Best Back-to-School Books for Building a Community of Readers

Looking for exceptional back-to-school picture books that build a community of readers right off the bat? Your hunt is over! These are the very best picture books to share with students to start building a culture of reading at the very beginning of the school year!

Getting to know each other. ✔️

Building routines and practicing procedures. ✔️

Distributing supplies and materials.  ✔️

Reviewing rules and expectations. ✔️

Building a classroom reading culture. 🤷🏽‍♀️

Hold on. Start building a community of readers at the very beginning of the year?! I don’t even know their names yet! Heck, I don’t even know if they can read!

It doesn’t matter! The purpose is to show students from Day 1 that we value reading and reading is what we do in our classroom.

The idea is to have students start planning their reading lives by making reading plans NOW. After all, we only have 180 days together and time is of the essence.

Before reading, pose some important questions:

What kinds of books do you hope to read this year?

How will you get your hands on these books?

Where do you plan to read these books?

When will you make time to read them?

You can have students jot the answers in their journal or share orally. I love these little mini journals for older kids but any ole’ notebook will suffice.

Best Back-to-School Picture Books to Build a Reading Culture

This is a Story By: John Schu

Oh man, am I a sucker for watercolor illustrations. The illustrations are vibrant and beautiful and make you wish your library was within walking distance so you could visit each and every day. At first glance, it looks like a simple story, but a closer inspection of the illustrations will reveal a deeper layer. Once readers are instructed to pay attention to the illustrations, a series of guiding questions will naturally transpire.

Candlewick Press put together an awesome teacher guide with discussion questions, classroom activities, and premade templates for print-and-go lessons. I like to take these discussion questions one step further and have students sketch themselves as readers– including details of their dream reading space, a stack of titles they want to read, and words that describe how they feel when they are reading or listening to a book.

Want to up the “WOW” factor for your read aloud? Pull out a copy of City Cat by Kate Banks and Sea Horse: The Shyest Fish in the Sea by Chris Butterworth. Ask students what they notice about each book and how they are related to This is a Story.

Journal Jot: How do readers choose books?

Dog Loves Books By: Louise Yates

Dog loves books. He loves how they smell. He loves how they feel. He loves them so much he wants to open up his own bookshop. When hours go by without a single patron, Dog keeps himself busy by devouring book after book. As he is deeply entrenched in a time-traveling adventure, a little girl comes in looking for a good read. Of course, Dog is thrilled to supply her with a bevy of recommendations! He quickly comes to the realization that although he loves everything about books, he loves sharing those books even more!

Journal Jot: With whom do you like to share a good book?

Bunny’s Book Club By: Annie Silvestro

Bunny’s Book Club is just precious and absolutely perfect for librarians and teachers alike! On warm summer days Bunny loves nothing more than to sit outside the library and listen in on the children’s story time. Absorbed in the stories, he imagines himself climbing mountains, captaining a pirate ship, and ruling a kingdom. But once summer turns to fall his beloved storytime moves indoors and Bunny is left to figure out how to once again access his favorite form of entertainment. Enter a menagerie of adorable forest animals who make good use out of the book return! The colorful illustrations will undoubtedly make you want to curl up in the coziest corner of the library with a good friend and your favorite storybook.

Journal Jot: How can you make reading a joyful experience?

The Book Hog By: Greg Pizzoli

I’m a big fan of Geisel Award Winner Greg Pizzoli and his trademark color palette of pinks and greens. Just like Dog and Bunny, the Book Hog is a lover of books. He picks up books in obscure places and adds them to his sizable collection. He smells them, he touches them, he brings them with him everywhere he goes. But “Shhh!” The Book Hog is harboring a really big secret: he can’t read! Finding his way to the library, Miss Olive the librarian invites him to pick out a book and read it with her. He proceeds to spend his days listening to books during story time and practicing, practicing, practicing reading on his own and with Miss Olive. “He grew to love books even more, not just for the way they looked and felt…but for the stories they told.”

Journal Jot: How does practicing reading make us better readers? What are some ways to “practice”?

How to Read a Story By: Kate Messner

Kate Messner is a mom and a teacher and an author and all three roles come together beautifully in this first week must-read. Sure your students have read a story, but have they really read a story? In How to Read a Story, she outlines ten simple steps for really reading a story—from choosing a book to sharing it with a friend and all of the important little reading behaviors in between. Before reading, I like to have students brainstorm a list of things “good” readers do. After reading, we compare our list to Kate Messner’s.

Journal Jot: If a younger student asked you how to read a story, what steps would you tell him/her?

Miss Brooks Loves Books! By: Barbara Bottner

“I’ll never love a book the way you do,” I tell Miss Brooks. “Don’t be so sure,” she says.

Missy is persistent—she does NOT like books and she makes that very clear to Miss Brooks, the book-loving librarian. Undaunted, Miss Brooks is willing to overturn the entire library to find Missy the perfect book for Book Week. When Missy’s mom tells her she’s as stubborn as a wart, a switch is flipped! She wants to read a story with warts! Placing a copy of William Steig’s Shrek in her hands, she is entirely smitten with the book and even dresses in a green ogre costume for Book Week. Miss Brooks says that even ogres can find something funny and fantastic and appalling in the library. This is one of my favorite back-to-school picture books for starting a discussion on how readers choose books!

Journal Jot: What makes a book “perfect” for you?

Once Upon a Book By: Grace Lin and Kate Messner

One of the most beautiful and thoughtful back-to-school picture books you could ever hope to share with students! Kate Messner and Grace Lin created something truly special in Once Upon a Book, an interactive homage to the beauty and wonder of getting lost in a story. Alice (one of the many nods to Alice in Wonderland) is tired of the snow and being forced to stay indoors and wear heavy sweaters and thick socks. She yearns for a place that is warm and colorful, where she can don a sundress and frolic outdoors. An open book on the ground beckons her to “turn the page and come in”. So she does. After visiting a jungle, a desert, a coral reef, a cloud-filled sky, and the moon, she wishes for a place of coziness and warmth. The predictability is comforting and allows for readers to really focus on the illustrations, which are quite remarkable and the true standout in this book. Even the youngest of readers will delight in predicting where Alice visits next and in finding the white rabbit on each page. *Tip: Spend some time asking readers to observe the illustration on the very last page and point out what they notice. Grace Lin has included a detail about each place Alice visits somewhere on the page and it’s great fun to search for each one!

Journal Jot: If I could travel anywhere without leaving my home…

Shhh! I’m Reading! By: John Kelly

It’s a wet and windy Sunday afternoon and Bella is tucked away in her cozy bedroom, completely absorbed in the best book EVER. Her usual imaginary playmates beg her to come play but she is TOO BUSY READING. The final scene shows the pirate captain reading aloud, surrounded by the others, all utterly transfixed by the story. Be sure to ask students about their preferred setting for reading (e.g. curled up on the couch during a rainstorm, outside in the fresh air, tucked in tight next to a parent at bedtime), how imagination plays a role in reading, and how reading a great book can be entirely contagious.

Journal Jot: How do we use our imaginations when we read?

Wild About Books By: Judy Sierra

A fanciful rhyming book and nod to Dr. Seuss that is a total delight to read aloud. Wait until you get to the end; the insects’ take on haiku is hysterical AND provides excellent vocabulary exploration. I like to read this one twice: the first time simply enjoying the rhyme and rhythm, and the second time paying close attention to the important lessons embedded in the text and illustrations. Another delightful back-to-school picture book to fuel a discussion about authentic reading behaviors.

Journal Jot: What makes a book perfect for a reader? How should readers treat their books? What might reading a terrific book inspire you to do?

Bats at the Library By: Brian Lies

Ever wonder what might happen if the librarian leaves a window open at night? This joyful nighttime celebration of books explores the nooks and crannies of the library as seen through the eyes of some (dare I say adorable?) bats. Although some choose to play— chasing each other around the halls, splashing in the water fountain, or making shadow puppets with an ancient overhead projector—they all settle down at the end to be completely enraptured by a story.

Journal Jot: How is reading the ultimate boredom buster? How does story time bring everyone together? If you could enter the library at night, what would you do? Would it be scary or enchanting? Have you ever lived inside a book?

How to Read a Book By: Kwame Alexander

Kwame Alexander has written a poem that paints a beautiful word picture of the journey readers take each time they crack open the pages of a book, get lost in the pages, and “wander through the wonder”. Best suited for older listeners, the word choice and vivid sensory details are a masterful example of poetry in motion. Alexander compares reading to the experience of eating a vibrant, juicy clementine. Here’s my favorite line:

Squeeze every morsel of each plump line until the last drop of magic drips from an infinite sky.

C’mon! How does he do that?! It’s masterful and splendid and delicious and I dare you to read it without thinking about digging your thumb to the bottom of a juicy section of citrus!

I have students glue a copy of the poem into their journals and then mark it up using our sensory detail notes.

Journal Jot: (We write this all around the margins of our journals after gluing in a copy of the poem.)

Reading feels…
Reading looks…
Reading tastes…
Reading smells…
Readings sounds…

You are a Reader!/You are a Writer!

This double-sided rhyming book is designed to show the interconnectedness of reading and writing and is meant to be read twice. Start with You are a Reader! and discover all the joys reading can bring. Flip the book over and prepare to be inspired by all the imaginative outlets writing can provide!

Some questions to explore: What do readers read? Where do readers read?

What do writers write? Where do writers write?

What do you need to do to be considered a reader or a writer?

How do you think you can continue to get better at reading and writing?

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore By: William Joyce

Morris Lessmore is a visual delight for all ages, but the best discussions will occur with grades 3+. Morris is a young writer, a word lover, a bibliophile, who spends his days on his porch writing his joys, hopes, and sorrows into a book. Soon after a storm blows in and turns his life upside down, scattering everything to pieces, including the words in his book. As he wanders through times of despair of sadness (displayed in black in white—à laThe Wizard of Oz) he suddenly looks up and sees a lady drifting through the sky, being pulled along by a colorful squadron of flying books. The lady gives him the gift of a good story, which leads him to a extraordinary building filled with books. And so Morris’s life among the books begins. A beautiful story about the transformative power of books and how if you love a book, it will love you back in the form of joy and purpose.

*Note: The film version is just as beautiful as the book and you can watch it on YouTube!

Journal Jot: When was the last time you got “lost” in a book? How did it make you feel?

Whichever books you choose to share with your students at the beginning of the year, be sure to follow up with this important question:

What are the benefits of a reading life?

Can it spark your imagination? Make your heart grow? Introduce you to new people, places, and experiences?

Don’t forget to share your own experiences with books and invite students to do the same.

I hope this list of back-to-school picture books inspires you to jump into reading as soon as that first bell rings. 💗

P.S. Looking for chapter book read alouds? Check out my list of tried-and-true middle-grade chapter books to read aloud at the beginning of the school year!

yours in reading,
rawley