Irene, here are some that my boys liked:

"It Was a Dark and Stormy Night," Janet & Allan Ahlberg (Puffin, 1994); very witty, story-within-a-story structure. Young Italian boy captured by brigands, spins tall tales to keep the bad guys happy. Pictures every page!

Also by Allan Ahlberg (can't lay my hands on it right now, sorry for the incomplete info) and longer, is "The Better Brown Stories," with an even more sophisticated structure. A storybook family discovers the writer who is telling their story, and asks for revisions, with unpredictable results. Lots of pictures.

We love the illustrator Beth Krommes. "The Lamp, the Ice, and the Boat Called Fish," by Jacqueline Martin (Houghton Mifflin, 2001, 48 pp), is a beautiful and interesting book. It's based on a historical incident; an Inuit family is on a Canadian Arctic Expedition ship in 1913 that gets stuck in the ice for several months. The story of their survival and rescue is well-researched and inspiring. Pictures (gorgeous ones!) on every page.

Another Krommes book, this one with Lise Lunge-Larsen, is "The Hidden Folk: Stories of Fairies, Dwarves, Selkies, and Other Secret Beings" (Houghton Mifflin, 2004, 72 pp). Well-told and beautifully illustrated traditional tales, with a picture on at least every two-page spread.

(Speaking of folklore, you might also try the d'Aulaire Norse and Greek mythology collections--lots of pictures there).

Another classic story you might look for is Kenneth Grahame's "The Reluctant Dragon." Sadly, this is most often seen abridged, but I believe the old edition with the Ernest Shepard illustrations is not abridged. Grahame's prose is challenging.

Do you like poetry? There are some lovely poetry picture books out there, with more fun in the language than you see sometimes in prose for this age. My kids liked, for instance, Charles Causley's "The Tail of the Trinosaur" (Jane Nissen, 2006, about 80 pp, and pictures on every one!), Dennis Webster's and Kim Webster Cunningham's "Absolutely Wild" (David Godine, 2009, about 40 pages, with the most fabulous woodcuts), and David Frampton's "Mr. Ferlinghetti's Poem" (Eerdmans, 2006, more wonderful woodcuts, for which I'm a big sucker!).

Anything there? You might also investigate the Hokusai biography I mentioned on the previous page; also my lads really like Tintin on days when they want stories with lots of pictures.

Hope that helps!

peace
minnie