I hesitated when my daughter first chose this book from the bookcase, I just assumed the block illustrations would be too abstract for a three-year-old, and with no obvious story to capture her attention that she would soon be frustrated and turn away. I learnt a little about pre-schoolers that day — they love the abstract, they love to find patterns and familiar shapes, they love to count, and they love you to make up little stories about unseen characters traveling to unseen places. Follow the Line is a beautiful book with stylish illustrations that reveal Ljungkvist’s Swedish heritage. The perfect book for the junior explorer.

Fox is a modern fable that pulls no punches. It tells a tale of friendship and betrayal so openly and rawly that it takes your breath away — especially in the context of a picture book. The rich, burnt colours and scratchy textures feel dusty and sun-parched, evocative of the Australian landscape. Hand-drawn lettering, etched awkwardly with the illustrator’s left hand, brings an additional layer of naïvety to the text. The tale of Fox, Dog and Magpie is unexpected from a picture book, and certainly not a story for juniors, but any child who has spent hard time in the school playground will take some meaning from the telling. The perfect book for the easily misled.

This quirky tale about an avian pre-natal coffee group has a surprise ending that will make any veteran/survivor of such groups laugh. The illustrations are softly drawn, the characters expressive and lively. Several cut pages midway through create layers of illustrations that tell the story incrementally, comic style, building a nice sense of tension for that snappy ending. The perfect book for the ugly duckling.

The bright pink cover of this book ensures it never sits on the shelf for long. The bold colours continue within, complemented by a glossy paper stock, sparing use of wood-type slab serifs, and hand-painted characters. The part I like the best: the voices that Timmers has given each member of his animal cast. Vocabulary and a unique turn-of-phrase identify each, and it doesn’t take much imagination to add an accent when you read aloud… The perfect book for the royalist.

Fans of Rosen’s book We’re going on a Bear Hunt will love this. The story is sweet, simple and slapstick—and much less wordy (phew)—but still has the lilting lyrical style that is so much fun to read aloud. Waldron’s illustrations (created by digitally manipulating hand-drawn illustrations) are strong and have a contemporary feel—I have a particular fondness for the Hippo with its pink scarred and scratched hide. The perfect book for the underdog.

I like the cover of this book with its matte hardback and hand-drawn, spot-varnished titles. Opening the pages is no disappointment—the autumnal colours and falling leaves evoke a sense of the harvest, and the illustrations fill the uncoated pages with a matching sense of bounty. All of which mirrors the story nicely, although I don’t want to give away the punch line because there is quite a twist. Davey has a distinctive and original style that is very pleasing, and I can’t wait to see what he does next. The perfect book for a little fox, or owl.

Japanese pop artist Nara’s illustrations are arresting black lines and pastel shades that fill the page and speak of emotion and movement so beautifully that the text becomes secondary to them, in fact this book isn’t shy to present consecutive spreads with no words at all. The tale is a strange one, not unlike King Kong, but the telling is good and holds a sweet message. I love the little girl in this book—she cries, and smiles, and looks sideways from under knitted brows, charming her way into your heart. The perfect book for the hipster child within.

This is a simple tale of boy who, incredibly, believably, eats books. And it might be the power of suggestion or just the clever bite-mark in the corner of its last few pages, but if I was going to eat a book it would be this delicious-looking thing. Its matte pages, filled with rich mixed-media illustrations and collages, look very tasty. Like many good books the humour is contained in the details surrounding the text and tucked into the corners of the pictures, which makes it rewarding to read many times over. The perfect book for a bookish child.