35 Best Books About Shapes

If your teaching children about shapes, then this is the list for you! It includes 35 of the Best Books About Shapes books  for kids that are perfect for exploring a variety of 2D shapes in geometry lessons with preschool, kindergarten and elementary aged children.

From circles to squares, triangles to ovals, this list of books about shapes includes simple but engaging concept books that are perfect for toddlers and preschoolers alongside more detailed stories that will help kindergarten through to those in the early grades of elementary/primary school learn more about shapes and their properties.

After story time, you can continue learning about shapes with this collection of 15 Hands-On Activities for Learning About 2D and 3D Shapes and our list of 20 Shapes Rhymes, Songs & Fingerplays. And elementary or primary age children will enjoy the activities included in our Count, Tally and Graph Shapes Christmas Activity Pages.

RELATED: Counting down to the 100th day of school with your class? Be sure to check out our 100th Day of School Books list.

35 Best Books About Shapes for Kids

Like all of the books in our Best Books for Kids collection, each book in this Shapes Books list is linked to Amazon (these are affiliate links) where you can find reviews and age recommendations for any titles you are not familiar with.

City Shapes by Diana Murray Children are invited to find shapes in all manner of places in the wonderfully created illustrations of streetscapes in this clever concept book. Available: Amazon

Shapes That Roll by Karen Nagel A circle, triangle, and square lead children through a busy, colorful world of 2D and 3D shapes pointing out their different attributes – stacking, rolling and more. Available: Amazon

Circle, Square, Moose! by Kelly Bingham When Moose eats his way into a book about shapes it is up to Zebra to restore order and save the day! Available: Amazon

Which One Doesn’t Belong? Playing With Shapes by Christopher Danielson Written by a celebrated math educator, this innovative inquiry encourages critical thinking and sparks memorable mathematical conversations. It is a very different style of book about shapes! Children and their parents answer the same question about each set of four shapes, “Which one doesn’t belong?” There’s no one right answer -the important thing is to have a reason why as when children justify their thinking, they’re talking math! Available: Amazon

Mouse Shapes by Ellen Stoll Walsh What can you make with one oval, two circles, and eight triangles? Just ask these three clever mice… who even find a funny way to trick a sneaky cat! Available: Amazon

Shape Shift by Joyce Hesselberth A wonderful journey to look at how a range of shapes can combine to make fun new forms. Available: Amazon

Sweet Shapes by Juana Medina Rosas In this delicious forest, the bears are made of rectangular brownies, the goldfinches are triangles of lemon tart, and the butterflies are oval jelly beans. Available: Amazon

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Circus Shapes by Stuart J. Murphy A fun circus story, brightly illustrated, that is perfect for spotting shapes with younger mathematicians. Available: Amazon

This Is A Book of Shapes by Kenneth Kraegel This is a circle. A square. A triangle. This is an emu pushing a pancake wagon down a hill! A simple first concept book about everyone’s favorite defies expectations with a series of funny and imaginative twists sure to make toddlers and preschoolers laugh out loud. Available: Amazon

Tangled: A Story About Shapes by Anne Miranda When the circle goes climbing on the park jungle gym the last thing she expects is to get tangled! As her fellow shapes rush to try to help, they also become trapped Who will save them? A fun shape story for kindergarten and early elementary grades, introducing sixteen different 2D and 3D shapes. Available: Amazon

Big Box of Shapes by Wiley Blevins Triangles, circles, squares – to most of us, these are just simple shapes. But in the imaginations of Lulu and Max, these shapes found in a box take on exciting new meanings. Great for preschool and kindergarten. Available: Amazon

Walter’s Wonderful Web by Tim Hopgood Walter the spider just can’t seem to spin a perfect web. Whoosh goes the wind as it blows each web away! But Walter does have a gift for spinning spectacular shapes, and one day he spins the most remarkable shape of all! It’s better than perfect – it’s a truly wonderful web. Available: Amazon

A Trapezoid Is Not a Dinosaur by Suzanne Morris Triangle is hosting auditions for all the best shapes to be in his play. Circle, Square, and Star each get a part. But Trapezoid just doesn’t “fit in.” Is he even a shape? The others think he sounds like a type of dinosaur. Will Trapezoid be able to embrace his own distinct shape in order to become part of the performance.. Available: Amazon

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The Shape of Things by Dayle Ann Dodds A square is just a square? No, you can find it everywhere! Fun rhymes and bright illustrations filled with hidden shapes to find. Available: Amazon

When A Line Bends, A Shape Begins by Rhonda Greene A clever introduction to assorted shapes including ovals, squares and octagons through bouncy rhyme and colourful artwork. Available: Amazon

Shape by Shape by Suse MacDonald A fun and playful exploration of colorful shapes—circle, triangle, crescent, semicircle, oval, and diamond – one by one they combine to reveal a great, big surprise! Available: Amazon

A Star in my Orange by Dana Meachen Rau Have you ever seen a star in an orange? Or the swirl in a wave? Or little shapes on a fish’s scales? Look closely at the shapes in nature, there are shapes all around you. Available: Amazon

Shapes, Shapes, Shapes by Tana Hoban Whenever you are, inside or outside, there are shapes to discover. Look around. How many circles, squares, stars, triangles, hearts, and rectangles can you see? Available: Amazon

Shapes of Australia by Bronwyn Bancroft From boulders to bee hives, mountains to coral, Bronwyn Bancroft introduces readers to a new way of thinking about how shapes are represented in nature through stunning illustrations representing the Australian landscape. Available: Amazon

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More Books About Shapes: Triangles

Triangle by Mac Barnett Meet Triangle. He is going to play a sneaky trick on his friend, Square. Or so he thinks! With this first tale in a new trilogy, Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen will have readers wondering just who they can trust in a richly imagined world of shapes. A visually stunning series, full of wry humor. Available: Amazon

The Greedy Triangle by Marilyn Burns Bored and dissatisfied, a triangle visits a local shapeshifter to add another angle to his shape. Poof! He becomes a quadrilateral. But then he gets greedy and keeps adding angles until he’s completely transformed! Available: Amazon

Love, Triangle by Marcie Colleen Ever since they were a dot and a speck, Circle and Square have been best friends. Then someone new comes along – a cool Triangle, and three starts to feel like a crowd. With their friendship bent out of shape, can they put it back together again? Available: Amazon

Triangles by David A. Adler Triangles are everywhere-especially when two children and their robot friend assemble a brand-new bot from different types and sizes of triangles. Available: Amazon

Books About Squares

Square Cat by Elizabeth Schoonmaker Eula is the only square cat in town. Everything that normal cats do is hard for her- she can’t get her square paw into mouse holes, she can’t wear her favorite circle skirt, and all of her friends are round! Eula is sad until her two best friends show her just how well a square cat can fit into this round world. Available: Amazon

Perfect Square by Michael Hall A perfect square is transformed in a fun adventure that will transport you far beyond four equal sides, Available: Amazon

Square by Mac Barnett Every day, Square brings a block out of his cave and pushes it up a steep hill. When Circle floats by, she declares Square a genius, a sculptor! But now Circle wants a sculpture of her own, a circle! Will the genius ever be able to create one? Available: Amazon

Squares, Rectangles and Other Quadrilaterals by David A. Adler Comical cats and dogs guide kids through the essential characteristics of squares, rectangles, parallelograms, rhomboids, and other quadrilaterals. Angles and degrees are explained with words accompanied by useful visuals. Available: Amazon

Books About Circles

So Many Circles, So Many Squares by Tana Hoban Circles in squares, squares in circles, squares in squares… all be seen in this book of objects, from dishwashers to colorful teapots, to brightly patterned fabrics. Wonderful photos make spotting circles and squares engaging for young ones. Available: Amazon

Circle by Mac Barnett The clever shapes trilogy is complete with this final installment – Circle’s story. When Triangle breaks the one rule set by Circle in their game of hide and seek with Square, she must rescue her friend. Available: Amazon

Circle Rolls by Barbara Kanninen When Circle rolls into one of Triangle’s points and pops, chaos ensues until Octagon’s “Stop!” brings everyone to their senses. An fun rhyming text introduces us to a collection of shapes and cleverly weaves their physical characteristics into traits that solve a would-be catastrophe. Available: Amazon

Round is a Tortilla: A Book of Shapes by Roseanne Thong Discover shapes all around you with this simple rhyming story – rectangles are ice-cream carts and stone metates, while triangles are slices of watermelon and quesadillas. Many of the objects are Latino in origin, but all are universal in appeal. Available: Amazon

Circles by David A. Adler Starting out with an introduction to the realm of non-circles (spheres, cylinders, etc.) Circles then launches into everything circular, complete with terminology (centres, points, diameters, radii and chords) to explain the properties of circles. Available: Amazon

Round is a Mooncake: A Book of Shapes by Roseanne Thong A simple story shared in rhyme about a young girl’s journey through her neighborhood and her discovery of shapes of all kinds, some Asian in origin and others more universal. Available: Amazon

Round by Joyce Sidman The world is bursting, swelling, budding, and ripening with round things awaiting discovery- eggs about to hatch, sunflowers stretching toward the sun, and planets slowly spinning together for billions of years. A poetic ode to all that is round. Available: Amazon

Continue learning about shapes with these fun activities;