A little girl named Alice loves to imagine herself inside her favorite stories. One rainy day, Alice is bored, and a character in one of her favorite books invites her into the warm and sunny settings. When she wants to visit a new land, all she needs to do is turn the page. Near the end, she decides to return to the place she loves best. This book uses both illustrations and text to break the fourth wall and celebrate the magic of reading at the same time.

Here is another story that honors the importance of books and the many people involved in making them. This picture book uses soft illustrations and poetic language to describe different elements of the book-making process, from the writer coming up with the story to the printer creating the page layout. Finally, the book celebrates the reader. Because without readers, there would be no books!

Is there anything that makes a child laugh faster than telling them not to? This book references itself while creating increasingly zany and hilarious stories, while also reminding the reader of the one big rule of the book: Do. Not. Laugh. It’s a guaranteed knee slapper for young and adult readers alike!

The book says it is about a bear. But what happens when the bear doesn’t show up? A persistent duck is certainly ready to take the bear’s place. He thinks there are too many stories about bears anyway. But there is a rumor that the bear will show up on page nine. Or maybe later. The whole story is turned upside down for some self-referential laughs when the main character of the story is nowhere to be found.

Snappsy is an alligator leading a perfectly ordinary, maybe even boring, life. He did not ask to be in the book. Especially not when the unseen narrator starts slandering him and trying to make him sound more exciting and dangerous while he is just trying to shop at the grocery store. This book uses metafiction for humor, but also provides a good example of bias and unreliable narration.