Reading Jbrary’s annual roundup of 2023 Favourite Storytime Picture Books made me think back to the list of Great Books for Two- and Three-Year-Olds I prepared back in April 2019. It’s actually still a pretty solid list! I don’t repeat books in storytime that often, because there are always so many good new ones, but there are several books on my 2019 list that are still in my rotation – Grumpy Pants, Huff & Puff, Hooray for Hat!, Where is the Green Sheep?, Carrot and Pea, A Parade of Elephants, and more.

I skimmed back over my storytime titles from September and picked a few to build this new list of storytime success books. Of course, every storytime is different – depending on who shows up, and how many, and what their energy level is, it’s a real YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary) situation. And there are some books that the kids connect to, and others the adults love – it isn’t always both. But as I see it, the storytime is for everyone who attends, from babies to grandparents. (I usually make a note when someone checks out one of the storytime books after the program is over; if they liked it enough to take it home, that’s a good sign!)

So, here are ten to try:

• Are You Big? by Mo Willems
• The Button Book by Sally Nicholls and Bethan Woollvin
• Dim Sum Palace by X. Fang
• Daniel’s Good Day and Wonder Walkers by Micha Archer
• Lots of Dots by Craig Frazier
• Mr. Scruff by Simon James
• Now by Antoinette Portis
• One of These Is Not Like the Others by Barney Saltzberg
• Somewhere in the Bayou by Jarrett and Jerome Pumphrey
• Tumble by Adriana Hernandez Bergstrom

And here are 10 more that overlap with the Jbrary list:

• How to Count to One by Caspar Salmon
• If I Was A Horse by Sophie Blackall
• I’m Going to Build A Snowman by Jashar Awan
• Is This the Bus for Us? by Harriet Ziefert and Richard Brown
• Just One Flake by Travis Jonker
• Mister Kitty is Lost! and Lucky Duck by Greg Pizzoli
• The Rainbow Snail by Karin Akesson
• Roll Little Pea by Cecile Bergame and Magali Attiogbe
• Superbaby! by Stephanie Parsley Ledyard and Lincoln Agnew
• Whose Egg/Footprint/Poop Is That? by Darrin Lunde and Kelsey Oseid

Over the past half-year, I’ve made an effort to include Spanish/English bilingual books in my storytimes. Some of the ones that have worked well are:

• Marta! Big and Small by Jen Arena and Angela Dominguez
• I’m Hungry / Tengo Hambre and How Are You / Como Estas? by Angela Dominguez
• Round Is A Tortilla / Green Is A Chile Pepper / One Is A Pinata by Roseanne Greenfield Thong and John Parra

What are your storytime favorites?

In any workplace, there are going to be certain questions you’ll be asked over and over again. (“Where’s the bathroom?” for example.) As a children’s librarian, people ask me lots of questions about library programs and services, and ask for help finding books – in particular, books about animals, books about “things that go” (trucks, construction vehicles, etc.), and books about dinosaurs. I am always happy to hand a kid a book about a backhoe or a brachiosaurus or a bat! But I also get questions from caregivers about weightier topics: starting school or switching schools, moving to a new home, managing big feelings, welcoming a new baby, or dealing with grief over the loss of a loved one.

Well, I may not theme my storytimes, but I’ve been keeping a google doc since about 2018 with lists of books by topic; between that and my notes-to-self in LibraryThing, I’m usually prepared with suggestions when these questions come up. This month, I’ve worked to create up-to-date lists for my library, with titles we own so that patrons can have a book in hand right away. I relied on my own lists, consulted some lists the previous librarian had created, and used some of the features in the library catalog to come up with suggestions for books about the first day of school, moving, new siblings, big feelings, and grief/loss, as well as alphabet and counting books and wordless picture books.

In my library travels, I’ve seen themed lists like these displayed in “flippy things” like this desktop reference system, which I was able to get for my library. The lists now live there, and I plan to keep them updated as relevant titles are published each year. If you’d like to see the lists, or adapt them for use in your own school or public library or classroom, the lists are available as a google doc and the visual lists (with book covers) are available as google slides. Feel free to make a copy and make them your own.

Next to the “flippy thing” in the photo above, you can kind of see the “Book Browse Bear,” another (more fun/random/spontaneous) readers’ advisory tool I made this month. But that will be another post!