Abstract: Picturebooks combine verbal narrative with visual design and can convey cultural values to young readers through the interaction of words, images, and material form. This article examines how Iranian culture is woven into the narrative and visual forms of five Iranian picturebooks from a cross-cultural perspective. The primary materials are the Persian originals of works included in the twelve-volume Chinese collection Bosi tonghua huiben [Persian Picturebooks] (Sichuan Fine Arts Publishing House, 2022). The Chinese translations are consulted selectively to examine how culturally specific meanings may be clarified across linguistic contexts.Drawing on Fei Xiaotong’s concept of cultural consciousness and scholarship on word–image relations, qualitative multimodal close reading connects narrative and visual details with cultural contexts. The analysis considers family affection, national symbolism, mythic and ethical traditions, and Iranian aesthetics, asking how cultural resources contribute to characterization, plot development, and artistic expression. National colors become part of an imaginative journey, mythic figures guide characters’ actions, and ethical concerns emerge through choices and consequences. Color, composition, and page design further extend the cultural associations of the verbal narrative. These strategies integrate cultural meanings into children’s experiences and imaginative worlds without relying primarily on explicit cultural explanation or moral instruction. Cultural consciousness thus provides a perspective on how inherited symbols acquire new functions within stories for children, linking cultural continuity and reinterpretation to the artistic choices through which stories take shape. The article connects this process of reinterpretation with forms of emotional and imaginative experience that may offer readers from other backgrounds points of connection, while acknowledging that cultural recognition may require contextual knowledge.