I love picture books. I especially like ones that make me laugh out loud. It helps when all you want to do when you turn to the last page is go back to the first. Here are three you won’t get tired of reading over and over again, which is good, because you’ll have to.

I would like to open up Carson Ellis’ skull and take a look at what’s going on inside there, because it’s bound to be instructive, not to mention entertaining. Here we have a little community of bugs who find a seedling (“Du iz tak?”), watch it grow , use it for a hammock, a tree house, and a pirate ship (“Rup furt!”), when a mean old spider takes it over who is then soundly routed by a bird, whereupon the pirates reboard and the seedling turns into a beautiful flower (“Unk gladdenboot!”). And so forth. But here’s the thing: Their story is told completely in their own language. With no translation. And all the words sound funny as you sound them out. “Ta ta!”

There’s a lot not okay with fish, especially what they’re learning in those schools. Don’t trust them.

This book imagines the history of a real farmhouse bought by the author. It is falling down with a willow sapling growing up through a hole in the floor but there are enough remaining scraps and fragments of the lives of the large family that once lived there to imagine their story. The text is almost Amish in its simplicity and humor

the illustrations are Garth Williams-esque (if he illustrated in color), and the book is beautifully produced, with an embossed dust jacket hiding a cutout of the house with everyone in it on the inside. The front endpapers are the illustrations of the found articles in the old house and the end endpapers are photographs of the real ones. There are so many wonderful details throughout that you find new ones every time you page through it, and if you aren’t at least a little bit teary by the end I don’t know you and I don’t want to.

And don’t forget the many old favorites, some harder to find than the new books but all of them worth the search.

And here is a book I truly love for how gently and beautifully it illustrates the topic of death and the hereafter. It’s something we don’t talk about to anyone, much less our children, but it is the end we all face and we should. This book is a kindly way into that conversation, no matter what your faith is. It is inexcusably out of print but there are many used copies available in online bookstores.

Book Review Monday Chatter Carson Ellis Christmas Dan Santat Don't Trust Fish Du Iz Tak? Farmhouse Neil Sharpson picture books Sophie Blackall