Picture books for 6 to 8 year olds

Six to eight is when children move from being read to, to reading on their own. The best books for this age have big pictures and short pages, but stories with a real feeling in them: being nervous on a Monday, a sibling who thinks differently, a birthday that doesn't go to plan.

Every Gudiya Stories picture book for this age is 12 to 16 pages on thick, matte paper that survives a school bag. They're written by S.V. Bharathi, who has taught early-years classrooms for more than fifteen years and reads every draft aloud to children before it's printed.