30 Picture Books for Teaching Author’s Purpose

30 Picture Books for Teaching Author's Purpose

Teach different reasons why an author may write a book and help your students develop a deeper understanding of a text. Also, explore a list of books for teaching author's purpose.

30 Picture Books for Teaching Author's Purpose

Teaching Author's Purpose

Teaching about an author’s purpose helps your students understand why an author wrote what they did. The three most common reasons are persuade, inform, and entertain. However, an author may have multiple reasons for writing a book and children need to identify this.

Get your students to think critically about the different ways authors use the text, and that authors will have a bias to their writing.

Persuade: The text is trying to convince the reader of something. The reader may come across facts, reasons, statistics, or the author stating why they believe something. They need to think whether the author is trying to convince them of something or change their opinion on the topic.

Inform: The text is helping the reader learn something or make an informed decision. It could include the words teach, state, tell, explain, or inform. These words also warn the reader they may have to analyze what they have learned.

Entertain: Unlike persuade and inform, entertaining text doesn’t have specific words to look out for. What is more important is the way an author writes. For example, using fun words, punctuation, onomatopoeia, descriptive language, alongside interesting characters and settings, attractive illustrations and an interesting plot.

Once your students have a good understanding of how to identify an author’s purpose they can transfer this knowledge to their writing.

Picture Books for Teaching Author's Purpose

You can use any book to teach author's purpose. I have picked a selection of books you probably have in your classroom, as well as a few new ones for you to explore.

The Wolves in the Walls by Neil Gaiman

The Wolves in the Walls by Neil Gaiman

When Lucy tells her family there are wolves in the walls of the house they don't believe her. Her belief comes true when the wolves come out and Lucy's adventure is just beginning.
There Is a Tribe of Kids by Lane Smith

There Is a Tribe of Kids by Lane Smith

A story of a lonely child who struggles to find friends among different groups of animal, starting with ‘a tribe of kids’. The llustrations show his joy in finding new friends and the sadness he feels as they leave. He finally finds acceptance with a different tribe of kids, children. Reinforces resilience, belonging and relationship skills.

Author's Purpose Questions

Ask your students to answer the following statements so they become familiar with thinking about the author’s purpose as they are reading.
The author’s purpose was _____
The author wants me _____
The author wants me to learn _____
The author’s purpose was _____ because the text said _____

What Next?

Finally, here are a couple of videos that introduce the concept of author's purpose.

Further Reading

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase anything through them, I will get a small referral fee and you will be supporting me and my blog at no extra cost to you, so thank you! You can find more information here.

Did you enjoy this post? Why not share it!

30 Picture Books for Teaching Author's Purpose

Latest from the blog

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.