Grownups Only! Best Adult Picture Books

This book is part of the Reach Around series that features other fun and not so kid friendly titles ranging from Put Tony’s Nuts in your Mouth and Come Swing with Us (just to name a few). Full of juvenile humour and double entendres, this one is best kept out of bounds from the toddlers until they’re 18+ as it is all about a woman’s bushy nether regions (pubes to the laywoman).

Artist Andy Warhol has gone rogue and traveled back in time. Try to find him in this artistic reconstruction of various art movements and periods such as Renaissance, French Revolution, contemporary, Street, etc.  You might even encounter other famous (and infamous) faces in the crowds such as Madonna,Yoko Ono and even Vladimir Putin in your quest to track down Warhol.

Jane Austen and the children’s classic Goodnight Moon collide in this book that is equal parts tribute and equal parts parody on the same. The rhyming book features the characters from the Austen classic all gathered at Netherfield Ball and a whole lot of mushing and blushing.

This book that also doubles as a journal features prompts, vibrant handwritten letters, images, writing exercises, charts, doodles, etc that will help ignite one’s creativity and help in reflection for those suffering from a writer’s block.

This wise and whimsical tale advises adults with bills and babysitters with unhappy lives to take it one day at a time, inspires them to take up new pursuits, dust off that passion project that they’ve kept on the back burner for so long and just appreciate life and live it to its fullest. The soothing, dreamy watercolours will instantly help in forgetting one’s daily woes, Monday blues and are a cute remedy to those who are constantly pessimistic or constantly questioning their life choices!

A worn-out mom floats down to a land occupied by wild moms who instantly crown her the Queen, inviting her to join in on their partying ways. But soon, mummy dearest decides she must leave and reunite with her beloved children- the very reason behind her splitting headaches and her sleepless nights- but whom she will ultimately always prioritize first over anyone and anything!

A grandma on a mission to knit an abundance of sweaters for her grandkids just in time for winter struggles to break free from her loudmouthed family and the noisy atmosphere for some peace and quiet. She absconds to the mountains but is annoyed to no end by an obnoxious mountain goat there and ravenous beasts too, so she leaves for the moon only to find herself on the radar of a curious horde of aliens in this modern fairytale.

A bedtime story for the parent who is driven to frustration each time they are unable to lull their restless toddler to sleep and send them off to Dreamland, this book is laden with profanity, absurdity and a whole lot of relatability. It also was followed up by a sequel aptly titled ‘Seriously, you’ve to eat’ that details the trials and tribulations of a parent with a child who is a picky or finicky water.

A morbidly funny look at loneliness and often short-lived nature of friendship, this starts off with a dinosaur lamenting the death of his pals as the title suggests, moves on to a pirate who lives a reclusive life as all his friends have passed on from scurvy before we are introduced to a variety of other characters whose friends have met a similar fate such as a tree whose friends have met their end at the hands of the furniture industry, a missing sock, a houseplant whose friends have died from neglect from an irresponsible plant owner, a clown, a cassette tape and would you believe it, even a zombie! These short and hilarious quips are guaranteed to leave you with split sides or even move you to tears. Who knows they might even leave you disturbed!

This parody of PD Eastman’s Are you my mother? is dedicated to all those down on their luck singletons who fail to score in the dating game. It takes place via the perspective of a self reliant and confident young woman who is on a quest to meet Mr. Right. Her journey takes her through a list of potential suitors ranging from a wealthy but selfish cad, an emotional robot who is also a bad boy and the average nice guy trope. She runs from coffee shop to movie theatre and even the self help section at the local bookstore all in a pursuit that might turn out to be fruitless but only time will tell. The daunting world of dating comes alive via a series of charming, witty, retro and Seussian illustrations.

Not your ordinary book of ABC, this is a more macabre take on the children’s alphabet with each letter illustrated and accompanied with a catchy verse… But the catch here is that the storyline features 26 kids all who meet untimely deaths that are gnarly, ominous or straight up bizarre. While not entirely scary, it is a rather playful yet gloomy take on mortality, but hey, at least the rhyme scheme is a bouncy one that is also quite the earworm!