Books like The Paper Dolls
By Julia Donaldson
For the kid who gives every cutout, doll, or drawing a whole name and backstory, this one turns a string of paper dolls into a world worth defending. Wistful, tender, and quietly dreamlike, with a bittersweet edge underneath the adventure.
A little girl with a boundless imagination becomes a mermaid, a wolf-raised boy, a wonderland wanderer, and more, turning cushions into castles and boxes into boats.
A girl named Marian discovers a rocky desert hill across the road and transforms it with her sisters and friends into Roxaboxen — a whole imagined town built from stones, old boxes, and pure invention.
A young man buys a violin for one silver piece, and the moment he plays it, fish take to the air, cows start dancing, and apple trees sprout cake and ice cream.
In the gray junkyard world of Cementland, a boy discovers a box of mysterious specks and a note urging him to plant them — then builds a scarecrow-like guardian, Frog Belly Rat Bone, to protect them from thieves.
A young boy sets off on a moonlit walk armed with only an oversize purple crayon, drawing his own path through woods, seas, and dragons before finding his way safely back to bed.
A collection of poems imagines a curious inn run by poet William Blake, where dragons, angels, and a Man in the Moon all check in for the night.
A young ballet student listens to music from Swan Lake in her dance class and is magically transported into the story, where she meets Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer.
A boy finds a salamander in the woods and imagines turning his own bedroom into a perfect woodland home, adding moss, trees, and stars to keep it happy.
A little girl waits eagerly for a new hat from her favorite aunt, but when it arrives plain and ordinary, she sets out to make it beautiful herself.
A boy falls asleep holding a book and drifts into a wordless dream world where chess pieces come alive, a dragon appears, and landscapes shift from canyons into cities before his eyes.
A collection of poems invites young readers through seven die-cut doorways into moods and moments — a dragon piñata, an alligator on the A train, a hungry yeti — turning everyday feelings into flights of imagination.
A young girl decides that a new playmate is her best friend, even though she's never had one before, finding proof in small shared moments like drawing each other and pretending to be pickles.
