Best Children's Books in the World: A Treasury of Illustrated Stories

What are the best children's books published in Japan? How about Brazil? This stunning collection of award-winning picture books from 15 countries gives readers an astonishing perspective on global cultures, but mostly a hearty dose of pure reading pleasure. In Oslo native Karin Bang and Danish illustrator Per Dybvig's delightful, swashbuckling The Cat on Pirate's Island, for example, you'll find reproductions of the original picture book, with its Norwegian text. The English translations--some commissioned expressly for this book--fit clearly and unobtrusively in the margins. Lushly illustrated stories from Israel, China, Sri Lanka, England, Ghana splash joyfully across the pages as well. A brief introduction to each picture book tells about the diverse countries and their fascinating storytelling traditions, as well as providing biographical information on the authors and illustrators.

The one common denominator is the stories' appeal for children. The book was created not to demonstrate the uniformity of the world's cultures, but to illustrate the range of human styles and perspectives. As historian and educator Jeffrey Garrett writes in his introduction, the collection is "an entire rainbow not only of art but of story as well, from the somber and serious to the subversive and even downright silly ... these stories are as rich and as variegated as the world of childhood itself." This spectacular 300-page treasury will have parents and children squabbling over who gets to read it next. (Click to see a sample spread. From The Cat on Pirate's Island, © 1994 Bonnier Carlsen Forlag AS, illustrated by Per Dybrig, text by Karin Bang.) (All ages)