The best children’s pictures books about love

By / 4 minutes of reading
book pages turned into a love heart

A common request I receive from parents, is for help in finding books to help with talking about love!

Love can be a tricky thing to explain to children. It is a complicated emotion that can mean a lot of different things. And when kid’s start asking big questions like ‘What’s love’ or ‘How do I know that I love someone’, answering them isn’t always easy. Plus the answer is oftne based on your own feelings and personal experiences.

Picture books about love can be a great way to start the conversation. As the book will help you to explain love in a way that is meaningful and logical to your child!

Now, while I was hunting around for books to include, I found these great tips on how to talk to kids about love by  Lauren Barineau.

  • Love is universal and beyond romantic attraction. When talking about love with kids, make sure you talk about all the ways we experience love: familial love, love between close friends, love of pets, romantic love and others.
  • Use age appropriate, but concrete words to describe love. Love is often described as a simile, (ie, love is like…) but it may be more helpful to push yourself to define it in easy to understand words. Consider a few examples below:
    • Love is having very strong feelings of liking someone and enjoy spending time with them.
    • Love means caring about someone or something a lot and feeling like your best self with them.
    • You know you love someone when you really like them, you want the best things for them, and when you feel safe with them.
  • Love is likely defined differently for each person and family. Explore some ways that different people may feel and demonstrate love. This is also a chance to explain that some behaviors are never an acceptable part of love (like neglect or abuse).
  • Consider contextualizing love with specifics that your child may understand. For example, “Think about how much you like playing with your brother and how you always want to make sure he’s safe when you’re outside together. That is a way you show him you love him.”
  • For older kids, tease out the difference between liking something and loving something. Liking may be enjoying something but loving means you like that thing with an intensity, or strong passion over other things. How might you relate that idea to people? Love often has other feelings involved beyond just “liking it”, but instead may include trust, respect, or similarity in values or personality. Invite older kids to share their thoughts on what it means to love something.

Now, you will only find books in this list that are readily available at bookshops today.

You can find more books about different topics in the main list of Sex Education Books for Children.

You’ll find more information about sex education in my Sex Education 101 page.

NOTE: Before passing any book to your child or reading the book with your child, you should read it yourself first. I might think it is a great book for a certain age child or that the information is valuable, but you may disagree. You need to choose books that reflect your values and the messages you want your child to receive.

Picture books about love

You’ll find an age-specific list of books about love. Just click on the age of your child, and you’ll be taken straight to that booklist.

3 year olds

4 year olds

5 year olds

6 year olds

7 year olds

8 year olds

9 year olds

10 year olds

11 year olds

12 year olds

13 year olds

14 year olds

Books for 3 year olds

Books for 4 year olds

Books for 5 year olds

Books for 6 year olds

Books for 7 year olds

Books for 8 year olds

Books for 9 year olds

Books for 10 year olds

Books for 11 year olds

Books for 12 year olds

Books for 13 year olds

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Books for 14+ year olds

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These are some of the many picture books for children about love. As I find more, I will add them to this list. They are all really good books that you will find useful for starting conversations about love in families.

Oh, and please do let me know if you know of a book to be added to this list!

Happy reading!

Resources to help with talking about puberty

My mission is to create resources that will help you to naturally talk to your kids about sex, all while respecting your personal values.

Which means that inside this website, you’ll find lots of resources to help you with talking to your child about puberty.

My Sex Ed 101 page includes all of the information on sex education. You’ll find lots of different blog posts to help you gain a better understandign of what sex education is all about.

You’ll find videos about sex education in my Sex Education Videos resource page that you can watch with your child or to learn more about sex education yourself.

You’ll also find an extensive range of children’s sex education books, for kids of all ages. 

If you’re unsure about how to answer your child’s questions about sex, then I have the perfect book for you! The Sex Education Answer Book will give you age-specific answers to the most common questions kid’s ask parents about sex. Which means you don’t need to worry about finding a child-friendly explanation that your child understands. 

If you need some help with explaining sexual intercourse to your child, then you may like my Masterclass on explaining sex for the very first time or my parent guide will also help you explain sex to your child in a way they will understand. It breaks sex down into simple steps that take the stress out of explaining!

Plus you will find plenty more sex education resources at the Sex Ed Shop.

And if you get stuck, feel free to get in touch! You can contact me here.

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About The Author

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I'm Cath, a sex educator living in Australia with my husband and 2 kids. I help parents to talk about sex (with less cringe and more confidence) and empower their child to make smart sexual decisions. To find a better way to talk about sex, you can join my community of parents and visit the Sex Ed Shop for helpful resources.

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