Books like Diary of a Wombat
By Jackie French
For the kid who's mastered the art of getting exactly what they want from grown-ups, this wombat is basically a mentor. Deadpan, droll, and quietly hilarious.
A little girl gives a pig a pancake, and one request leads to another — syrup, then a bubble bath — spinning into a chain of demands that circles right back to where it started.
Two kids stuck inside on a rainy day get an uninvited visitor — a tall cat in a striped hat who promises fun and games while their mother is away.
A picture book imagines what would happen if animals wore clothes — a snake loses its clothes, a billy goat eats them, and a walrus stays soggy in a wet suit that never dries.
Give a hungry little mouse a cookie and he'll ask for milk, then a mirror, then scissors — one small request tumbling into the next until the whole day spins out of control.
A relentlessly cheerful stranger follows a grumpy skeptic everywhere, asking him to try green eggs and ham in a box, on a train, in the rain — anywhere, everywhere.
Five little monkeys jump on the bed after saying goodnight to Mama — and one by one, they fall off, bump their heads, and get a call to the doctor.
A boy who refuses to behave gets exactly what his mother threatened: an enormous pet blue whale he must haul everywhere, including school, with predictably disastrous results.
A little red chicken just can't sit still through bedtime stories, jumping into Hansel and Gretel and Little Red Riding Hood to save the characters herself, much to her patient papa's dismay.
A collection of children's own definitions for everyday things — a hole is to dig, a face is so you can make faces — told in the funny, backwards logic only kids have.
A frog who can't wait to play in the snow keeps bounding outside half-dressed, and his mother calls him back again and again to put on everything he forgot.
A devoted family dog is left in charge of the baby for an afternoon, and what unfolds between them is captured entirely through wordless, expressive pictures.
