We get it. You’re practicing social distancing (or you should be). The kids are home from school. The libraries are closed. You’re looking for some books the kids can read (or that you can read to them)… preferably with repeat reading value. We’ve got you covered.

In this series, we’ll round up and quickly recommend some books that either (a) come cheap online or your favorite local bookstore and are well worth the price or (b) have ebook versions you can quickly and easily download.

The world of Cottons imagines a world in which rabbits and foxes use magic, technology, and art as weapons of war. And if you’re not already sold on that premise, I don’t know what to tell you.

Written by Jim Pascoe and illustrated by Heidi Arnhold, the first two graphic novels in the Cottons series are out now from First Second Books. The second book just came out in February, but the concluding book in the trilogy – The Curse of the Vales – has already been announced but doesn’t yet have a release date.

Cottons is pure escapism and luxurious eye candy. The story goes well beyond talking animal tropes and establishes a unique world in which you’ll legitimately enjoy spending time. And Arnhold’s art is beyond spectacular; you’ll get to the end of each book and sorely wish there were more.

The saga begins in The Secret of the Wind, where we’re introduced to the young rabbit Bridgebelle who lives in the Vale of Industry. Bridgebelle and the rest of her kind have developed an entire civilization by refining carrots into cha. What cha is, precisely, is never fully explained – just that it’s enough to power their entire culture and has allowed them to become a “civilized species.” But cha also has psychedelic effects if ingested, which is why the foxes want it.

On top of that, Bridgebelle is one of a select few artists who have the ability to make thokcha – inordinately powerful amulets that have secret magical powers. It’s through these thokcha that some  have learned to weaponize art, which sets certain sects of rabbits at odds with the rest of their civilization who rely on technology.

Bridgebelle, though, harbors more than a few secrets… including the ability to make some of the most powerful thokcha ever conceived. Which makes her a target of the foxes, who are seeking the Black Sun thokcha for their own nefarious purposes.

The White Carrot continues the story and finds Bridgebelle at the center of the ages-old war between the rabbits and foxes. There’s more magic. More danger. More mysteries. The second book dives deeper into the fantasy world Pascoe and Arnhold have created, fleshing out the history and folklore of the two cultures and exploring the vast world of Lavender the creatures inhabit. It’s a phenomenal follow-up to the high bar set by the first book.

Taken together, Cottons tells a wholly unique story about the value of art in the world and how nothing is really what it might seem on the surface.