Bedtime Stories: The Book With No Pictures

Post by Mark T. Locker.

The-Book-With-No-PicturesThe Book With No Pictures by B.J. Novak

Word of warning to parents/readers of books to children: DON’T OPEN IT. IT’S A TRAP You will be bound to saying some very silly things out loud if you read it.

True to its title, this book has no pictures but that won’t stop kids from clamoring to have it read to them over and over. The premise of this book is that the words can be as fun as the pictures, if handled correctly. See, whoever reads the book out loud HAS to say what the words tell him to say. Even if the book makes the reader say, “I am a monkey using my monkey mouth to read!” the reader is bound by the laws of book-reading to say this out loud.

The book is basically a dialog between the reader and the mean book making him say all kinds of silly things out loud. Like:

BLARRRRRRFF!!
-Wait! I didn’t want to say that! Don’t make me read any more!

I’ve read this twice in as many days to my son and he’s read it once to me so far. It’s a good concept. It reminds me of Mo Willems’s We Are In a Book! in which the characters have a moment of clarity in which they discover they are in a book and use the opportunity to make the reader say “Banana”. To kids, this is hands-down the funnies part of the whole book. Good concept to build on. I think if you are an authority figure it’s even more fun. You get to see the teacher say, “My head is made of blueberry pizza!” Definitely worth a read or six.

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