Children’s Book Ideas: 50 Story Starters by Age

Every idea below is built the way a children’s book works: a character, a problem a child understands, and a picture you can see on the first page. Take any of them and make it yours. If you love an idea but don’t have the time to write it, a children’s book ghostwriter can write and illustrate it with you.

Children’s Book Idea Mixer

What turns a topic into a children’s book idea

A topic is a subject. An idea has a child’s problem in it, and that problem is what turns the pages.

Topic	Idea
School	The class pumpkin was supposed to be giant. It grows to the size of a pea.
Space	A girl wants to be the first kid on the moon, but she’s scared of the dark.
Moving house	Lena tries to pack her whole bedroom into a box, including the view from the window.

Our guide on how to write a children’s book explains what makes an idea strong before you commit to it.

Board book ideas (about ages 0 to 3)

Board books usually don’t need a plot. They need one simple idea a toddler can hold on to, with rhythm and repetition a parent can read again and again. See what a board book is for sizes and page counts.

Idea	First spread	Best as
A baby giraffe tries to stand up. Wobble, wobble, flop, until it stands.	Long legs splayed in every direction, like a fallen deck chair	Board book, first steps
A toddler drops one colored fruit per page into a blender, and the rainbow smoothie splashes all over Dad	One red strawberry above an empty blender	Board book, colors
A whale and a minnow eat, splash and nap, each in their own size, and the minnow makes the biggest splash	A whale gulping the sea, a minnow sipping one bubble	Board book, opposites
Five bath toys hop out one by one as the water drains, until only the toddler is left, wrapped in a towel	Five toys lined up on the edge of a full bathtub	Board book, counting down
A rainy day told in sounds: drip, splash, boom, purr	Raindrops on a window, with one big “DRIP”	Board book, sounds
A toddler hunts for a missing sock and finds it last, worn by the dog as a hat	One bare foot and one striped sock, at the top of the stairs	Lift-the-flap board book
Grandma’s kitchen in five verbs: stir, sizzle, sniff, taste, yum	A wooden spoon and a toddler on a step stool	Board book, first words
A firefly follows the car home from Grandma’s house and blinks on every page	One tiny light outside a dark car window	Board book, bedtime

Picture book ideas (about ages 3 to 7)

Picture books run about 32 pages and are read aloud, so the adult reading is part of your audience. These are grouped by theme.

Feelings

Idea	First spread	Best as
Noor and the girl next door are both too shy to say hello, until their cats meet on the fence first	Two girls peeking from behind two curtains, two cats on one fence	Picture book, shyness
When the new puppy gets all the photos, Juno stages her own photo shoot, costumes and all, and the puppy photobombs every shot	Juno in a cape, the puppy’s nose poking into the frame	Picture book, jealousy
Dev has never lost a race, until his little sister learns to run	A toddler zooming past Dev on the playground	Picture book, losing well
The class pumpkin was supposed to be giant. It grows to the size of a pea.	The whole class kneeling around a tiny pumpkin with a magnifying glass	Picture book, disappointment

Family and home

Idea	First spread	Best as
Lena tries to pack her whole bedroom into a box, including the view from the window	Lena trying to tape the window shut inside a cardboard box	Picture book, moving
A big brother writes an instruction manual for the new baby, and on every spread the baby breaks the rule	A homemade manual titled “BABY: How It Works”	Picture book, new sibling
Every Sunday, Ana and her grandpa cook the same soup in two kitchens, far apart, on a video call	One spread split down the middle: two kitchens, one pot of soup	Picture book, family far away
Sam has a different bedtime song in each of his two homes, so he makes up one song that works in both	Two windows, two moons, one boy singing	Picture book, two homes

Funny

Idea	First spread	Best as
A sloth enters the school’s slow bicycle race and is the only one who wants to win slowly	Every kid pedaling hard, the sloth asleep on the handlebars	Picture book, sports day
An overdue library book leaves a boy a new note every day: “Come back. I miss the shelf.”	A sticky note on a library book, under a bed	Picture book, humor
A cow wants to be a lap dog	A cow trying to climb onto Grandma’s armchair	Picture book, humor
The new tooth fairy keeps taking the wrong things, so Aisha writes her a guide called “How to Spot a Tooth”	A button missing from under the pillow, and a tooth still there	Picture book, loose teeth

Nature, animals and bedtime

Idea	First spread	Best as
An earthworm wants to see the sky from the top of the garden fence before the first frost	An earthworm looking up at a very tall fence	Picture book, persistence
A picnic blanket tells about five summer picnics, and every year there’s one more person sitting on it	A folded blanket in a picnic basket	Picture book, family and growing up
Mia can’t sleep without the stars, and every way she tries to bring them inside goes wrong, until her little brother’s glow-in-the-dark pajamas save the night	Glow stickers falling off the ceiling, one by one	Picture book, bedtime
A hermit crab refuses to leave its too-small shell, even when its claws stick out of the top	A crab wearing its shell like a tiny hat	Picture book, change

Nonfiction picture book ideas

Nonfiction picture books explain the real world. Every fact has to be checked, and the explanation has to fit the reader’s age.

Idea	First spread	Best as
What happens to an apple core after it lands in the compost	An apple core dropping onto a compost pile	Nonfiction picture book, nature
How a birthday parcel travels from Grandma’s kitchen to your front door	Grandma wrapping a box with string	Nonfiction picture book, how things work
A night baker’s shift, from the empty bakery at midnight to the bread on your breakfast table	A bakery’s lights coming on in a dark street	Nonfiction picture book, food and jobs
Why leaves change color, told by a tree talking to its leaves	A tall tree with one leaf just turning yellow	Nonfiction picture book, science
How a loaf of bread gets from a wheat field to your toaster	A wheat field at sunrise	Nonfiction picture book, food
What your heart does when you run, sleep and get a fright	A child mid-jump, with a small heart drumming inside	Nonfiction picture book, the body

Early reader and chapter book ideas (about ages 5 to 10)

Early readers are for children who are just learning to read on their own. Chapter books build reading stamina with short chapters, and many become series.

Idea	First scene	Best as
A hedgehog and a mole disagree about everything except snacks	Two friends arguing over which way is up	Early reader, friendship
Max reads “Mystery Muffins” on the lunch menu and sets out to solve the mystery	Max with a magnifying glass at the lunch counter	Early reader, humor
A classroom robot learns to read alongside the class, one word at a time	A robot holding a book upside down	Early reader, school
Kai’s loose tooth won’t come out, and he has to play the trumpet at the school concert	Kai in front of a mirror, a trumpet in one hand	Early reader, everyday life
A girl’s new kite only flies when she tells it a joke	A kite lying flat on the grass, and a girl thinking hard	Early reader, humor
The class stick insect vanishes on the zoo trip, and Leo is sure it’s hiding in plain sight	A twig on Leo’s sleeve, with six legs	Chapter book, school mystery
Zara starts a pet-sitting business, and her first client is an 80-year-old tortoise	A tortoise on a doormat with a long list of rules	Chapter book series, small business
Two best friends swap lunchboxes for a day, then chores, then pets	Two lunchboxes swapped on a school bench	Chapter book, humor
A new girl says her grandma was a circus strongwoman, and the class sets out to prove it	A small grandma lifting a whole picnic table	Chapter book, mystery
Benji’s new treehouse gets one strange visitor in every chapter	A treehouse door with a knock at night	Chapter book series, adventure

Middle grade ideas (about ages 8 to 12)

Middle grade is a full novel, with real stakes and a main character usually 10 to 13 years old.

Idea	First scene	Best as
A girl runs her late grandfather’s failing bookshop for one summer and finds his unfinished map of tunnels under the town	A key taped inside a dusty atlas	Middle grade, mystery
Two rivals are forced to read the school’s morning video announcements together	Two kids squeezed into one camera frame	Middle grade, friendship and humor
During a week-long power cut, a block of strangers becomes a team	A dark apartment block, with one window lit by a candle	Middle grade, community
A boy who’s afraid of water has one summer to learn to swim before his family’s sailing trip	A boy standing on the edge of a pool, toes curled	Middle grade, courage
A girl moves to an island with a lighthouse, where the only other kid wants her gone	A ferry pulling away, and a boy watching from the rocks	Middle grade, belonging
A boy finds letters in the library’s returns slot from a kid who borrowed the same book 40 years ago	An old envelope tucked inside a library book	Middle grade, mystery
A kid inventor’s failed gadgets start working, but only for the town bully	A pile of broken gadgets in a garage	Middle grade, humor
A girl enters the county-fair pickle contest using her grandmother’s strangest recipe cards, and each recipe solves a different problem in town	A recipe card that says “pickled peaches”	Middle grade, family
A girl and her little brother spend the whole summer at their mom’s hair salon, secretly planning a surprise for her birthday	Two kids hiding behind a row of salon dryers	Middle grade, family
On a museum trip, one student’s audio guide starts giving her secret instructions	A girl in headphones, frozen in front of a statue	Middle grade, mystery

Pick your best idea in 60 seconds

Have a few ideas you like? Ask five questions of each, and start with the one that gets the most yeses.

1. Can you say the child’s problem in one sentence?
2. Does the main character solve it, not an adult?
3. Can you picture a different scene on every spread or in every chapter?
4. Would an adult happily read it aloud again?
5. Have you searched Amazon and your library catalog for books like it?

For more on each check, see find an idea built on a child’s problem and revise, read it aloud and test it in our full guide. Planning to illustrate it yourself? Read how to illustrate a children’s book.

When to get help

An idea is the start. Turning it into 32 pages that work read aloud, with pictures that carry half the story, is the long part. If you have the idea but not the time, a writer and an illustrator can build the book with you.

Frequently asked questions

Can I use these children’s book ideas?

Yes. Every idea on this page is original and free to use. In the US, copyright protects how a story is written and drawn, not the idea behind it. Your words and pictures are your own work, as long as you don’t copy anyone’s actual text, art or characters. This is general information, not legal advice.

How do I check if my idea has already been written?

Search Amazon’s children’s books and your library catalog with a few words that describe your story, and a children’s librarian can point you to similar books. A search can show an idea has been done, but it can’t prove it hasn’t, so check new and upcoming titles too. If you find a similar book, change the character, the angle or the ending.

Should a children’s book teach a lesson?

It can, but the lesson works best when the character learns it through what they do. Editors and children’s writing guides warn against preachy books, where the message is stated instead of shown. Let the story carry the message, and the reader will find it without being told.

What if I have an idea but no time to write it?

You have two good options. Write a rough draft and have it edited, or hand the idea to a children’s book ghostwriter. With a ghostwriter, you approve the story plan, the text and the art, and 100% of the rights transfer to you on final payment.

Related reading: How to write a children’s book · What is a board book? · How to illustrate a children’s book