Welcome to the 7th Annual Dad Suggests Picture Book Awards! Once again we have spent the entire year tirelessly researching the world of picture books (well, picture books published in the US). We read, and we fought, and we threw books across the room, and we screamed, and we read again. We shred the books apart and burned them over a Bunsen burner in a test tube to look for interesting reactions like Jack Skellington. What does it mean!
And now, finally, we’ve come out safely on the other side with our list of the best 10 picture books of 2024. These 10 books will go down in history, joining the ranks of previous Dad Suggests Picture Book Awards winners, as recipients of one of the greatest honors a picture book could hope for – the approval of Dad.
As you may already be aware, the annual Caldecott award ceremony is fast approaching as well, although you shouldn’t expect to see many crossover titles between these two very prestigious awards (of course there is some debate out there about which award is more prestigious). That is perhaps because the Caldecott is an award for illustrations and illustrators only, not for the author. So while the pictures of the winners are often very good, the committee is not beholden to the same rigorous rubric and criteria that we are, such as, for instance, how good of a book it is.
In fact, speaking of criteria, the first thing I ask myself during the review process every year is often “is this book good?” I’ve found this to be a very reliable system so far, and it seems to really set us off on the right foot. Other useful questions are “is reading this book at all enjoyable?” and “would a child hate this book?” You’d be surprised at how quickly the piles start to dwindle away!
But the books that remain! These are good piles of books. These books are special. We need to slap a sticker with Dad’s face on these books so that customers know what’s up. And, as an aside, the stickers are truly about to roll out. This year you can expect to see all previous honor books and all previous Dad Suggests Picture Book Awards winners get the official sticker treatment in our bookstore. The people will finally know what’s up and what’s what.
I hope you enjoy learning about our favorite picture books of the year. As always, when you get to the top 5 things become very difficult all of the sudden. But we are extremely satisfied with the results, and I hope you find something new and fun to read.
Disclosure: Some of the links in this article are affiliate links. Clicking on those links will lead you to view the books’ listings on the website of our affiliate partners Amazon or Bookshop.org, where purchases support local bookstores across the nation.
