Picture Books for Making Connections

Picture books are wonderfully useful when teaching students to make connections. The following books were contained in the Teaching In Action document released by the Nova Scotia Department of Education.


Some picture books you may find useful to teach connecting are:

Text-to-Self Connections:

1. The Pain and the Great One - Judy Blume
2. Tornado - Byar
3. Frog and Toad All Year - Arnold Lobel
4. Days with Frog and Toad - Arnold Lobel
5. Sol a Sol - Lori Marie Carlson
6. Oliver Button is a Sissy - Tomie de Paola
7. Getting Through Thursday - Cooper
8. Relatively Speaking - Fletcher
9. Chester's Way - Kevin Henkes
10. Chrysanthemum - Kevin Henkes
11. Sheila Rae the Brave - Kevin Henkes
12. Pumpkin Jack - Hubbell
13. The Snowy Day - Ezra Jack Keats
14. I Hate English- Ellen Levine
15. I Want to be a Police Officer - Liebman
16. Mirette on a High Wire - Emily A. McCully
17. Mrs. Mack - Patricia Polacca
18. Mrs. Katz and Tush - Patricia Polacca
19. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day - Judith Viorst
20. Ira Sleeps Over - Bernard Waber

 Text-to-Text Connections:

1. Piggie Pie - Margie Palatini  and Zoom Broom - Margie Palatini
2. Oliver Button is a Sissy - Tomie de Paola, and Max, the Stubborn Little Wolf by Judes, William's Doll - Charlotte Zolotow (boys who like "girl" things)
3. Julius, the Baby of the World and  Owen - Kevin Henkes
4. My Rotten Red-Headed Older Brother - Patricia Polacco,  The Pain and the Great One - Judy Blume, and Brother - Mary Ann Hoberman, (sibling rivalry).
5. The Two of Them - Aliki and Now One Foot, Now the Other - Tomie de Paola
6. Best Friends (poems) - Hopkins and  Two Close Friends - Lambert, and Why Are You Fighting, Davy? - Weninger. (friends)
7. The Jolly Postman and Other People's Letters - Janet and Allan Ahlberg (folktales)
8. The Gingerbread Man and The Runaway Rice Cake - Ying Chang Compestine
9. My Best Friend Moved Away - Carlson and The Lost and Found House - Cadnum (friend that moves)
10. The Surprise Wednesday - Eve Bunting, Jeremiah Learns to Read - Bogart, and Thank you, Mr. Falker - Patricia Polacco. (illiteracy)

Text-to-World Connections:

1. Fly Away Home, Gleam and Glow, and A Picnic in October - Eve Bunting
2. Someday a Tree - Eve Bunting
3. Smokey Night - Eve Bunting
4. The Wall - Eve Bunting
5. The Great Kopak Tree - Lynne Cherry
6. The River Runs Wild - Lynne Cherry
7. To Every Child, A Better World - Kermit the Frog/United Nations
8. Baseball Saved Us - Kevin Mochizuki
9. New York's Bravest - by Mary Pope Osborne
10. Night in the Country - Cynthia Rylant
11. The Butter Battle Book - Dr, Seuss
12. Lorax - Dr. Seuss
13. Red Fish, Blue Fish - Dr. Seuss
14. What a Wonderful World - George D. Weiss and Bob Thiele
15. The Other Side - Jacqueline Woodson