10 Picture Books for September Birthday Kids

Spot’s Birthday Party, by Eric Hill
Beloved British children’s book author Eric Hill was born in London on September 7, 1927. Like the kids in C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, he evacuated to the British countryside during World War II. He left school at age 14 to begin work, but always drew cartoons in his spare time. He wrote and illustrated his first Spot book for his son in 1976, and published the first one, Where’s Spot? in 1980. Spot was a hit with very young readers, and Hill went on to publish dozens of books about the little yellow dog, selling over 60 million copies across the globe and spawning a Spot empire of television shows and products. In this charming book, Spot must find all of his friends playing hide-and-seek before he can open his birthday presents. Luckily for Spot, his friends aren’t very good at hiding. 

Lyle and the Birthday Party, by Bernard Waber
Bernard Warber was born September 27, 1924 in Philadelphia, and he enjoyed a long and successful career as a children’s book author until his death in 2013. One of Waber’s most famous creations is Lyle the Crocodile, who made his first appearance in 1962 in The House on 88th Street. In this book, the Primm family buys a Victorian brownstone, and discover a talented crocodile living in the bathtub. So they adopt him, of course. In Lyle and the Birthday Party, the Primms celebrate their son Joshua’s birthday, and Lyle finds himself turning green with envy…that is, remaining green with envy. This sets off a series of wild events that ends with Lyle learning how to make himself feel better when he has a bout of jealousy. Plus he gets to enjoy a celebration for the three-year anniversary the Primm‘s bathtub discovery. 

A Pizza the Size of the Sun, by Jack Prelutsky and James Stevenson
Jack Prelutsky, who served as America’s first Children’s Poet Laureate, will celebrate his 79th birthday on September 8. Prelutsky has published over fifty volumes of funny, entertaining poetry for children, often illustrated by James Stevenson’s loose, witty line drawings. If your kids asked for you to order them a pizza the size of the sun to share at their birthday party, you can oblige them by giving them this book and laughing over the poems together, while eating a pizza of moderate dimensions. 

The Giant and How he Humbugged America, by Jim Murphy
Jim Murphy, the prolific author of dozens of history books for readers of all ages, will celebrate his 72nd birthday on September 25. This fantastic story concerns a money-making hoax and the charlatans who almost got away with it. In 1869, a farmer in New York dug up a ten-foot tall object that he and others took to be a “petrified man,” perhaps from the race of giants described in the Bible. When the giant attracted attention, many other men bought shares of him, hoping to rake in cash. And then P.T. Barnum got involved. You and your kids may laugh about how many people fell for this scam under the thrall of various charismatic showmen…but then you might ask yourselves if there’s anything false that you’ve fallen for! 

The Story of Ruby Bridges, by Robert Coles & George Ford
Famous kid hero Ruby Bridges celebrates her 64th birthday on September 8. This book captures the bravery and grace of what she did, walking to first grade alone among a mob of protesting adults and armed marshals to become the first black child to attend an all-white school in New Orleans in 1960. Those of us who’ve escorted jittery six-year-olds to their first days of school under much more favorable circumstances will be astonished at Ruby’s composure. For many weeks, she attended school completely alone, as no white parents would allow their children to go to class with her. Coles writes that Ruby’s teacher, Miss Hurley, said, “Sometimes I’d look at her and wonder how she did it. How she went by those mobs and sat here all by herself and yet seemed so relaxed and comfortable.” This story will inspire your September birthday kid to be as courageous as Ruby Bridges.

Battle Bunny, by Jon Scieszka, Mac Barnett, and Matthew Myers
Prolific children’s book author Jon Scieska will turn 65 on September 8, and he’s written just the book to celebrate the occasion: Birthday Bunny…ahem, that’s Battle Bunny. This meta-fictional picture book takes the form of a saccharine children’s story called Birthday Bunny that’s been scribbled on and edited by a boy named Alex to make a tale that’s more to his liking—which means giving fuzzy animals eye patches and a keen interest in ballistics. After observing discrepancies in reading interests among girls and boys as an elementary school teacher, Scieszka has made a career out of giving boys books they might actually want to read, and founding Guys Read to improve boys’ literacy. So buckle up to read about Battle Bunny’s Evil Plan involving megatron bombs, and Alex’s effort to foil it. (You can also enjoy the limp tale of a despondent rabbit who thinks his friends have forgotten his birthday that pokes fun at lame kids’ books.)

Four Friends in Autumn, by Tomie dePaola
Beloved children’s book author and artist Tommie dePaola celebrates his 85th birthday on September 15. This simple tale is perfect for September birthday kids who relish the change of seasons from summer into fall. Mistress Pig invites three friends to a dinner party. Cucumber soup, corn fritters, and turnip soufflé are on the menu, but Mistress Pig gets a little carried away in tasting them to make sure everything is just right.

Curious George, by H.A. Rey
H.A. Rey, the author who gave the world the most beloved monkey in children’s literature, was born Hans Augusto Reyersbach on September 16, 1898 in Hamburg, Germany. He and his wife Margaret were German Jews who fled Germany and then France to escape the Nazis, making their way out of Paris on homemade bicycles in 1940. (Read all about their astonishing flight in The Journey That Saved Curious George: The True Wartime Escape of Margaret and H.A. Rey by Louise Borden and Allan Drummond.) The Reys took the drawings for the book that would become Curious George with them when they fled, and it was published in New York in 1941. The Reys published six Curious George books—but kids just couldn’t get enough of the mischievous monkey, and so other authors and artists have continued writing Curious George stories—and creating enough Curious George merchandise that you can throw a monkey-themed bash for your September birthday kid.

The Gruffalo, by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler
Julia Donaldson will celebrate her 71st birthday on September 16. Donaldson has written dozens of books, but she’s best known for this timeless tale of a small creature outsmarting a would-be predator from eating him. In The Gruffalo, a mouse encounters a fox who invites him back to his den. The mouse says he already has an invitation from a gruffalo, with “terrible tusks, and terrible claws, and terrible teeth in his terrible jaws.” When the gruffalo turns out to actually exist, the quick-thinking mouse has to cook up another plan to foil him.

The Magic Finger, by Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake
Your September birthday kid shares a birthday month with another literary great, Roald Dahl, who was born on September 13, 1916. His publishers call him “the World’s Number 1 Storyteller,” and Dahl has a legitimate claim to that title. If you have a young reader raring to get started with Dahl, try The Magic Finger, a short story packed with Quentin Blake illustrations about a little girl who discovers she has a magic finger, and uses it to stop her neighbors from hunting animals.