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
201

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201

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203

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4.32 avg rating — 2,681 ratings
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205

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206

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207

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208

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209

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209

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211

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212

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213

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214

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215

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216

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4.11 avg rating — 1,719 ratings
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216

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4.26 avg rating — 22,181 ratings
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218

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4.17 avg rating — 94,562 ratings
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219

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4.15 avg rating — 13,142 ratings
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220

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4.08 avg rating — 2,243 ratings
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220

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4.23 avg rating — 8,003 ratings
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220

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223

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4.50 avg rating — 6,583 ratings
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223

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4.11 avg rating — 19,993 ratings
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225

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3.85 avg rating — 2,619 ratings
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226

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4.23 avg rating — 3,578 ratings
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227

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4.05 avg rating — 2,855 ratings
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228

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3.98 avg rating — 15,273 ratings
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229

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4.03 avg rating — 234 ratings
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230

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4.13 avg rating — 7,747 ratings
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230

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4.24 avg rating — 17,701 ratings
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230

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4.07 avg rating — 3,090 ratings
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233

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4.29 avg rating — 5,534 ratings
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234

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4.36 avg rating — 5,050 ratings
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235

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3.90 avg rating — 6,078 ratings
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235

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4.25 avg rating — 3,169 ratings
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237

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4.22 avg rating — 129 ratings
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238

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3.97 avg rating — 3,767 ratings
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239

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4.18 avg rating — 7,971 ratings
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240

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4.05 avg rating — 1,600 ratings
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241

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3.96 avg rating — 235 ratings
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242

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4.12 avg rating — 6,074 ratings
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243

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4.26 avg rating — 4,668 ratings
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243

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3.86 avg rating — 3,981 ratings
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245

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4.14 avg rating — 258 ratings
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245

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3.84 avg rating — 1,188 ratings
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247

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4.26 avg rating — 164 ratings
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248

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4.32 avg rating — 14,161 ratings
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249

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3.91 avg rating — 1,300 ratings
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250

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4.04 avg rating — 3,489 ratings
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251

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4.07 avg rating — 399 ratings
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252

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4.25 avg rating — 22,275 ratings
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253

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4.21 avg rating — 181 ratings
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254

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4.48 avg rating — 1,199 ratings
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255

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4.35 avg rating — 1,083 ratings
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256

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4.37 avg rating — 2,165 ratings
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256

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4.10 avg rating — 28,373 ratings
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258

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4.78 avg rating — 9 ratings
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258

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4.47 avg rating — 19 ratings
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260

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3.86 avg rating — 76 ratings
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261

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4.31 avg rating — 2,909 ratings
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261

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4.79 avg rating — 19 ratings
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263

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4.28 avg rating — 7,327 ratings
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263

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4.06 avg rating — 1,313 ratings
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265

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3.92 avg rating — 124 ratings
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265

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265

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268

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4.05 avg rating — 4,639 ratings
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269

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4.48 avg rating — 3,469 ratings
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270

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4.15 avg rating — 499 ratings
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271

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4.19 avg rating — 6,876 ratings
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272

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3.90 avg rating — 650 ratings
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273

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4.09 avg rating — 3,923 ratings
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274

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275

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276

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277

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277

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4.38 avg rating — 1,216,370 ratings
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279

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4.33 avg rating — 1,084,376 ratings
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280

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4.21 avg rating — 161,631 ratings
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281

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4.24 avg rating — 2,096 ratings
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281

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4.31 avg rating — 3,006 ratings
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283

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4.26 avg rating — 778 ratings
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284

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3.86 avg rating — 66 ratings
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285

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4.19 avg rating — 11,518 ratings
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285

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4.49 avg rating — 7,734 ratings
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287

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3.99 avg rating — 6,347 ratings
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287

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4.29 avg rating — 5,319 ratings
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289

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4.32 avg rating — 238 ratings
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290

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4.12 avg rating — 5,523 ratings
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291

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really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 426 ratings
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292

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4.23 avg rating — 15,515 ratings
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293

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3.99 avg rating — 2,125 ratings
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294

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4.14 avg rating — 451 ratings
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294

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4.14 avg rating — 9,160 ratings
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294

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4.32 avg rating — 4,994 ratings
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297

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4.22 avg rating — 25,675 ratings
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298

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4.25 avg rating — 3,243 ratings
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299

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4.07 avg rating — 21,005 ratings
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300

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4.05 avg rating — 6,625 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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