24 Engaging Books About Sloths for Kids

As a librarian, I can tell you that few animals get kids laughing and talking quite like sloths. These cozy, slow moving favorites make the perfect theme for storytime, lessons, and giggles. This collection of books about sloths for kids includes sweet sloth books for toddlers, a lovable baby sloth or two, and more than one children’s book about sloths that celebrates sloth sleeping and taking life at a relaxed pace. Pair any sloth book with sloth activities for preschool, a simple sloth unit study for kids, or other sloth themed educational activities to create a sloth themed educational activity kids will love. When it comes to books about sloths, learning really is better when you slow down and savor what each moment has to offer. Have fun perusing the list of books about sloths for kids!

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Books About Sloths for Toddlers and Preschool

Toddlers and preschoolers love interactive, colorful books. Many of these books have clever rhyming text as well. Find the perfect read-along book for your toddler or preschooler here.

Sally the Silly Sloth by Nicky Gaymer-Jones

Meet Sally, a silly sloth who loves playful sounds and giggly wordplay! This cheerful read-aloud introduces young children to alliteration with bouncy language, bright illustrations, and plenty of chances to laugh while learning early reading skills.

Hurry, Hurry, Little Sloth by Little Hippo Books

Little Sloth takes things slowly, very slowly! This padded board book gently celebrates patience and doing things at your own pace, making it a comforting and engaging read for little hands and curious minds.

Can You Put Me to Bed?: The Tale of the Not-So-Sleepy Sloth by Erin Guendelsberger

Sloth just isn’t ready for bedtime! This sweet, interactive goodnight story invites children to help guide Sloth through calming routines, making bedtime fun, cozy, and reassuring for toddlers and preschoolers.

Steady Sloth (First-time Feelings) by Michael Buxton

Steady Sloth helps young readers explore big feelings in a gentle way. With simple text and soothing illustrations, this board book encourages emotional awareness and reassurance during moments of change or uncertainty.

Go, Sloth, Go! by Toni Yuly

Slow and steady takes center stage in this playful story about a determined sloth on the move. With bold illustrations and minimal text, it’s perfect for preschoolers learning about perseverance, confidence, and going at their own speed.

Baby Sloth: Finger Puppet Book by Chronicle Books

Cuddle up with Baby Sloth in this adorable finger puppet book! Designed for babies and toddlers, it combines gentle rhymes, soft textures, and interactive play to support bonding, sensory exploration, and early literacy.

Sloths by Marie Brandle

Designed for very young learners, this simple introduction to sloths uses short sentences, clear photos, and basic concepts to explain what sloths look like and how they behave. The gentle text supports early vocabulary development and nurtures a first interest in animals.

I’ll Love You Till the Sloths Start School by Kathryn Cristaldi

This sweet, rhythmic story uses imaginative comparisons (like sloths heading off to school) to reassure a child that a caregiver’s love is constant and unending. Warm illustrations and gentle humor make it a comforting read-aloud celebrating unconditional love.

Lower Elementary Nonfiction Books About Sloths

Ground Sloths: A First Look by Hannah Gramson

This introductory nonfiction book gives young readers a simple, engaging overview of prehistoric ground sloths, exploring what they looked like, how they lived, and why they disappeared. With easy text and supportive visuals, it gently introduces early science concepts such as fossils, habitats, and extinction, helping children build curiosity about ancient animals.

Sloth’s Poo of Peril by Elizabeth Clark

Told through humorous, rhythmic poetry, this playful picture book follows a sloth whose droppings spark an unexpectedly wild chain of events. Lighthearted illustrations and silly verse turn a gross-but-fun topic into an amusing adventure that delights young readers while introducing simple poetic structure.

Sloths by Kristen Rajczak Nelson

A friendly beginner’s guide to sloths, this book highlights the adorable features and surprising behaviors of these slow-moving animals. Readers learn about habitat, diet, lifecycle, and unique adaptations, all presented with eye-catching photos and accessible text designed to support early animal-lovers.

Sloths by Janie Scheffer

Perfect for emerging readers, this Level 2 title introduces basic facts about sloths through short sentences, controlled vocabulary, and vivid photographs. Kids discover how sloths move, what they eat, and where they live, making it an ideal stepping stone for independent nonfiction reading.

Sloths by Laura Stickney

Written with carefully controlled phonics patterns, this decodable nonfiction book uses simple facts about sloths to help advancing readers practice specific sound and word structures. The informational content is straightforward and engaging, giving early readers confidence as they build fluency.

Sloths by Leona Fowler

This early nonfiction title explores sloths as part of the wider rainforest ecosystem, introducing their physical traits, daily habits, predators, and survival strategies. With age-appropriate science content, it builds an understanding of how sloths fit into their environment and why protecting rainforests matters.

Baby Sloths by Rachael Barnes

Featuring irresistible photos of baby sloths, this book shows how young sloths grow, learn, and cling to their mothers in their early months. Simple text and charming images highlight their behaviors, needs, and adorable quirks, making it an appealing choice for beginning readers.

Lower Elementary Fiction Books About Sloths

Emilio Sloth’s Modern Manners by Renée Ahdieh

Emilio the sloth sets out to learn polite behavior for modern life, offering young readers a funny, relatable look at manners. Through Emilio’s slow but earnest attempts to be courteous, the story highlights kindness, patience, and social awareness in a cheerful, humorous way.

Sloths Guide to Keeping Calm

Presented with a soothing, sloth-themed tone, this book teaches young readers strategies for staying calm and managing emotions. Using a slow-and-steady sloth as a role model, it offers practical mindfulness tips, breathing practices, and simple coping techniques in a reassuring, child-friendly format.

Peter & Ernesto: A Tale of Two Sloths (Peter & Ernesto, Book 1) by Graham Annable

This graphic-novel-style adventure follows two sloth friends—homebody Peter and adventurous Ernesto, whose opposite personalities lead them on a journey that tests their bond. As Ernesto explores the world and Peter bravely steps outside his comfort zone, both discover that friendship can stretch across distance and difference.

Score One for the Sloths by Helen Lester

The famously sleepy sloth students at Sleepy Valley Sloth School are in danger of losing their beloved teacher unless they can prove they’re capable of action. When a crisis strikes, the sloths must surprise everyone (including themselves) by showing unexpected teamwork, energy, and courage in this humorous classroom tale.

“Slowly, Slowly,” Said the Sloth by Eric Carle

With Carle’s signature collage art, this gentle story follows a sloth who moves at his own peaceful pace despite the impatience of other rainforest animals. When questioned, the sloth calmly explains the value of slowing down, offering a simple but powerful message about mindfulness, contentment, and being true to oneself.

Upper Elementary Books About Sloths

Giant Ground Sloths by Elizabeth Neuenfeldt

This engaging nonfiction book introduces readers to the enormous ground sloths that roamed the Americas during the Ice Age, exploring their size, diet, behavior, and impressive adaptations. With clear text and dynamic visuals, it explains how these prehistoric giants survived in their environment, what scientists have learned from fossils, and why they eventually went extinct.

The Adventures of Dr. Sloth: Rebecca Cliffe and Her Quest to Protect Sloths by Suzi Eszterhas

This narrative nonfiction title follows real-life scientist Rebecca Cliffe on her mission to study and save sloths in the wild. Through vivid photographs and storytelling, readers see the challenges of field research, the threats sloths face, and the innovative conservation work being done to protect them. It blends adventure, science, and environmental awareness to inspire budding wildlife defenders.

How Do Sloths Poop? by Nancy Furstinger

Centered around one of the strangest facts in the animal world, this book explains the unusual and risky bathroom habits of sloths while exploring the science behind their slow-moving lives. Using humor and kid-friendly explanations, it reveals how sloths’ biology, predators, and rainforest habitat shape their behavior, turning a silly question into a fascinating look at animal adaptation.

My Summer Camp Has Mega Sloths by Rebecca Wood Barrett

In this humorous and imaginative adventure, a kid arriving at summer camp discovers that the forest is home to enormous, gentle mega sloths. Chaos and excitement quickly follow! As campers uncover mysteries, navigate unexpected dangers, and befriend the giant creatures, the story blends friendship, problem-solving, and eco-themes with plenty of laugh-out-loud moments.

Play Sloth Bingo

Help students learn sloth vocabulary terms by playing shipwreck bingo. This free virtual bingo template may be played using Google Slides. This activity can be part of a fire safety study unit. Make your own copy, then replace the free images and words with sloth images and vocabulary, then reuse the template as many times as you like.

It’s fully customizable when you make your own copy and includes a teacher page, too!

Get my free virtual bingo board!

More Resources for Readers

The best way to encourage a love of reading is to provide kids with many opportunities to engage with a wide variety of books that are of interest to them. At Book and Tech Tips I want to make it easy for you to find great books kids will love. Over the years I’ve also discovered some helpful tools for connecting kids and books.

Online digital libraries are one very handy way to do this. Epic! is one of my favorite online libraries. It’s full of over 25,000 books, learning videos, quizzes and more for kids 12 and under…and it’s free for educators. Click here to learn more and sign up.

Another great free digital library is ReadingIQ. It’s also free for educators and has a wide selection of titles.

If you download the free Libby app, you can access many digital audiobooks from your public library. Audiobooks are perfect for car trips!

Looking for a book that is out of print? Try searching Thriftbooks online. There are over 13 million titles available.

Looking for More Book Ideas?

If you enjoyed this list of books, you might like these other book lists as well:

Have a wonderful week, and may you have many slow and steady sloth adventures!

Lisa Mitchell is a former classroom teacher, now a school librarian, who likes to use her job as an excuse to stay up far too late reading books and noodling around with tech tools. To learn more about what this website has to offer, click on over to the About page.