Parents report that this book either soothes anxious children (by eliminating the fear of endings) or drives them into a giggling frenzy. There is no middle ground. Why it's unusual: For 14 pages, this is a normal story about a hungry wombat in a library. On page 15, the wombat literally eats the typography. The letter 'P' disappears from every word in the remaining pages.
Suddenly, "Please pass the popcorn" becomes "lease ass the ocorn." The child must infer meaning from the absence. It is a brilliant, frustrating, hilarious lesson in phonetics and loss.
Tonkato recently announced a new title for 2026: The Sofa That Dreamed It Was a Glacier . Early reviews suggest it is read best when lying upside down on the carpet. If you want quiet, predictable, sparkly unicorns—look away. If you want your child to ask questions that have no answers, to giggle at the absurdity of language, and to grow up understanding that the world is stranger than any fairy tale, then seek out the Tonkato unusual childrens books top picks.