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!

For a gorgeous festive picture book look no further than The Christmas Tree Mouse. With her bauble hat, warm snowy-white waistcoat, walkie-talkie with direct line to Santa, she hides in your Christmas tree, emerging after Santa has been to tidy up and sort out any present mix-ups. Joseph Coelho’s text perfectly captures the excitement, fun and busyness of Christmas Eve and Farah Shah’s illustrations are full of the festive details we love to spot.

Bold illustrations and a fabulous rhyme make Rainbowsaurus by Steve Antony a joy to share. The use of repetition and colourful characters encourage young readers to join in with the story, spotting the animals and mimicking their sounds. Animals in an array of non-traditional colours, make this a fun and bold story, whilst gently underlining the inclusive message of celebrating difference. Read to the tune of ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’, it’s a pleasure to read this book aloud - which is a good job as demands for re-reads will be high!

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.

Yuval Zommer’s unique artistic style wows again in his modern fable that is an absolutely beautiful ode to nature. Through lyrical text and breathtaking illustrations, he tells the story of The Wild, of a wild environment that sustained birds and animals, where plants and trees flourished and life was abundant, Double page painterly spreads show glimpses of different environments in absorbing detail, this is a powerful picture book and a rallying call to protect our world.

Chosen as a Book of the Month, recent Guest Editor and doyenne of the picture book scene, Jeanne Willis recommends The Duck Never Blinks by Alex Latimer as the best read-aloud book in decades. "If I was a kid, I’d demand to hear it again and again…and again! Shudder not, parents, teachers and carers, this one is as rewarding to read and perform as it is to listen to. Destined to be a classic, the illustrations are beautifully simple, the words are simply hilarious and as the suspense builds, it’s like playing the best interactive party game. Young or not so young, we all need a good laugh and this book is really blinking funny."

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.