31 Days, 31 Lists: 2024 Wordless Books for Kids

I’ve mentioned this on this site before, but did you know that in Europe the common “wordless” children’s book is called a “silent” book? There’s something particularly lovely about that phrasing, I think. To my mind, wordless books are an interesting beastie. They have infinite uses, yet there is no quorum on what their best use might be.

Today, I’m giving you the books in 2024 that hadn’t a word of narration to spare. And they’re not all picture books either! See if you can spot the graphic novel hiding in their ranks.

You can find a full PDF of today’s list here.

Love wordless titles? Then check out some lists from previous years:

• 2023
• 2022
• 2021
• 2020
• 2019
• 2018
• 2017

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2024 Wordless Books for Kids

The Boy and the Elephant by Freya Blackwood

This tender wordless tale follows a boy with a special connection to the trees in the overgrown lot next door. When they’re slated for removal, it takes his bravery and a bit of magic to find them a new home. The art of Freya Blackwood has always felt like it was related to the art of Matt Phelan, if only because both employ this gentle watercolor style that is matched by few. Here Blackwood does an excellent job of employing legitimate magical realism in a picture book format, and it works. In this tale the boy sees an elephant in the trunk and branches of the trees and Blackwood walks this beautiful line between seeing the trees and seeing the animal. So much so that I actually found the ending to be not only a surprise, but a truly beautiful one at that. A great story of a proactive lonely kid who isn’t quite as lonely at the story’s end. This is Blackwood at her finest.

The First Day of May by Henrique Coser Moreira

It’s gonna be May. Care for a little Portugese wordless title to cleanse your palate? Let’s talk for a moment about wordless books and how they differ in America vs. other countries. The American wordless picture book, one would think, would not look all that different from its imported brethren, and yet I often find that other countries’ wordless books are unafraid to leave the idea of a consistent narrative trailing in the dust. Here, there isn’t so much a story as there is a series of experiences, mostly centered around a small black-haired white girl bedecked in red and white. With its rabbit ears-wearing television sets, I had to make quite certain that it wasn’t a reprint (it doesn’t appear to be). The whole storyline is, if anything, the feeling one gets when winter is over and you’re finally getting the feel of spring in your bones again. The girl has wild adventures but all soft and safe and sound. A book of feelings more than anything else. 

Home in a Lunchbox by Cherry Mo

A completely wordless tale tells the story of one little girl who has immigrated from Hong Kong to America and the ways that food ties her to her memories. Evocative, engulfing art tells a tale of empathy and delicious dumplings. See, this is what I mean when I say that you can take any subject, even one that’s been done a hundred times before, and put an entirely new spin on it. This book has a lot of similarities to others we’ve seen before (Gibberish by Young Vo comes to mind) but Cherry Mo is so good at changing her illustration style throughout the story that the emotions of the reader are completely guided by how she switches from one kind of art to another. I actually had to look at the book again right now to remember whether or not it was wordless, because honestly it’s so good that you kind of put your own words onto it. A standout of the year.

The Last Zookeeper by Aaron Becker

In a flooded world, a single giant robot works hard to save all the animals it can find. Wall-E meets Noah’s Ark in this magnificent, wordless tale. If you found yourself recently wondering, “Gee, has Betsy found her favorite post-apocalyptic picture book of 2024 yet?” consider this your answer! Again with the Becker. Is the book wordless? Of course. Does it have an ecological message? You bet it does! And is there a grandiose storyline involving storms and cute tiny rhinos and a happy ending? Yes and yes again. Now am I just reading too much into this, or doesn’t this also kind of feel like it starts out like Noah’s Ark and ends like the story of Adam and Eve? Knowing Mr. Becker, I suspect that this isn’t just me. This is for those older kids that love their picture books when their picture books are full of adventure and epic storytelling.

One Giant Leap by Thao Lam

Thao Lam: Canadian Wordless Cut Paper Queen. So sayeth I, and let no one contest me on the matter. The thing about Lam is that with each picture book she does, she just gets more and more interesting. Here, the cut paper is so vibrant on the page that I found myself reaching out to touch it, just to see if it was actually three-dimensional (and you know that if a 46-year-old woman has that reaction, a preschooler is possibly going to do the same thing). Aliens are particularly hot in picture books this year. I’m not entirely certain why (could be all those news items from a year or so ago saying that the government acknowledged unidentified flying objects). Whatever the case, you get to see a couple in Lam’s latest, and I am here for it! It’s remarkable how much emotion Lam is able to get out of the hero of this book, considering the fact that their head is helmeted most of the time. It’s just such a fun book, told so well and with zero words at all, that I can’t resist. 

Viewfinder by Christine D.U. Chung and Salwa Majoka

In this wordless comic, a girl from space discovers a new planet where all the people seem to have disappeared. Where did they go? And is she truly alone? I never like to read the description of a book before I read it, so going through this wordless graphic novel was a fascinating experience. I had to figure out what, precisely, the heroine was looking for and why, which isn’t immediately intuitive or obvious. And since I have a tendency to read a lot of dystopian fiction, I kept worrying that the mushrooms everywhere were dangerous (I blame Last of Us for that one). Once you relax into it, though, you’ll find it a really fun investigation. It’s a mystery in a way, and I love the use of photographs and a viewfinder to compare the past to the present. I suspect you could have a lot of fun doing a program with kids after this having them find old photographs of their own cities, then taking photos of what those places look like today. Science fiction and utterly unique. My favorite combo.

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So with all that in mind, here are the other lists for 2024:

December 1 – Great Board Books

December 2 – Picture Book Readalouds

December 3 – Simple Picture Book Texts

December 4 – Transcendent Holiday Picture Books

December 5 – Rhyming Picture Books

December 6 – Funny Picture Books

December 7 – CaldeNotts

December 8 – Picture Book Reprints

December 9 – Bilingual Books for Kids

December 10 – Math Books for Kids

December 11 – Books with a Message / Social Emotional Learning

December 12 – Fabulous Photography

December 13 – Translated Picture Books

December 14 – Fairy Tales / Folktales / Religious Tales

December 15 – Wordless Picture Books

December 16 – Poetry Books

December 17 – Unconventional Children’s Books

December 18 – Easy Books & Early Chapter Books

December 19 – Comics & Graphic Novels

December 20 – Older Funny Books

December 21 – Science Fiction Books

December 22 – Fantasy Books

December 23 – Informational Fiction

December 24 – Gross Books

December 25 – Science & Nature Books

December 26 – Unique Biographies

December 27 – Blueberry Award Contenders (Celebrating the Environment)

December 28 – Nonfiction Picture Books

December 29 – Nonfiction Books for Older Readers

December 30 – Middle Grade Novels

December 31 – Picture Books

Filed under: 31 Days 31 Lists, Best Books, Best Books of 2024