3-wordless-picture-books

One little person suits up in their warmest boots, gloves, scarf and hat to make one giant leap into the wintery unknown. They ride the elevator down to the first floor. . . . Or, wait, are they riding a spaceship? In One Giant Leap, a wonderfully inventive ode to imagination, snow is not snow: it’s moon dust. A pigeon is not a pigeon: it’s an extraterrestrial being (or two, or three). Like any good adventure, there is a moment where all may be lost. Will our little astronaut make it back to their spaceship before the duststorm fills the space sky?  

With papercut collage illustrations that play with color and pattern, Thao Lam dives into the unknown of a child’s imagination, reminding readers that intrigue lies around every corner and every day is an opportunity for a new adventure.

A flood has returned to the Earth. This time it’s not a man but a robot who is there to save all the animals and ferry them to a new world. Large, sturdy and able to traverse any distance, watery or not, the robot cares for the animals, feeding bamboo to the pandas and fish to the tigers. But the robot knows it needs more to sustain this world for the animals. The robot builds a large boat for all the animals—a callback to Noah’s Ark—and carries them through vast stormy seas until they find another robot friend to whisk everyone by air to a new island teeming with life and opportunity. 

Aaron Becker’s The Last Zookeeper is beautifully drawn with spare pencil lines and watercolor washes, and provides a conversation starter for older children who may be wondering about their role to play in a world that needs everyone’s help in order to survive.