Back-to-School Picture Books 2020 Recommendations for #classroombookaday

With all of the uncertainty facing educators about how we might be starting this school year, there is one thing I do know for certain: We can use picture books to start building relationships and connections with and among our students. Whether virtual behind a screen or in person behind a mask/shield, we can use picture books to create a more welcoming environment that honors all students and shows them they have a place in our virtual or physically distanced classroom communities.

For my back-to-school recommendations this year, I have chosen books with themes of friendship, focusing on the power of names, being welcoming to those from other cultures, doing our best in the circumstances we are given, thinking about worry and what to do with it, several around families near and far, some straight-forward ones around racism and viruses and consent, grieving those lost or moved away, dealing with worry around the first day, empowering stories, those that honor Black lives and raise up Asian American creators and characters, and a few that are just fun in thinking about our classroom and reading spaces. I believe this collection will have something for everyone to fit that first month back with students as teachers try to be responsive to the needs of their group and build community from the start.