Wordless picturebooks are a fantastic way to stretch your child’s ability for narrative skills and engage in creative thought! Below is a list of some of my absolute favorite wordless picturebooks.
Using onomatopoeia, this almost wordless story tells of a homeless cat who finds shelter on a bus where she meets a cat-loving Asian grandfather.
This lovely picturebook is about a boy who loses his paper boat in the rain.
A little girl collects wildflowers while on a walk with her distracted father. Each flower becomes a gift, and whether the gift is noticed or ignored, both giver and recipient are transformed by their encounter.
A woman visits a park and discovers a pup hiding under a bench–scruffy, scared, and alone. With gentle coaxing, the woman tries to befriend the animal, but the dog is too scared to let her near. Day after day, the woman tries–and day after day, the dog runs away.
One snowy night, a fox loses its way, entering a village. Chased away by the grown ups, Fox takes shelter in a greenhouse. A little boy sees this from his window. Without hesitating, he brings a basket of food to the greenhouse, where he leaves it for the fox. His gift is noticed and the night becomes a garden of new life, nourished by compassion and kindness
A wordless picture book in which a farmer rescues a baby clown who’s bounced off the circus train, and reunites him with his clown family.
In this wordless, lift-the-flap picture book, Flora and her new friend, the penguin, dance on the ice together and learn to treat each other with respect and kindness.
A picturebook that shows a little girl’s first experiences at the beach, as she goes from being afraid of the roaring waves to playing on the shore while gulls soar overhead.
A boy finds a camera at the beach and the film inside reveals fascinating underwater pictures as well as children around the world, so the boy takes his own picture and returns the camera to the sea where it will journey to another child.
In this story without words, a boy explores the woods after dark with a flashlight.
When a skunk gets his foot caught in the string of a helium balloon, he finds himself blown through unfamiliar landscapes. What’s a skunk to do?
Using a red marker, a young girl draws a door on her bedroom wall and through it enters another world where she experiences many adventures, including being captured by an evil emperor.
A young girl and her cat take an imaginative journey into another world.
When a boy visits an art museum and one of the paintings comes to life, he has an afternoon of adventure and discovery that changes how he sees the world ever after.
A little girl learns about love, nature, and the transformative power of letting go when a little fish leaps into her life.
This picturebook is about an imaginary world behind the walls. It tells the story of a young girl whose family moves into a new house. Outside, she can hear other kids playing, but she’s too shy to say hello. So she picks at the old wallpaper in her room–revealing an entryway to a fantastic imaginary adventure world behind the walls.
Two shy children meet at a noisy pool and dive beneath the crowd into a magical undersea land, where they explore a fantastical landscape and meet various creatures.
Carl the rottweiler baby-sits for the first time in this (almost) wordless picture book classic. I couldn’t help but put this on the list. It was a favorite of mine as a child!
Librarian Ginny 