How are representatives of different nations portrayed in English picturebooks whose specific aim is to present a variety of foreign countries for the amusement of young readers? Taking as its main example Spaniards and how they feature in picturebooks and ABCs for children during the long 19th century, this paper observes the context of contemporary history as well as the conventions of discourse such as intertextuality, and asks how national stereotypes are deployed specifically for the target audience of young readers. The composite nature of picturebooks is taken into account in an analysis which addresses the iconography of the visual representation of national character, its verbal construction, and the interplay of the textual and the pictorial.