As adults, we know there is no joy more complete than watching the rapt faces of young children when you read a picture book together. November is Picture Book Month, a special focus to remind us all about the importance of picture books.

Picture books bring so many benefits, they effortlessly stimulate language development because children have a natural responsiveness to pictures, and they love to follow a story through the illustrations. Picture books kindle a love of reading, introduce new ideas and concepts, and help young children recognise the enjoyment that reading brings. Sharing picture books with very young children will support the development of sophisticated reading skills, enabling children to reach deeper levels of comprehension and to learn about narrative structure and character development in an accessible way, shaping children’s knowledge about how to craft their own stories using text and illustration. They are also perfect for settling children at bedtime, and most importantly they are fun to read!

Boasting beautiful, bright, characterful illustrations, Carly Gledhill’s Pencil’s Best Story Ever invites little ones to join Peanut on a joyously colourful adventure, as directed by Pencil the author. After Peanut packs his backpack with “all sorts of useful adventury things”, he embarks on a BIG ADVENTURE, with Pencil promising that this will be “my BEST STORY EVER”. As for the story within a story that unfolds, it begins with a very useful map that tells Peanut to head to THE SUPER SPOOKY FOREST. Here Peanut encounters a big grizzly… jelly, and a big grizzly bear that chases both Peanut and Pencil through the forest. Then follows all manner of unexpected off-piste twists in Pencil’s tale, with a giant octopus, giant snowball and the big beaming sun all playing a part in an adventure that sees Pencil struggle to keep control of the characters he created! Great fun - and brilliant to read aloud.

Everything’s happening below the surface in the wonderfully funny adventure, The Monster in the Lake by Leo Timmers. Our hero is Eric, a duck, who is heading to the lake with his friends. Eric is worried about the monster in the lake, but his friends reassure him that it’s all just stories. Readers however have the advantage of being able to see above and below the water, thanks to glorious split pages. To achieve the unique underwater look Timmers went as far as building his own spray cannon - just one example of his commitment to his craft.

Daishu Ma is an illustrator and graphic artist originally from China but now living in London. Her gorgeous new picture books starring Tiger and Mei are a joy to share with the very young, full of vivid experiences, and characters full of childish wonderment. Her textured illustrations, using oil pastels, perfectly create the natural landscapes that are intrinsic to Tiger and Mei's gentle adventures.

There’s always so much extra to enjoy in any Emily Gravett picture book and, like a summer pudding (recipe on the inside cover), Bothered by Bugs is bursting with deliciousness. The story, adeptly told in a rhyming text and witty illustrations, tells how the forest animals are getting ready to help Pete the badger cook some of the recipes in his How to Cook Fruit book. The illustrations are filled with details to delight readers of all ages – it’s possible to spend hours poring over the gorgeous double-page spread of the insects in their neatly labelled jars alone – while in typical Gravett style, remove the dust jacket and you’ll find the cover is actually that for How to Cook Fruit, stained from use and with a wasp drawn to the painted berries in its bowl of fruit.

Lo Cole's illustrations would brighten the most grey of days. His recent picture books published by Rocket Bird Books are absolutely stunning, with each page an exuberant display of colours and design, and the accompanying text is as uplifting and joyous as the artwork. He told us "When it comes to creating books, for me the story always starts with an image (or a set of images) as I am primarily a picture-maker. The writing is a more recent development, I find it gives me the freedom to illustrate my own ideas in both words and pictures. I set myself the challenge of finding a story to work with the images I want to draw, and that’s the starting point. As the idea develops, the tables turn and I find myself wondering how I can depict the words that start to appear - it’s a backwards, forwards process, one that I find immensely challenging, but also hugely satisfying when it comes together and everything clicks into place." 

Picture books are the way many of us fall in love with reading, and they leave us with warm memories that stay with us long after we have left childhood. 

Here we share the recent and varied work of some of our favourite writers and illustrators for Picture Book Month this November - which one will be be a future classic?  Purchase one of these special books for the young people in your life, and with it gift a love of reading.