You can’t argue with dream logic. It simply is the way it is, and it makes sense in its own way, whether your waking mind agrees or not. For young people, who wear their imaginations on their sleeves, dreamlike stories have a special power — and three recent picture books use words and pictures to create dreamy tales of friendship, growing up and hidden beauty.

“The Boy with Flowers in His Hair” by Jarvis. (Ages 3 through 7. Candlewick Press. $18.99.)

There is no explanation for David’s having a head full of flowers rather than hair, and none is needed. It’s simply who he is, and everybody likes him because he’s “sweet and gentle. Just like his petals.” David and his friend play, explore and make music together — until one day, out of the blue, his flowers vanish. When he takes off his hat, what he uncovers is “twiggy, spiky, and brittle.”

People steer clear, scared of being scratched, unsure what to do — until David’s friend decides to paint flowers for his hair, to help him feel like himself again. Time passes, friends again approach, and one day, David blooms — although his best friend has an extra supply of paper flowers “just in case he ever needs them again.”

The story — so simple and stark, illustrated with beautiful washes of color — says so much about kindness, friendship, acceptance and being there for friends suffering something difficult, without a single wasted word. It ends in a simple, dreamlike embrace between two best friends, one covered in blossoms, both smiling.

“The Song of the Nightingale” by Tanya Landman, illustrated by Laura Carlin. (Ages 6 through 9. Candlewick Studio. $17.99.)

This just-so story about how the nightingale got its song begins with stunning, childlike sketches of the world, bursting with glorious washes of color — except for the “dull and drab” animals rendered in plain, black outline. Something must be done, so “the painter rolled up her sleeves and opened her paint box.”

And so the line of creatures forms, and the painter fills in their outlines with glorious color, dots and spots and stripes and even a colorful bottom for the mandrill who sits on her paint box by accident. As the day wears on, the painter pulls out a larger brush for the big animals, sees the parrots mix their bright hues as they bicker, and pulls out her tiny pot of gold paint for a scarab beetle because it has waited so patiently.

The world of animals has found its dreamy colors … except for a little bird hiding in the shadows, too scared of the commotion to come out. The glorious paints are all gone, except for the last drop of gold paint. The painter drips it into the nightingale’s throat so that a “stream of golden notes” tumbles out, and one of the most drab creatures in the world becomes a source of hidden, musical beauty — just like that.

“The Queen in the Cave” by Julia Sarda. (Ages 5 through 9. Candlewick Studio. $19.99.)

It all starts one restless day when Franca feels strange — like “when you’re hungry but nothing seems appetizing.” With her younger sisters, Carmela and Tomasina, Franca sets off on an adventure, chasing a half-remembered dream about a “marvelous queen who lives in the darkest cave, deep in the forest, beyond the garden fence.”

The girls tumble into a topsy-turvy world filled with chatty spiders, regal ants, a rat funeral and cranky bats — all of it depicted in stunning, baroque illustrations that perfectly capture the familiar but eerie sensation of a dream. When the girls reach the cave of Franca’s dream, she makes a startling, liberating discovery — but the little girls find it too odd and scary, and long for the comfort of home, where everything is “solid and real.”

The evocative story concludes with Franca’s return — but leaves the door open for young readers to ponder what was real and what it all meant, the way a dream lingers upon waking.

Caroline Luzzatto teaches fourth grade at Nansemond-Suffolk Academy. Reach her at luzzatto.bookworms@gmail.com