I Am Papa Snap and These Are My Favorite No Such Stories

If you want your kids to develop a good sense of the absurd, go buy them this book of very short, and very bizarre, stories. The first story goes, in its entirety, "Bunny Bunson Brittle goes fishing. He has no permit. Who cares? There are no fish." The prose isn't quite done justice without the illustrations, but you get the idea. I've had to replace this book a bunch of times over the years since I first read it in about 1973 or so, because people keep stealing it from me. And I don't have kids. Really a must have.

So, this isn't really a collection of stories. Each story is very short - one or two pages - and not much happens. For example, there's one about a man who always runs to catch the train, but always misses it. The train runs five minutes faster than his clock at home. But that's all right, at least he never has to go to work.

And yet, it works. These are "stories" that wouldn't work in most situations, but they work here. Go figure.