When I was a child I used to like picture books with elaborate, busy, intricate illustrations that one could stare at for many hours: books whose words were quickly forgotten, but whose images stayed.
The Beastly Pirates by John Kelly (Bloomsbury, £6.99) is one of those sorts of books. The story is fairly slight, but it's the visuals, the beastly pirates in all their gruesome, detailed horribleness, that are its triumph. When my son got his hands on this he took charge, telling his own version of the tale. The words suddenly seemed irrelevant.
It is both the text and images that resonate in the marvellous A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To School by Benjamin Chaud and Davide Capaldi (Chronicle, £8.99) - a hilarious tale, made all the more wonderful by the surreal and exquisitely designed imagery. Essentially a book of preposterous excuses, it tells the tale of a boy confronted by numerous surreal obstacles on his way to school. Giant Kafkaesque ants take over his kitchen and eat his breakfast; a massive ape picks him up; evil ninjas who fly through the air at the bus stop seem to swarm across the page like flies; a "sea of scary majorettes" gets in the way. Getting stuck in this book could be one of the best excuses for not making it to school.
There is, of course, delight to be found in the most minimalist illustration. This year sees some entrancing yet simply designed books that capture moods and feelings. Among my favourites in the expressively minimal style this season is Pom Pom Gets The Grumps by Sophy Henn (Puffin, £10.99). Pom Pom is a panda bear who gets out of bed on the wrong side, with a small rain cloud hovering over his head. Henn seems to convey in the simplest blocks of colour just what it's like, whether you're young or old, to wake up in one of those moods.
There's also Hoot Owl, Master Of Disguise (Walker, £11.99), a darkly surprising and slightly subversive tale of an owl who in order to catch his various prey disguises himself. He wants to catch a rabbit, so he becomes a carrot. He is hungering for a "cuddly lamb", so he dresses up as a "fluffy mother sheep". Don't worry though. There are no animals harmed in this book - not unless you include, perhaps, the pig that must have gone into the Italian sausage on the pizza he steals off with.
This season sees the publication of some rather lovely new tales of friendship: sought, lost and ultimately found. Debi Gliori's gorgeous, giant-eyed woodland animals grace Side By Side by Rachel Bright (Orchard, £11.99), a moving tale about the search for a friend in the sometimes shadowy heart of Wintermouse Wood. There's also Daisy Hirst's The Girl With The Parrot On Her Head (Walker, £11.99), which begins as a story of friendship lost, as the girl's best friend leaves the neighbourhood. For a while she convinces herself she doesn't need friends because she has a parrot on her head and a very good system for storing her toys. Then she finds a very big box - and inside it is Chester. Hirst's beguilingly child-like illustrations give the story an affecting authenticity.
Among my favourite books this season, possibly all the more resonant because of last month's eclipse, is the first publication in English of Swedish author Ulf Stark's When Dad Showed Me The Universe (Gecko, £10.95). A boy's dad takes him out on an expedition to see this thing he calls the universe, and it's as much the getting to the universe-watching spot that is the thrill as the watching. First, however, they go to the shops to buy provisions - and the boy wonders if the universe is there. Later he stares at the ground, at a thistle, and thinks he sees it there. This is one of a number of stories by Stark, one of Sweden's most popular children's writers, currently published by Gecko. As the boy in the tale puts it, the universe (and this book) are both beautiful "and funny".
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