A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO SCHOOL...

In the grand tradition of John Burningham’s John Patrick Norman McHennessy, the Boy Who Was Always Late (1987), a tardy lad spins exciting if unlikely excuses to a skeptical teacher.

Considering that giant ants ate his breakfast, and then, among other distractions, he was assaulted or kidnapped on the way by ninjas, mole people, elephants and “a sea of scary majorettes,” had to help sort out a milling mass of sheep and ducks, almost forgot his backpack and accidently rode his uncle’s time machine back to the age of dinosaurs, it’s not so surprising that he’s a bit late. In manic cartoon illustrations, Chaud propels the disheveled but determined student through a series of hilariously surreal situations—fetching him up at last in school, looking shocked that his teacher (who hasn’t caught sight of the dinosaur leaning in at the window) doesn’t believe him. Wouldn’t you? She may have cause, though, as he had already spun a similar skein of yarns in the preceding I Didn’t Do My Homework Because… (2014).

A well-traveled premise, but like all of its ilk, a fertile source of inspiration for similarly dilatory students.