1262 ______________________________________________________________ DOI: https://doi.org/10.33258/birci.v4i1.1751 Local Wisdom in the Picture Storybook for Elementary School Students in Sukoharjo Regency Veronika Unun Pratiwi 1 , Sarwiji Suwandi 2 1 Veteran Bangun Nusantara University, Sukoharjo, Indonesia 2 Postgraduate of Sebelas Maret University, Surakarta, Indonesia pratiwiunun@yahoo.co.id, sarwijiswan@staff.uns.ac.id I. Introduction Indonesian language is one of the subjects to be taught at the elementary school level. Some people think that it would be difficult to teach Indonesian language. This is because many teachers only teach Indonesian language traditionally and without other supporting materials, such as media, reading materials, and other literature. The presence of reading material other than textbooks is one of the efforts that teachers can find a way of making Indonesian language learning more compelling. Additional reading material can be taken from picture story books. According to Mitchell (2003:87), “Picture storybooks are books in which the picture and text are tightly intertwined. Neither the pictures nor the words are selfsufficient; they need each other to tell the story”. This indicates that a picture story book is a typical book of images and words that do not stand alone, but depend on each other to become a unified story. Elementary school children tend to enjoy pictures or colorful books. A picture story is a book that contains messages written in a light language style through illustrations mostly in form of pictures and writings and is fitted with pictures which become a single unit (Rothlein and Meinbach) (1991: 90). Themes are most frequently linked to individual / personal experiences in pictorial stories. Through his feelings and actions, the reader can easily describe himself by portraying the main characters. Fadhilah & Rahmawati (2020) explored the contents of local wisdom in student reading book published by KEMDIKBUD. The study showed that there were at least five contents of local knowledge in themed children's books, including culture, standards, ethics, beliefs and customs. Ratminingsih et al. (2020) found that Indonesian students have poor reading skills as a result of bad reading practices. They studied the effect of the Abstract In teaching Indonesian language, the unification between language and culture is a really interesting source of study. The objectives of this study is to explore the identity of Gatotkaca character values of local wisdom found in the elementary school students’ reading book in several elementary schools in Sukoharjo Regency. This study was designed with a qualitative descriptive research model with content analysis technique. The data and data sources were taken from an elementary school student's reading book Gatotkaca Satria from Pringgodani. The results revealed that the local wisdom indicators primarily found in the reading book of Gatotkaca Satria Pringgodani including values of patriotism and other values such as discipline, hard work, creativity, sovereignty, democracy, respect for achievement, companionship, peace-loving, love of reading, and care to environment, social security, and responsibility. Gatotkaca principally showed the attitudes that can motivate students to develop patriotic sense. Keywords elementary school students; picture story reading books; Gatotkaca; local wisdom