Learning to write is a special time. Making marks on a page, learning to form letters and write words. To celebrate writing and understand what stories can be about, here’s a few books (ranging from sweet to silly) that quietly teach what writing can be about.
These five picture books show young writers where stories come from, how they get made, and that every storyteller feels stuck sometimes.
Let's Be Bees by Shawn Harris
This is a book about the kind of storytelling that can happen when two people play together. A parent and child transform: becoming bees, birds, snow, the earth itself.
This book shows kids that storytelling doesn't begin at a desk with a pencil. It begins in play, in imagining, in pretending to be a bee or an avalanche.
The illustrations are childlike: bold crayon strokes, thick outlines. So kids can see themselves in this story.
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We Are In A Book! by Mo Willems
Gerald and Piggie discover mid-story that they are being read, and the revelation sends them into a delightful spiral of awareness: there are page numbers, there are word bubbles, there is a reader right now reading these very words… and at some point the story will end.
For a child who is just beginning to understand that writing is a form of communication with someone on the other side of the page, this book explores what that means in a lighthearted way.
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Ralph Tells a Story by Abby Hanlon
Ralph stares at his paper. He stares at the ceiling. But he has no stories. This is the central crisis, and it will be immediately recognisable to any child who has ever felt that nothing worth writing has ever happened to them.
The resolution is simple (and hilarious). With the help of a friend, Ralph notices something that seems a bit like a story, and he timidly shares it with his classmates. When they respond with delight, suddenly the story that felt like nothing reveals itself as something. And his story will make you laugh, the way real life does.
This book shows kids how to notice a story and acknowledges the bravery it takes to tell one.
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Chester's Masterpiece by Mélanie Watt
Chester is a megalomaniac cat who steals his author's supplies and tries to write his own book. Mélanie Watt (the actual author and illustrator) responds via sticky notes, arguing with her own character in the margins while Chester scribbles away with his red marker.
This dialogue vividly conveys the components of a book: genre, setting, plot, heroes, ending. And it illustrates how writing involves decisions, arguments with yourself, false starts, and the occasional sticky note from someone with helpful tips.
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The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds
Vashti can't draw. She sits in front of a blank piece of paper after art class has ended, defeated before she's begun. Her teacher asks her to just make a mark, so Vashti jabs at the paper with an angry dot. "There!" she says. And her teacher asks Vashti to sign it.
That act of treating the dot as something worth signing (and framing) transforms how she sees what she made. The book is technically about visual art, but its real subject is the entry point to creativity, what can unlock a hidden stockpile of ideas.
For a child who is staring at a blank page and feeling like they have nothing to write, The Dot is an invitation to consider where inspiration may come from.
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