(2) K-3 Illustrated by Benjamin Chaud. "Old MacDonald had a farm" until a spaceship arrives and beams up his animals: "With a ZERP ZAP here, / and a ZERP ZAP there." Now space alien Old MacMartian and his doglike pet have all those animals on their ship—with humorous results. Initially perplexed, the cow, pig, cat, and sheep proceed to wreak havoc in close quarters ("With a GLOOP GLOOP here / and a GLOOP GLOOP there / ...Old MacMartian needs a bath"). After failed attempts at corralling the creatures, the exhausted would-be extraterrestrial farmer tries for sleep—but these sheep aren't the counting type. Old MacMartian proceeds to expel this onboard barnyard back down to Earth, to both farmers' relief. The humorous pencil and digital illustrations center goggle-eyed characters—earthlings with two eyes, extraterrestrials with three—with funny facial expressions recalling Sandra Boynton's menagerie. Details on the spaceship, among all the cheerful chaos, will have listeners looking closely to track the destruction. "But they CLEANED UP here / and they CLEANED UP there," and by the end, the Martian protagonist concludes, "IT'S NICE TO BE ALONE" with a loyal doglike sidekick and a lesson learned about alien abduction.

Reviewer: Elissa Gershowitz | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2025

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Benjamin Chaud. The narrator of this picture book had a dear friend and reminisces about the ordinary things they used to do together--until the "dear friend" found a "different friend." Zolotow's gentle, introspective text, honest about the narrator's anger and sadness, is now accompanied by new but vintage-feeling illustrations from Chaud, which carefully adhere to the speaker's point of view, giving only limited information about the "different friend." In particular, illustrations of a dream sequence imaginatively depict a nighttime-subconscious version of the woods where the children played and of a "new friend" for the speaker. A hopeful but not too neat story of a situation likely to be relatable to many.

Reviewer: Shoshana Flax | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2022

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Benjamin Chaud. Once again (A Funny Thing Happened at the Museum... etc.), Cali and Chaud tease humor from the rift between amusingly unreliable young Henry's statements ("Our swimming instructor is kind of strange") and what the viewer sees (the school's swimming instructor is a sea monster). With its fine-lined, borderline-macabre art and small trim size, this book could almost be an Edward Gorey creation.

Reviewer: Nell Beram

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Benjamin Chaud. In Museum, a boy recounts to his mom a mishap-filled school trip. In Summer, he describes finding a treasure map in a bottle, which leads to adventure. In both small-trim books, the fine-lined art reveals what the texts don't: e.g., a dino replica illustrates "I was charged by a triceratops," and it was Mom who planted the treasure map. Review covers these titles: A Funny Thing Happened at the Museum... and The Truth About My Unbelievable Summer....

Reviewer: Nell Beram

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Benjamin Chaud. In Museum, a boy recounts to his mom a mishap-filled school trip. In Summer, he describes finding a treasure map in a bottle, which leads to adventure. In both small-trim books, the fine-lined art reveals what the texts don't: e.g., a dino replica illustrates "I was charged by a triceratops," and it was Mom who planted the treasure map. Review covers these titles: A Funny Thing Happened at the Museum... and The Truth About My Unbelievable Summer....

Reviewer: Nell Beram

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Benjamin Chaud. The author-illustrator team behind I Didn't Do My Homework Because... brings us another litany-of-excuses picture book, here a drawn-out explanation of why a child is late to school. There's humor in the nonsensical string of diversions, but there's not much transition from one to the next. Chaud's fine-lined cartoons contain lots of surreal, clever details (including a final twist behind the teacher's back).

Reviewer: Katrina Hedeen

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Benjamin Chaud. This time, Bădescu's guileless miniature pink elephant takes a directionless solo journey through a jungle, across a desert, and so on. The book's concerns--finding one's way, going it alone--might not speak to young readers, but they will nevertheless enjoy the illustrations rich in detail and spiked with humor. A recent college graduate might be this book's perfect reader.

Reviewer: Nell Beram

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Benjamin Chaud. In this small-trim manual, author Cali delivers an onslaught of over two dozen outlandish explanations for neglected homework. The one-note running humor is unrelenting, but homework-averse kids will applaud the zany excuses, each made cleverer in Chaud's hilarious, detailed cartoons: e.g., the narrator has turned into an elephant to illustrate "cough medicine that my doctor prescribed had a strange effect on me."

Reviewer: Katrina Hedeen

(4) K-3 Translated by Claudia Zoe Bedrick. Illustrated by Benjamin Chaud. The amiable pink elephant introduced in Pomelo Begins to Grow returns in a third cozily hand-size book, this time to demonstrate dozens of opposite pairings. Some of the pairings aren't, strictly speaking, examples of opposites ("polka-dotted"/"striped"; "having"/"being"), but the creators make a familiar concept smile-worthy through their inventive vignettes: "something" (a teapot) faces "whatever" (a teapot-Pomelo hybrid).

Reviewer: Nell Beram

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Benjamin Chaud. "When everything begins to seem black and white," pink elephant Pomelo reconsiders everyday objects ("the puzzling purple of eggplant") and emotions ("the hypnotizing red of love"). The art is relentlessly inventive, but children may find this lengthy, somewhat abstract Pomelo vehicle less relatable than its predecessor, Pomelo Begins to Grow.

Reviewer: Nell Beram

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Benjamin Chaud. In this French import, a miniature elephant notices he's getting bigger and begins to ponder a variety of questions about the nature of growth and growing up. The odd little elephant and his fellow garden inhabitants, as shown in the large, spacious illustrations, have great child appeal. Some of Pomelo's more abstract meditations may spark discussion (or go over readers' heads).

Reviewer: Martha Sibert