Answered by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani
Question: Is it permissible to buy and/or sell children’s books with illustrations? These would be early reading picture books.
Answer: Walaikum assalam,
The fatwa of leading Hanafi scholars from Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere, is that pictures in children’s books take the same ruling as dolls for children: they are permitted to buy and sell, because they too serve a similar (if not even more obvious) educational interest. Many (or even most) Hanafi scholars from the Indian Subcontinent disagree.
And Allah alone gives success.
Faraz Rabbani