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66

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67

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4.07 avg rating — 7,237 ratings
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68

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69

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4.28 avg rating — 21,069 ratings
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70

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71

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72

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73

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74

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76

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3.74 avg rating — 18,465 ratings
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77

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4.13 avg rating — 538 ratings
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78

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3.97 avg rating — 8,881 ratings
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79

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4.39 avg rating — 146,262 ratings
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80

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81

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4.32 avg rating — 194,896 ratings
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82

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4.26 avg rating — 2,404 ratings
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83

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4.24 avg rating — 3,435 ratings
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84

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4.30 avg rating — 26,639 ratings
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85

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4.16 avg rating — 1,792 ratings
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86

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4.36 avg rating — 36 ratings
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87

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4.58 avg rating — 536 ratings
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88

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4.35 avg rating — 139 ratings
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89

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3.87 avg rating — 8,831 ratings
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90

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4.20 avg rating — 115,914 ratings
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91

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4.18 avg rating — 6,288 ratings
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92

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4.28 avg rating — 1,748 ratings
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93

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4.10 avg rating — 8,677 ratings
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94

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4.26 avg rating — 11,453 ratings
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95

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4.29 avg rating — 1,076 ratings
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96

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4.38 avg rating — 245,734 ratings
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97

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4.27 avg rating — 3,053 ratings
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98

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4.31 avg rating — 4,375 ratings
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99

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4.26 avg rating — 89,890 ratings
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100

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4.41 avg rating — 2,271 ratings
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2,138 books · 1,298 voters · list created December 7th, 2008 by Emily (votes) .
333 likes · 
Lists are re-scored approximately every 5 minutes.


Emily 1501 books
20 friends
Susanna - Censored by GoodReads 3384 books
853 friends
Heidi 950 books
25 friends
Dara S. 7493 books
388 friends
Caitlin 1954 books
77 friends
Sári 1341 books
23 friends
Katty 2199 books
144 friends
Liaken 1614 books
12 friends

More voters…


Comments Showing 1-9 of 9 (9 new)

dateUp arrow    newest »

message 1: by Bernadette (new)

Bernadette An ABC Escapade through Egypt

has beautiful photos of modern Egypt


Debbie is on Storygraph I removed some graphic novels that appeared on the list - 300, Wolverine: Weapon X, and Batman: Year One. Definitely not children's books.


message 3: by Mitchell (new)

Mitchell Friedman and as with many lists, what looks like author spam, rules. A minimum of 500 ratings or being a book at least 10 years old would seem to make a difference.


message 4: by Capn (last edited Jun 21, 2022 02:41AM) (new)

Capn I was just wondering if there has been a spin-off list for this made since? I know some "beautifully illustrated picture books" that ARE cartoony and cute, but still very worthy of being listed in view of their illustrations alone.

Any thoughts or suggestions? Here are some examples of the books I would like to include, but which aren't 'realistic', which I presume is a crucial aspect of the inclusion criteria for this list:

Phileas's Fortune: A Story about Self-Expression
Rosa
Strega Nona
Days of the Blackbird
I Ate Sunshine for Breakfast: A Celebration of Plants Around the World
and virtually all of Bettina Ehrlich's and Kaya Doi's books

Cartoonish does not necessarily equate with unskilled or hurried... it seems a shame to not be able to list these purely by dint of their artistic merit. :S


message 5: by Mitchell (new)

Mitchell Friedman Capn wrote: "I was just wondering if there has been a spin-off list for this made since? I know some "beautifully illustrated picture books" that ARE cartoony and cute, but still very worthy of being listed in ..."

feel free to create a new list


message 6: by Capn (new)

Capn What's one more when you have 172, right? ;)

I'm always interested in reducing redundancy on Listopia.

Does anyone have any suggetions of extant lists, or is making a new list really the only option at this point? ;)


message 7: by Mitchell (new)

Mitchell Friedman Capn wrote: "What's one more when you have 172, right? ;)

I'm always interested in reducing redundancy on Listopia.

Does anyone have any suggetions of extant lists, or is making a new list really the only opt..."


I looked up lists tagged as picture-book and picturebook and picturebooks and found nothing more relevant.

My issue with creating a new list is how to make it so specific that any librarian would be comfortable removing any intentional or unintentional spam. And I don't have a way of describing this concept in that manner. And I've created 236 lists.


message 8: by Mitchell (last edited Jun 22, 2022 04:36PM) (new)

Mitchell Friedman Using Flotsam as a starting point I was reminded of https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/6... and https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

both would seem to fit your bill from a concept - but most likely the lists themselves will be disappointing


message 9: by Capn (new)

Capn Oh Mitchell - THANKS! :) Exactly the sort of thing I was hoping to find. There's just so much to sort through, and the search function is abyssmal. A clever way to find lists - I will use your trick in the future.

I think the "Picture Books with Amazing Art" will be the one I'll add these less-realistic-but-still-impressive-picture books to (your first link, or: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/6... for ref).


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