A Funny Thing Happened After School . . .

by Davide Cali, Benjamin Chaud (Illustrator)

Overview

It's a race to do homework—in space! But first, there's a spaceship jam. Then there's the moon detour, the Mars alien exploration, and a stop on the gravity-defying International Space Station. And that's just the beginning! Henry and Ali want to get their homework done—they really do! But how are they supposed to study the solar system when they seem to be swept up in an endless series of interstellar surprises?

From Davide Cali and Benjamin Chaud, the author-illustrator team behind I Didn't Do My Homework Because . . ., comes an action-packed, entertaining tale about trying to get your homework done, whether you're in—or out—of this world!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781797200965
Publisher:	Chronicle Books LLC
Publication date:	07/11/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	44
File size:	69 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	6 - 9 Years

About the Author

Davide Cali has published more than 160 books, including A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to School . . . , The Truth About My Unbelievable Summer . . . , I Hate My Cats (A Love Story), Grown-ups Never Do That, When an Elephant Falls in Love, and I Didn't Do My Homework Because . . . , which has been translated into 21 languages. He lives in France and Italy.
Benjamin Chaud is the author and illustrator of New York Times Notable Book The Bear's Song; the sequels The Bear's Surprise and Little Bear's Big House; and Farewell Floppy; and he is the illustrator of I Didn't Do My Homework Because . . ., A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to School . . ., and The Truth About My Unbelievable Summer. . . , and Grown-ups Never Do That. His books have been translated into 24 languages. He lives in the French Alps.

Editorial Reviews

2023-04-24
Excuses accompany another excursion into the explanatory unknown.

Henry, hero of such books as A Funny Thing Happened at the Museum (2017), returns with a trip into deep space. Confronted by their teacher on the whereabouts of their homework, Henry and his friend Ali (short for “Alien”?) launch into an extended excuse about the barriers they confronted when they left school the day before. As in other collaborations from this team, the mundane text is at odds with the visual accompaniment. Henry will say something relatively benign (“We took a detour because Ali’s mom had to get something from work”), while the illustration tells a different story (everyone disembarks from a spaceship on what appears to be the surface of the moon). Often these pairings work well, though on occasion text and image are at odds (as when Henry tells us what he and Ali had for dinner, while the art eschews an ironic interpretation for a flagrant lie). In the end, confirmation of Henry and Ali’s tale is just outside the teacher’s door. This tale is much in the same vein as other books in the series; the author and illustrator see little reason to deviate from their established form. More’s the pity that the words and images do not align as perfectly as they might. Henry, Ali, and their teacher are light-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Same old, same old. (Picture book. 5-8)

Kirkus Reviews