If you’re looking for a serious animal picture book you’ve come to the wrong place! These six children’s books range from the amusing to the utterly ridiculous, with illustrations to match.
Animalia by Graeme Base (Irwin, Publishing, 1987)
From “An Armoured Armadillo Avoiding an Angry Alligator” to “Zany Zebras Zigzagging in Zinc Zeppelins” this book can provide hours of fun searching the detailed illustrations for everything that starts with the same letter. Very imaginative.
G is for Goat by Patricia Polacco (Babushka Inc 2003)
The rhyming description of a girl’s goats ends with the exciting birth of triplets! (“Z… amaZing! Three babies came… Zig, Zag and Zoe will be their names.”) Fans of Polacco will enjoy her signature illustrations.
Dogabet by Dianna Bondar (Walrus Books, 2007)
This tongue-twister of a book focuses on one breed of dog for each letter of the alphabet. Alliteration abounds (e.g. “Exhuberant Elkhounds eagerly eat eighty exotic Easter eggs.”) As you can imagine the illustrations get pretty silly. There’s a hidden letter, cat, bone and more on each page.
All the Awake Animals Are Almost Asleep by Crescent Dragonwagon, illustrated by David McPhail (Little, Brown, and Company, 2012)
In rhyming text a mother puts her son to bed, telling him about all the animals who are also going to sleep. From “Antelope is already asleep, all the way to his antlers” to “Zebra just zzzzzzzzzs.” Peaceful illustrations.
Z is for Moose by Kelly Bingham, illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky (Greenwillow Books, 2012)
This book begins with A is for Apple and B is for Ball but soon Moose butts in and Zebra has all he can handle to keep Moose from taking over the whole alphabet. A very silly book that many children will love.
Owls Are Good at Keeping Secrets: An Unusual Alphabet by Sara O’Leary, illustrated by Jacob Grant (Tundra Books, 2018)
This book features nonsensical descriptions of each animal, for example “Foxes always think you should take one more picture” and “Yaks giggle at their own jokes.” It’s a short book with nice illustrations that will definitely amuse children.