The picture book, as a child’s first book, plays a major role in a child’s early and preschool development. Through the picture book, the child encounters literature for the first time, learns, develops imagination, gets answers to questions, learns to understand, create stories and things about the world it does not yet know. That is why it is extremely important to choose a quality picture book that will help the child with this, but also to interest him in a quality story and illustrations. Parents and educators who are the child's first "teachers", helpers in understanding and learning about the world and things that the child is just getting to know, and the people who spend the most time with the child and take care of him, play a big role in this. This paper presents a historical overview of the development of the picture book in the world and in Croatia, the development of themes throughout history, the relationship between image and text in a picture book, types of picture books, picture book functions, ways to choose a quality picture book to read and the relationship between children's literature and media. The chapter on the importance of reading picture books in preschool age, encouraging speech and reading together with children and parents is especially emphasized, as an introduction to the practical part of the research of this paper. The aim of this paper is to acquaint parents with the importance of reading to children from an early age and by reading picture books together to connect parents and their children to spend quality free time, through play, laughter and joint activities.