Picture Books
Stories that make room for every kind of child.
Children notice everything.
They notice who is taller and who is smaller. Who wears something different. Who has two moms, two dads, one parent, or a family that doesn't look like theirs. They notice who sits alone. They wonder about things adults sometimes struggle to explain. And they ask wonderfully enormous questions.
These picture books begin in those moments.
Through humor, imagination, tenderness, and wonderfully imperfect characters, these stories help children explore identity, confidence, friendship, family, fear, kindness, curiosity, loss, and belonging without losing the joy and silliness that make childhood magical.
Some stories invite children to see themselves differently. Others invite them to see someone else more clearly.
All of them are written to be shared.
Read them at bedtime. Bring them into classrooms. Ask questions. Laugh at the ridiculous parts. Talk about the difficult parts. Come back to them when a child needs them again.
Because the best picture books don't simply tell children what the world is.
They help children discover who they can be within it.
Confidence, Difference & Being Seen
Stories that help children discover that being different does not mean needing to become different.
What happens when something about your body makes you feel noticeable—or not noticed at all?
These stories explore the complicated feelings children can have about the bodies they live in and the ways others see them. With tenderness, humor, and imagination, they encourage young readers to recognize their own worth, find confidence from within, and notice beauty in places they may not have thought to look.
Rather than asking children to fit in, these books invite them to take up space exactly as they are.
For conversations about: confidence • physical differences • self-acceptance • body diversity • finding your voice • seeing beauty in yourself and others
Lucy's Umbrella
What if learning to see beauty in the world helped you see it in yourself?
Lucy loves colors, patterns, textures, and beautiful things. Living in rainy Seattle means she carries an umbrella almost everywhere—and inside it, she records the beautiful things she discovers along the way.
A friend's colorful style. A ladybug. A frog. A bee. A butterfly.
Then Lucy notices something familiar in the butterfly's patterned wings: they remind her of the patterns on her own skin.
Lucy's Umbrella is a gentle story about vitiligo, self-image, and the extraordinary power of noticing. Rather than asking Lucy to overcome or hide what makes her different, the story invites children to expand their understanding of beauty until they recognize that they belong within it, too.
A story for every child learning to say: I am beautiful, too.
Perfect for conversations about: vitiligo • visible differences • body confidence • self-love • observation • beauty • celebrating difference
Jaha Akua
How can the tallest boy in the room feel completely invisible?
Jahan Akua is extraordinarily tall. His knees reach his teacher's chin. His hand shoots through the schoolhouse roof. Everyone notices his height - but somehow, Jahan still doesn't feel seem.
He wishes he could stop growing.
Then a conversation with his mother gives Jahan another way to think about size: perhaps the most important growing happens somewhere no one can measure.
Jahan Akua is a story about physical difference, confidence, and learning that accepting yourself doesn't mean quietly waiting for everyone else to notice you. Sometimes finding confidence means finding your own way to say, I'm here. I have something to contribute. Please see me.
Warm, imaginative, and empowering, Jahan's story encourages children to stop measuring themselves against everyone around them-and start discovering how large they can become on the inside.
Perfect for conversations about: height and body differences • confidence • classroom participation • self-advocacy • belonging • finding your voice
Jun Anzu
You don't have to be bigger to take up space.
Jun Anzu is the smallest student in her class. Her head barely reaches her teacher's knees, her raised hand disappears behind her desk, and everywhere she goes, people ask the same frustrating questions:
When are you going to grow, Jun Anzu?
Jun wishes she knew.
But her father helps her discover that there is more than one way to grow—and Jun decides she doesn't need to wait for her body to change before making herself seen.
With an idea and a newly discovered voice, she returns to school ready to participate exactly as she is.
Jun Anzu is a joyful story about physical difference, self-advocacy, creative problem-solving, and the confidence children discover when they stop waiting to become someone else. Because being small should never mean making yourself smaller.
Perfect for conversations about: physical differences • confidence • accessibility • creative problem-solving • self-advocacy • classroom participation • finding your voice
Identity, Family & Belonging
LGBTQ+ inclusive stories where children are free to be exactly who they are.
Every child deserves to find families, classrooms, and communities in books where difference is not something that must be fixed, explained away, or feared.
These stories celebrate gender expression, LGBTQ+ families, individuality, and belonging while keeping something even more important at their center: children being children.
They play. They make friends. They wear what makes them happy. They go to school. They eat too much popcorn. They love their families—and their families love them.
With warmth, humor, and an emphasis on everyday joy, these books offer LGBTQ+ children the chance to recognize themselves on the page while helping all children see that families and identities may look different, but kindness, safety, respect, and love belong to everyone.
For conversations about: LGBTQ+ families • gender expression • transgender identity • inclusion • kindness • family diversity • allyship • belonging
Too
Two dads. Two Moms. Stepparents. Grandparents. Friends. And never too much love.
Joy has two dads. Maya has two moms. Their friends have families of all different shapes and sizes.
And on one wonderfully busy day in Central Park, none of that is particularly remarkable.
There are ice cream cones, wagons, kites, swings, balloons, grandparents, sand-filled shoes, far too much picnic food, a little too much laughter, and definitely too much popcorn.
But love?
There's no such thing as too much of that.
Too is an LGBTQ+ inclusive celebration of family diversity that allows children with same-sex parents, blended families, stepparents, and other family structures simply to exist on the page—not as problems to explain, but as families enjoying an ordinary, joyful day together.
Different families. Same laughter. Same belonging. Never too much love.
Perfect for conversations about: LGBTQ+ families • two-mom and two-dad families • blended families • family diversity • belonging • love
The Prince's Dress Dilemma
The problem isn't that the prince wants to wear a dress. The problem is finding the perfect one.
Prince Eric loves climbing trees, collecting rocks and seashells, dinosaur fossils, sugar cookies with sprinkles, and dresses.
Especially his favorite blue-and-white nightgown.
When Eric suddenly outgrows it just before the royal ball, he faces a genuine royal emergency. The yellow dress is too glittery. The red has too many flowers. The purple has too much lace. And don't even ask about the orange one!
None of them feels like him.
The Prince's Dress Dilemma is a joyful story about gender expression, clothing, family acceptance, and the wonderful freedom of knowing what makes you comfortable in your own skin.
Eric never has to defend why a prince would wear a dress. His family doesn't ask him to. His kingdom doesn't require an explanation.
He simply needs a dress with enough room to dance—and preferably one with pockets!
Because clothes should help children express who they are, not tell them who they're supposed to be.
Perfect for conversations about: gender expression •clothing • individuality • family acceptance • confidence • being yourself
The Kind Kindergarten Class
In Miss Everly Kind's classroom, every child belongs.
Jack and Jill are nervous about their first day of kindergarten.
They're transgender, and they're wondering whether their new classmates will see them as different.
But kindergarten turns out to be wonderfully ordinary.
There are cubbies to explore, songs to sing, naps to giggle through, kickball games, swapped cookies, stories, crafts, and new friends to make.
Through the welcoming classroom of Miss Everly Kind, children encounter a simple but powerful idea: people have different bodies, identities, cultures, families, beliefs, abilities, interests, and experiences—and every one of them deserves kindness and belonging.
The Kind Kindergarten Class centers transgender children while inviting every young reader into the conversation. It is a story about creating the kind of classroom where children don't merely tolerate differences. They learn, play, laugh, and grow alongside it.
Because a safe classroom begins when every child knows: There is room for me here.
Perfect for conversations about: transgender children • gender identity • classroom inclusion • allyship • kindness • belonging • celebrating differences
Friendship, Feelings & Brave Little Things
Whimsical stories about big feelings, unexpected friendships, and the small acts of courage that help us grow.
Sometimes bravery looks like climbing a mountain.
Sometimes it looks like making a friend.
Or asking a question. Facing something frightening. Sharing with someone you're supposed to dislike. Admitting you were wrong. Missing someone you love—and discovering that loving them was worth it anyway.
These imaginative stories use ghosts, spiders, elves, unicorns, dragons, sweets, silliness, and plenty of unexpected adventures to give children a safe place to encounter surprisingly big ideas.
Funny enough for storytime and thoughtful enough to linger afterward, they remind young readers that fear, curiosity, sadness, friendship, courage, and joy can all belong in the same story.
For conversations about: friendship • fear • curiosity • courage • grief and change • sharing • empathy • resilience • asking questions
The Elf Who Didn't Believe in Children
Everyone believes in elves. But Flossy isn't convinced about children.
Flossy is not your typical Christmas elf.
She wears black, listens to The Gingersnaps, questions everything, and has spent hundreds of years researching one particular suspicious North Pole legend:
Children.
She's never seen one. Where's the proof?
Then Flossy discovers a letter from a boy named Cardon who has a problem of his own: he doesn't believe in elves!
Determined to settle the question herself, Flossy sneaks aboard Santa's sleigh and follows Cardon's glowing letter, where two skeptics meet face-to-face.
Funny, irreverent, tender, and unexpectedly moving. The Elf Who Didn't Believe in Children turns the traditional Christmas story upside down to explore curiosity, questioning, compassion, illness, friendship, and what can happen when evidence changes our minds—and our hearts.
A Christmas story for children who ask why.
Perfect for conversations about: curiosity • critical thinking • belief • friendship • empathy • children experiencing illness • generosity • changing your mind
Pauly & Fluff's Day at the Beach
Sometimes the rules separating us have been around so long that everyone forgets to ask why.
Pauly is a unicorn. Fluff is a dragon.
They also happen to be best friends.
Unfortunately, the kingdom of scrumptiousness has spent one hundred years insisting that unicorns and dragons don't belong together—all because of an ancient argument involving an ice cream parlor and one very unfortunate marshmallow.
A graham-cracker wall now divides their communities.
Pauly and Fluff think that's ridiculous.
Co-written by Sara Madden and her granddaughter, Calie Helsten, it's packed with unicorns, dragons, mermaids, rainbow sand, ice cream, candy cane slides, ridiculous names, and enough sweets to make storytime dangerously delicious. Pauly & Fluff's Day at the Beach uses a wonderfully silly world to explore a surprisingly important question:
What happens when children question a division everyone else has learned to accept?
Together, Pauly and Fluff discover that friendship can cross boundaries, courage can be shared, and sometimes the best thing to do with an old wall is knock it down.
Perfect for conversations about: friendship across differences • prejudice • inclusion • sharing • courage • inherited rules • community
Hoggy, Foggy and Their Terrifying Life With a Spider
Everyone is terrified of something. Sometimes loving someone is the bravest thing of all.
Hoggy is a ghost who is terrified of spiders.
Foggy is a ninja who is terrified of being alone.
And the spider?
He's terrified of ninjas.
Naturally, they all live in the same house.
What begins as a wonderfully ridiculous chase through an old, creaky home eventually traps all three in a dark closet, where something unexpected happens: instead of running, they talk.
About fear.
About loneliness.
And eventually, about the things they love.
Their fears grow smaller. Their friendship grows larger. And the once-quiet house becomes warm and full.
But houses and lives change. Friends leave. Friends grow old. And sometimes the people we love are no longer there.
Co-written by Sara Madden and her granddaughter Moon Helsten, Hoggy, Foggy and Their Terrifying Life With a Spider is a funny, tender story about fear that quietly becomes something deeper: a child's story about friendship, grief, memory, and learning that loving someone is worth the sadness of missing them.
It doesn't try to explain death.
Instead, it offers children something gentler: love doesn't disappear. It stays.
Perfect for conversations about: fear • friendship • loneliness • grief • death and loss • remembering • resilience • loving again