September 9 – Wonderful Weirdos Day

Happy Wonderful Weirdos Day!

Celebrating the weird and wonderfully wacky characters today.

Weird Pet Poems compiled by Dilys Evans and illustrated by Jacqueline Rogers (1997)

Dilys Evans writes a poem about an eight year old boy who gets to choose any pet he wants for his birthday. Now he looks in the pages of the book for ideas. He reads poems about a bulldog, doze, porcupine, yak, pterodactyl, bat, monkey, turtle, and mudgimu. But we don’t know which pet he chooses, do you? Maybe the illustration on the back cover is a clue.

Weird Insects written by Michael Worek with photographs from the Nature Picture Library (2013)

Learn interesting facts about fifty-eight different insects. Each page is a close-up photograph of an actual living insect, like the one on the cover – the Macleay’s Spectre. This insect originated in Australia. Only the males can fly. The females, like the one shown, have sharp spike-like thorns all over her body for protection. She flicks her eggs to the ground after she lays them. The eggs take up to four months to hatch.

Weird Parents written and illustrated by Audrey Wood (1995)

The boy’s parents are just plain weird. His weird mother always blew a kiss to his bus, packed him weird surprises in his lunchbox, and combed her hair in a weird way when they went out. His weird father always shook everyone’s hand when he picked the boy up from school, wore a weird hat, and acted like a chicken in public. The boy dreamed of having normal parents or wished that everyone else had weird parents too, but neither of those things happened. And somehow it didn’t matter… because after all, they were his parents.

Sheila Says We’re Weird written by Ruth Ann Smalley and illustrated by Jennifer Emery (2011)

Sheila lives next door to a weird family. They dry their clothes on a line instead of dryer. They grown flowers and vegetables in their yard. They cool themselves with ceiling fans. They ride their bikes to the library, use cloth napkins, and mulch their fall leaves. Yup, Sheila thinks they’re weird… but Sheila loves to eat their homemade vegetable soup, make popcorn on the wood stove, and play in their yard.