Saturday afternoon, 1984. A Quebec boy prays to God to send moths to eat his Toronto Maple Leafs sweater. The image is absurd, the theology is shaky, and the joke lands perfectly for every adult in the room who grew up anywhere near a hockey rink. That is the trick the best Canadian picture books pull: they read one way at four feet tall and another way entirely from the armchair. The list below is for the grown-up who picks up a picture book with a child and then quietly keeps reading after bedtime. These twelve titles are not ranked. They are organized loosely by the kind of hold they get on you.
The one that became Canadian mythology
The Hockey Sweater, Roch Carrier, illustrated by Sheldon Cohen (Tundra Books, 1984)
Start here, always. The story was originally published in 1979 under the title "Une abominable feuille d'érable sur la glace" and is based on a real experience Carrier had as a child in Sainte-Justine, Quebec, in 1946. In 1982 Sheldon Cohen approached May Cutler, founder of Tundra Books, to create an illustrated children's book of the story, and it was published in 1984. By 2014 it had sold over 300,000 copies.
It has become a classic of Canadian children's literature in English and French, though it was first intended for adult readers: a childhood recollection, the story grew from the CBC's request that Carrier reflect on the culture and desires of Quebec, which at the time was swept with separatist sentiment. The Toronto Star called it "not only sweet and funny, but a wise parable about Quebec and English Canada." It was taken into space by Canadian astronaut Robert Thirsk when he served on a 2009 mission to the International Space Station. That is probably the right level of reverence.
The one that does more without words than most books do with them
Sidewalk Flowers, JonArno Lawson, illustrated by Sydney Smith (Groundwood Books, 2015)
Lawson's wordless picture book Sidewalk Flowers, illustrated by Sydney Smith, won the Governor General's Award for Illustrated Children's Books in 2015, and was on the New York Times Best Illustrated Books list the same year. In it, a little girl collects wildflowers while her distracted father pays her little attention; each flower becomes a gift, and whether the gift is noticed or ignored, both giver and recipient are transformed by their encounter.
There are no words to read. There is plenty to feel. Lawson told Quill and Quire in 2015 that "it's a very quiet story." That is an understatement. Adults tend to find the father more recognizable than the child. Sydney Smith went on to win the 2024 Hans Christian Andersen Award for Illustration, the highest honour in international children's illustration. This book is a good place to see why.
The one rooted in the land
If You're Not from the Prairie..., David Bouchard, illustrated by Henry Ripplinger (Raincoast Books, 1993)
Edmonton Public Library librarian Shannon, writing in the library's curated list of picture books for grown-ups, described this one plainly: "The rich images of David Bouchard's poetry, combined with Henry Riplinger's detailed paintings, connect all five senses to the beauty and strength of the prairie. The timeless beauty and emotional connection to the land appeals to kids and adults of all ages, whether they have prairie connections or not. I have seen more than a few tears roll down cheeks when I've read this book out loud in seniors' programs." A picture book that makes seniors cry is not a children's book in any simple sense of the phrase.
The ones from a golden tradition
Canadian picture-book publishing has had at least two golden ages, according to the panel assembled by Quill and Quire in 2015. Publishers like Rick Wilks and Patsy Aldana, and creators such as Ian Wallace, Ann Blades, Marie-Louise Gay, Barbara Reid and Roch Carrier, among many others, shaped the present-day possibilities. Several of their books belong on any serious list.
The Paper Bag Princess, Robert Munsch, illustrated by Michael Martchenko (Annick Press, 1980)
Forty-five years in print. The subversion is still sharp: princess rescues prince, decides he is not worth it, walks off alone. Adults who first read this as children now give it to their own children with a particular satisfaction that has nothing to do with sentiment and everything to do with principle. Robert Munsch's wildly popular The Paper Bag Princess (1980) is listed among the Canadian classics in Brenna, Dionne, and Tavares's Contemporary Canadian Picture Books (2022), which covers an overview of 39 "Canadian classics new and old."
Alligator Pie, Dennis Lee, illustrated by Frank Newfeld (Macmillan, 1974)
Dennis Lee invented a Canadian nursery-rhyme tradition more or less from scratch with this book. The collection includes three classic Dennis Lee titles spanning three decades of his warm and whimsical rhymes. Alligator Pie remains the classic Canadian bedtime book, written as if Mother Goose had the Latin name Branta canadensis, from William Lyon Mackenzie King to Trois-Rivières. Adults with a weakness for sound and metre find it hard to read aloud without becoming slightly competitive about the performance.
A Coyote Columbus Story, Thomas King, illustrated by Kent Monkman (Groundwood Books, 1992)
Sarah Ellis, Vancouver author and former librarian, writing for Quill and Quire, described this as "still, I think, the boldest picture book ever published in Canada." King's trickster retelling of first contact is funny and corrosive at the same time. The illustrations by Kent Monkman, now one of Canada's most celebrated painters, are worth studying at length. This is a book where the adult layer is not hidden at all: it sits right on the surface, where children can see it too, if they are paying attention.
The recent ones earning their keep
On the Trapline, David A. Robertson, illustrated by Julie Flett (Tundra Books, 2021)
This intergenerational story focuses on Moshom and his grandson as they fly up north to the trapline, visiting the places where Moshom once hunted, fished, and lived off the land. Julie Flett's gorgeous, earth-toned illustrations help convey the beauty of the landscape and the connection the people have to the land and to each other. The book is quiet in the way that memory is quiet. Adults who have sat with an elder and felt the gap between worlds will recognize the feeling immediately.
Skating Wild on an Inland Sea, Jean E. Pendziwol, illustrated by Todd Stewart (Groundwood Books, 2024)
The $50,000 TD Canadian Children's Literature Award, the largest cash prize in Canadian children's literature, was awarded to Skating Wild on an Inland Sea by Jean E. Pendziwol and illustrated by Todd Stewart. It also won the Governor General's Literary Award and the Elizabeth Mrazik-Cleaver Canadian Picture Book Award. A story-poem about children skating on wild ice, it is the kind of book whose sound stays with you after you close it, the way cold air does.
SOS Water, Yayo (Tradewind Books, 2025)
Montreal author-illustrator Yayo won the $20,000 Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award for SOS Water, which through humour and poetry tells the story of a sailor and a goldfish trying to contend with pollution from plastic water bottles. The CCBC jury noted it as "a punchy, spirited picture book bursting with wit, wonder, and wildly imaginative visual surprises." The environmental argument arrives through absurdity, which is often the most efficient route.
Hummingbird / Aamo-binashee, Jennifer Leason, translated to Anishinaabemowin by Norman Chartrand and Jennifer Leason (Orca Book Publishers, 2025)
Written and illustrated by Calgary-based Jennifer Leason and translated to Anishinaabemowin by Norman Chartrand and Leason, this bilingual picture book tells of ancestors who send a hummingbird to rescue a child lost in the darkness of a windigo. The CCBC awarded it the Richard Allen Chase Memorial Award in 2025. The bilingual format is itself a kind of argument, and adults who think about language will find it genuinely moving.
The ones with a particular grown-up frequency
Chester, Mélanie Watt (Kids Can Press, 2007)
This unconventional picture book reads more like a battle between author and main character: Chester, with his notorious red marker, goes back and forth with Mélanie Watt in a constant struggle to revise the story to suit Chester's ego. Anyone who has worked with a difficult collaborator, or managed a difficult person of any kind, will feel this book somewhere specific. It is meta-fiction for preschoolers, but the adults tend to laugh harder.
Northwest Passage, illustrated by Matt James, text by Stan Rogers (Groundwood Books, 2013)
An Edmonton Public Library librarian recommended this one in the library's picture-book-for-grown-ups list: "James has beautifully illustrated Stan Rogers' classic Canadian folk song and enriched the story it tells with maps, historical facts, and sheet music , Stan Rogers voice sings right off the page and haunted me for days afterward." It is, strictly speaking, a picture book of a song. But Rogers's lyric about the search for the Northwest Passage works as a meditation on ambition and failure and the strange beauty of Canada's north, and Matt James's illustrations give it room to breathe.
A note on what makes these books work for adults
There is a useful idea in the Quill and Quire golden-age panel discussion from 2015: "In the early days, our picture books were also edgy, innovative, and beautiful. They stretched the idea of the audience, and this tradition continued." That tradition is still going. The twelve books above are not books that condescend to children or bore adults. They are books that trust both audiences to find what they need.
The Canadian Children's Book Centre administers seven awards annually, all of which celebrate excellence in Canadian children's books, with only works by Canadian authors and illustrators eligible. Browsing the CCBC award shortlists each October is one of the better ways to find the next book on this list before anyone else does. The Toronto Public Library and most public library systems carry the full backlist. None of these require a child as a pretext.
Sources
- The Canadian Encyclopedia. "The Hockey Sweater." Historica Canada. thecanadianencyclopedia.ca.
- Wikipedia. "The Hockey Sweater." Accessed June 2026. en.wikipedia.org.
- Penguin Random House. The Hockey Sweater by Roch Carrier. penguinrandomhouse.com.
- Quill and Quire. "Honours stack up for JonArno Lawson and Sydney Smith's Sidewalk Flowers." October 29, 2015. quillandquire.com.
- Wikipedia. "JonArno Lawson." Accessed June 2026. en.wikipedia.org.
- Quill and Quire. "Kidlit spotlight: the golden age of Canadian picture books." October 22, 2015. quillandquire.com.
- Canadian Children's Book Centre (CCBC). "2025 CCBC Book Awards Celebrate Excellence in Literature for Young People." October 27, 2025. bookcentre.ca.
- Quill and Quire. "Winners of the 2024 CCBC Book Awards revealed." October 29, 2024. quillandquire.com.
- Edmonton Public Library. "Picture books for grown-ups" (staff-curated list). epl.bibliocommons.com.
- CM: Canadian Review of Materials. Review of Contemporary Canadian Picture Books by Brenna, Dionne, and Tavares. cmreviews.ca, March 4, 2022.
- Toronto Public Library Kids' Books Blog. "Canada 150: Wonderful Picture Books that are Perfect for Reading Aloud." April 2017. torontopubliclibrary.typepad.com.
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