Zip Zap Wickety Wack - by Matthew Diffee (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Farm animals share their sounds, but humorous drama ensues when the goat and the sheep both lay claim to "baa.""--

Book Synopsis

New Yorker cartoonist Matthew Diffee makes his children's book debut with this laugh-out-loud twist on the classic animal sound book.

One of the Wall Street Journal's Best Books of the Year!
A New York Times Best Children's Book of the Year

The cow says "moo." The horse says "neigh." Everyone can agree on these.

But when the sheep says "baa," the goat cuts in. The goat also says "baa." Now what? No one wants to share their sound!

The sheep has an idea--he'll just say something no one's ever said before: "zip zap wickety wack bing bang walla balla flip flap yackety yack." But an otherworldly visitor shows up to lay claim to this sound, too--and the alien doesn't want to share his identity either.

When the alien proposes a radical new way forward, the sheep and the goat find a compromise--and it may sound familiar to adult readers . . .

New Yorker cartoonist Matthew Diffee's hilarious wit will be an immediate hit with young readers in his first picture book. Sure to inspire boisterous read-alouds and threaded with a sneaky message about sharing, Zip Zap Wickety Wack will inspire new nonsense and new values in homes, classrooms, and farmyards around the world.

A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection

Review Quotes

Delightfully deadpan entertainment.
--The New York Times

Mr. Diffee's artwork--all elegant, retro lines and jaunty patches of pastel--and wisecracking dialogue give these creamy pages a wonderful sense of buoyancy. . . . [A] humorous and humane read-aloud for children ages 4-8.
--The Wall Street Journal

Diffee, a New Yorker cartoonist, sets a deceptively bucolic scene for this preposterous showdown that makes for a raucous read-aloud.
--The Washington Post

Wax and pleasingly shaded colored pencil art on tawny pages features deftly expressive animals. . . . The characters' nonchalant rapport is well conveyed, with text rendered in a clean serif font of varying scale for added visual oomph.Clever humor and a fresh take on a seemingly familiar scene make this a widely appealing, expertly paced, and wonderfully silly read-aloud. Unexpected and delightfully absurd.
--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

An amusing kind of logic brings humor to the book's peaceful conclusion.
--Publishers Weekly

Diffee offers a book that will delight children and caregivers alike. . . .Working well as both a read-aloud and for one-to-one experiences, this purchase is for collections needing wry humor and a funny treat for all to enjoy.
--School Library Journal

The moral is delivered in a way that will make young readers think about the merits of sharing, rather than feel like they're getting a lecture. Zip Zap Wickety Wack is sure to quickly become a go-to title for any adults faced with kids struggling to share.
--Booklist

Lovely colored-pencil illustrations add warmth to Zip Zap Wickety Wack's wonderfully witty case for finding compromise. Never has a primer about farm animal sounds gone off the rails in such a delightfully engaging way.
--BookPage

About the Author

Matthew Diffee has been contributing cartoons to The New Yorker since 1999. His work has also appeared in Time, The Huffington Post, The Believer, and Texas Monthly. He is the editor of three volumes of The Rejection Collection: Cartoons You Never Saw and Never Will See in The New Yorker, and has also worked as a freelance illustrator. Diffee is a recipient of the Silver Reuben Award for gag cartooning, and was recently named Chairman of the Los Angeles Chapter of the National Cartoonists Society. He grew up in Texas, and now lives in Los Angeles.