Top Picture Books that Feed a Child's Imagination

Amos and Boris, Abel's Island, Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, and most others by William Steig
The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate the Wash - Trinka Hakes Noble, illustrated by Steven Kellogg
The Hungry Thing - Jan Slepian
If Everybody Did, They Didn't Use Their Heads - JoAnn Stover
Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey - Susan Wojciechowski
The Island of the Skog, Can I Keep Him?, Frogs Jump - Steven Kellogg
A Tale of Two Princes - Eckart Zur Nieden
A Country Mouse in the Town House - a hide-n-seek by Henrietta
There Once Was a Puffin - Jaques
The Story of Ping - Marjorie Flack
Rikki Tikki Tavi - Kipling
Tikki Tikki Tembo - Arlene Mosel
Little Bear/Old Bear stories by Jane Hissey
Richard Scarry books
Fritz and the Mess Fairy, Voyage to the Bunny Planet, Hazel's Amazing Mother, Max's Dragon Shirt, and Max and the Chocolate Chicken, and others by Rosemary Wells
The Peter Rabbit stories - Beatrix Potter
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom - Bill Martin, Jr.
The Little Engine That Could - Watty Piper
Lyle, Lyle Crocodile - Waber
Any Patricia Polacco books
Crinkleroot stories - Jim Arnosky
Roy Gerrard books - especially Croco'nile
All the D'aulaire books - especially the Lincoln one
Green Eggs and Ham, Ten Apples Up on Top, Go, Dog, Go, To Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins (but not all Dr. Suess books)
Frog and Toad books by Arnold Lobel
Harry the Dirty Dog books - Gene Zion
The Five Chinese Brothers - Claire Huchet Bishop
James Herriot's Treasury for Children
The Egg - Robertson

A Hole is to Dig - Krauss

Little Bear books - Else Holmelund Minarik

Maurice Sendak books - especially Alligators All Around, Chicken Soup with Rice, etc.
The Wheels on the Bus - Maryann Kovalski
Percy the Park Keeper books - Butterworth
Madeleine books - Bemelmans
Velveteen Rabbit - Williams
My Father's Dragon - Gannett
Miss Rumphius, and Roxaboxen - Barbara Cooney
Ox-cart Man - Hall
Blaze books by C. W. Anderson
St. George and the Dragon - Margaret Hodges
Ruby, and Ruby to the Rescue - Glen
Alfie books by Shirley Hughes
Dogger - Shirley Hughes
Adventures in the Big Thicket - Ken Gire
Little Critter books - Mercer Mayer
The Gods and Goddesses of Olympus - Aliki, and other Greek myth books
Sheep in a Shop, and all of the Sheep books - Nancy Shaw
Angus books - Marjorie Flack
Snow White - Trina Schart Hyman
One Bear at Bedtime - Inkpen
Magic School Bus books
Tomie dePaola books - The Art Lesson, Bill and Pete Go Down the Nile, Strega Nona
Harold and the Purple Crayon - Johnson
Blueberries for Sal and all by Robert McCloskey
Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge - Mem Fox
Animals Should Definitely Not Wear Clothing - Barrett
Piggies - Audrey Wood
The Big Orange Splot - Pinkwater
The Tempest, Midsummer Night's Dream, The Winter's Tale - Bruce Coville
If You Give a Moose a Muffin, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie - Numeroff
All Fall Down - Helen Oxenbury (we made up a tune and always sang this one)
We're Going on a Bear Hunt - Oxenbury
Owl Babies - Waddell
George Washington's Breakfast - Jean Fritz
Hank Aaron, Brave in Every Way - Golenbock
Casey at the Bat
Goodnight Moon - Brown
Least of All - Purdy
Golly Gump Swallowed a Fly - Joanna Cole
Goops and How to Be Them - Burgess
How a House is Built - Gibbons
Weslandia - Fleischman
The Little Red Lighthouse and The Great Gray Bridge - Swift
The Little House, Katy and the Big Snow, and Mike Mulligan and the Steam Shovel - by Virginia Lee Burton
David Macaulay books - Castle, Cathedral