24 Beautiful Picture Biographies

Last year, I discovered a genre of books I had never really considered before - the picture book biography.  I've never been a huge fan of adult biographies, and honestly even a lot of biographies written for kids feel dry to me.  Don't get me wrong, there are some great children's biography series out there, they just don't ring my bell.  What I love about the ones I've collected here is that many of them are names we've never heard before, and they almost feel like someone's passion project.  While there might be a plethora of biographies of Abraham Lincoln, how many have been written for children about Teresa Carreño, who played the piano for him?  I don't know for sure, but I don't imagine there are many, and it's clear that a lot of love went into this one.



We did a loose theme for each week of the summer, so I was on the hunt for some biographies to add to our non-fiction collection for each theme, and I fell deep down an Amazon rabbit hole.  I ended up ordering Along Came Coco, Fancy Party Gowns, and Polka Dot Parade for our fashion week, and Pocket Full of Colors...just because?  Listen, sometimes my self control keeps me in check, but last summer was not one of those times.  Anyway, after we read through those, I fell in love with the art of the picture biography, so I just kept clicking through and adding to my list, finding stories of people's lives I had never thought to explore before.  Many of these are related to art, fashion, ballet, or the ocean (we like what we like - ha!), but I tried to bridge out a bit beyond that.  I hope you find something to love!

  1. Along Came Coco
  2. Sewing Stories
  3. Bloom
  4. Parrots, Pugs, and Pixe Dust
  5. Fancy Party Gowns
  6. Dancing Hands
  7. Just like Rube Goldberg
  8. Dancing Through Fields of Color
  9. The Power of Her Pen
  10. The Crayon Man
  11. Pocket Full of Colors
  12. Ready to Fly
  13. Beautiful Shades of Brown
  14. Pies from Nowhere
  15. Polka Dot Parade
  16. Trailblazer
  17. Yves Klein
  18. The Secret Garden of George Washington Carver
  19. Tallchief
  20. Queen of Physics
  21. Manfish
  22. Shark Lady
  23. Lobster Lady
  24. Mary Blair's Unique Flair *I know - this goes against what I said earlier, but honestly Mary Blair is so cool that I had to include both.
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