For the past several years, I have been inspired to create a March Madness-style Picture Book Showdown for my school (and classroom). It has now become something I look forward to so much — I enjoy everything from picking the books to be featured, reading them with students, and finalizing the winner of the Picture Book Showdown!

Here are the details of how I run this fun event! I have done the picture book showdown both in my classroom and for the entire school. Both are super fun ways to engage students and guarantee that they are reading a wide variety of super high-quality books!

Be sure to scroll to the bottom of the post to download the brackets, which show exactly which books I have chosen and how I have paired them!

Selecting the Books for a Picture Book Showdown

I take this process for picking books for the picture book showdown very seriously! As I’m creating my Picture Book Battle lists, I want a mix of newer books and a few well-loved favorites. It takes me hours to select and pair the books because I also want to be logical in how I pair them. For example, I won’t start by pairing a silly, goofy book with a more serious narrative-style or informational book because I want children to see the beauty of a variety of book types. I also want them to appreciate the similarities and differences between books that have similarities.

I also prioritize representing diverse characters, authors, and themes in the books. I intentionally choose books that I KNOW resonate with students, and that will have them really grappling with WHY they are choosing one book over another.

This year (2026), I ended up with TWO lists because there were so many pairings I love. I will be using Book List 2026 #1 at my school, but List #2 is also fantastic.

If you’d like to create your own list, I have included a Canva template for you in the FREE download! Simply save the cover images from the Amazon listing (for personal use only) and insert them into the Canva doc.

I have compiled all of my book lists in my Amazon storefront below, but you can also see them all in the free Brackets I’ve provided! Scroll to the bottom of this post to download the brackets.

Implementing a March Madness-style Picture Book Showdown

Implementing it is so easy, and there are so many options for making it fun!

Voting for the top book of the year: If you are doing it schoolwide, I create a Google form for each week for teachers to submit their class votes (one year, I just had them email me, which was also easy, as we are a smaller school). I do about a week per round. Classwide votes are much simpler and have usually been done on a sticky note (no need to overcomplicate things!). I like students to write WHY they chose a specific book over another. I will often compile the best quotes and hang them up around our brackets for other students to see.

Access to Books: This is the trickiest part! I have a vast collection of books, so I lend them to teachers to read to their students. I HIGHLY recommend asking your PTO or librarian to purchase the books for the school library. Then, I pair them up with a rubber band and put them in book bins in my classroom for people to come and grab. The library is also a wonderful resource, of course. As a last resort, I recommend finding read-alouds of each book on YouTube. It’s a good way to change things up a bit, too!

Printing the Bracket: I like to print mine as an Engineering Print from Staples. I have actually designed it to fit 26 x 30 perfectly, and it’s only $6!

The details of the picture book showdown with brackets:

📖 Round 1/Week 1:

With only a week per round and 8 sets of books (for a total of 16 books) that means not EVERY student will read EVERY book, and that’s okay! I DO like all of my students to at least have a chance to SEE the books, so I always set them all out to begin and let them walk around, look at the covers, pick them up and skim through them, etc. Then the battle begins!

If you are doing your picture book battle schoolwide, have a few classes read a couple of pairs, and other classes read others and vote. They don’t need to vote on EVERY pair yet.

You can do this same style for a class battle as well — assign half the class to read 3 sets, the other half to read 3 sets, and then read 2 sets as read-alouds during the week. Students can always go back AFTER the showdown and read them again if they miss a pair!

After the first week, things move a little bit more quickly, particularly if all your students have read the books!

📖 Round 2/Week 2: In week 2, you will have the field narrowed to 4 pairs of 8 books total. At this point, you can split your bracket in half and half the school or half the class, read 2 pairs and vice versa. Then, vote!

📖 Round 3/Week 3: By this point, I make sure everyone — whether it’s a class competition or schoolwide — has read each of the remaining 4 books. This is really important for getting an authentic vote.

📖 Round 4: I like to do this final picture book showdown on the Friday of Round 3! By this point, everyone should have read the top two books and can vote, whether via a pencil-and-paper vote, a show of hands, a screaming crowd at an assembly, or a Google Form. In the past few years, I have also found a video of the top two books (or at least parts of them) being read by the authors, which I love to share with students. I also make sure to give them time to really look at the pictures, examine different parts of the final two books, etc., so they are making an informed choice!

If you’d like my FREE brackets, enter your email below, and I’ll send them your way.

Note: I originally started making these brackets after being inspired by Courtney from Ramona Recommends. She also chooses books each year and provides additional resources, such as comprehension questions and pacing guides! I highly recommend checking her out.

Do you LOVE picture books in your classroom? Me too!

I have even more picture book resources HERE.