'The best books, reviewed with insight and charm, but without compromise.'
- author Jackie French

Sunday 26 January 2020

KBR's Top Picture Books of the Last 20 Years

KBR is celebrating 2020 with recommendations of our top titles from the last 20 years. There have been so many fabulous books published over this time, we could include many more than you see here. However, these are some of the KBR team's favourites (in no particular order). We hope you enjoy them, too.

You can also read our list of top junior and middle fiction and non-fiction titles here, and top young adult titles here.


Horrible Harriet by Leigh Hobbs

Bear and Chook by Emma Quay and Lisa Shanahan

Diary of a Wombat by Jackie French and Bruce Whatley (read our review here)

The Arrival by Shaun Tan (read our review here)

I’m a Dirty Dinosaur by Janeen Brian and Ann James (read our review here)


The Rain Train By Elena De Roo and Brian Lovelock (read our review here)

Rudie Nudie by Emma Quay

The Memory Tree by Britta Teckentrup

Julian is a Mermaid by Jessica Love (read our review here)

Woolvs in the Sitee by Margaret Wild and Anne Spudvilas


Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes by Mem Fox and Helen Oxenbury (read our review here)

The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler

Home and Away by John Marsden and Matt Ottley

Stuck by Oliver Jeffers (read our review here)

Mirror by Jeannie Baker (read our review here)

Grandmother Fish, A Child’s First Book of Evolution by Jonathan Tweet and Karen Lewis


Belonging by Jeannie Baker

Sometimes I Like to Curl Up in a Ball by Vicki Churchill and Charles Fuge (read our review here)

Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! by Mo Willems

At the End of Holyrood Lane by Dimity Powell and Nicky Johnston (read our review here)

Meerkat Mail by Emily Gravett (read our review here)


Fox by Margaret Wild and Ron Brooks (read our review here)

Peggy by Anna Walker (read our review here)

The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires

That Rabbit Belongs to Emily Brown by Cressida Cowell and Neal Layton

The Day The Crayons Quit by Oliver Jeffers (read our review here)


The Duck and The Darklings by Glenda Miller and Stephen Michael King (read our review here)

The Lion and the Bird by Marianne Dubuc (read our review here)

I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen (read our review here)

Rosie Revere, Engineer by Andrea Beaty and David Roberts (read our review here)

The Book of Trees by Piotr Socha and Wojciech Grajkowski