<p>Much ink has been spilt on the thematic choices of picturebooks and on the ways in which pictorial and verbal codes synthesize meaning. More recent approaches to picturebooks, however, have turned their attention to the text’s material nature, asking the question “what is a book?” and “how does it differ from other forms of entertainment children find in their hands?” In this article, we explore metafictional, self-reflexive picturebooks that underscore their material nature, requiring a haptic engagement with the reader. We divide materiality into two main types: materiality <i>of</i> the book and materiality <i>in</i> the book. In the former category, we analyze materiality in metafictional texts that draw attention to their physical qualities, such as books with holes or books with embedded physical texts. In the latter, we examine metafictional picturebooks whose materiality is emblematic in their narrative components, such as self-affirming books, which dictate to the reader how they should be read, or representational toy books, which suggest different ways readers can use a physical book other than reading it. We argue that to the young reader who interacts with objects in various modalities, picturebooks with foregrounded materiality present themselves as codices worthy of appreciation in their own form. Such picturebooks reinstate the status of books as objects of entertainment, pleasure, and intellectual growth. Furthermore, attention to astute materiality evokes cultural sentiments about the fate of the physical books in an increasingly digitized world.</p>