The Book with No Pictures

This was the first book that made me realize how picture books could play with the traditional picture book format with resounding success.

My son loves listening to me read the silly words out loud. It’s no secret why this clever book was so successful.

This book is so silly, and it really doesn’t have any pictures. My daughter loves it when we use lots of different-sounding voices. It has a lot of odd, made-up words that she thinks are super crazy. The monkey parts are her favorite. If you want your kids to laugh, you should read them this book. 

Don’t worry, this is not another celebrity “anyone can write a children’s book” book.

Writer/actor/director BJ Novak, best known for The Office, subverts the idea of a children’s picture book by creating a large-print read-aloud volume with no illustrations that will still delight any small child, because it tricks the grown-up reader into saying things that are silly and ridiculous and very not-grown-up at all.

This book hilariously shows us—and our kids—how a book with no pictures can be far more fun than a picture book. Both my kids loved it, for different reasons—my son for how ridiculous it was to “make” adults read it, my daughter because she used it as a jumpstart for her own “no-picture” book. The result of reading it is that you will have a conversation with your kids, and likely a funny one. You may even talk about what makes a good book, or why books exist. No matter how old your kids are, try to leave this one… show more.

It’s all verbal with this one. The fonts are funny too, though. “Everything the words say, the person reading the books has to say.” Can you possibly say blork and bluurf out loud without laughing? What about ba-dooongy face or my head is made of blueberry pizza? Just try it. Fun, fun, fun!