An umbrella is one of the first machines a child gets to run. It has a catch that snaps, a canopy that jumps open all at once, and a job it does immediately and visibly: the rain hits the top instead of you. It is also, for a few blocks at least, a private room. Picture-book makers have been taking advantage of that for seventy years — the umbrella turns up as a boat, a parachute, a nest, a hiding place, a gift a child is desperate to use, and the one object on the page big enough to hold everybody who asks.
Bookroo's collection of umbrella books runs from a birthday present waiting on a rainless week to a mouse who lives inside an umbrella in wartime London. Our editors chose eleven favorites that show what the object can do in a story: shelter, share, fly, escape, and get handed to somebody else. Start with the shortlist, then browse the picture-book shelf for rainy-morning read-alouds or the chapter-book shelf for readers ready to follow an umbrella somewhere further.
Carlos sets his umbrella down to climb a fig tree. Behind him, the entire cloud forest gets in.
Momo gets red boots and a blue umbrella for her third birthday, then has to wait for rain.
A big umbrella lives by the front door. It seems to stretch to fit whoever turns up under it.
The east wind blows a nanny with a parrot-headed umbrella onto Cherry Tree Lane, and she stays until it changes.
An elephant finds a red thingamabob. He tries flying it, sailing it, and hiding under it before the sky helps him out.
In a town where it always rains gray, a girl and her dog open an old umbrella and the color comes back.
Noot paints umbrellas the way her family always has, until her own patterns start creeping in.
Wherever you are, whatever happens, there is an umbrella over you that you cannot see.
An umbrella turns up on the doorstep with a note reading 'For you.' It gets bigger every time someone else needs it.
Adele runs a bright café until it rains, and then she shuts the door. Small gifts start arriving.
Pip Hanway grows up inside a mouse-sized home in a London umbrella shop, until the Blitz takes it.
Wordless rainy-day walks, hedgehogs in new raingear, sharing under one canopy, and errands that go sideways — for ages 3–8.
Siblings explore a rainy day, discovering hidden wonders.
A storm turns a rainy day into an adventure of friendship and rescue.
Milo's errand spirals into chaos with pirates, dinosaurs, and aliens.
Can Zebra's umbrella shelter everyone from the rain?
Monkeys sail from zoo to ocean on a yellow umbrella.
Flying umbrellas, a city where the rain never stops, and mysteries that start with something left on a hook — for independent readers ages 6–12.
A girl discovers a magical circus and a secret about her past.
A girl with a magic umbrella must rescue missing cats from a mysterious orchestra.
A boy uncovers the secret behind his perpetually rainy town to save his family's business.
