A teacher asks her student why he did not do his homework, and he offers her enough excuses to fill a book, varying from the possibly plausible (“My sister’s rabbit chewed up all my pencils and workbooks”) to the highly unlikely (“I gave my pencils to Robin Hood”) to the head-scratchingly inexplicable (“My brother had his little problem again”). The story crosses into metafiction when it is revealed that all those excuses do indeed fill a book—and the teacher has already read it. As a cautionary tale with hardly any story, this droll little book can be enjoyed for the cheek of the protagonist, the broad inventiveness of the excuses, and the scale of the whimsical illustrations (the giant lizards invading the neighborhood are a sight to behold). Chaud’s illustrations have a retro look reminiscent of Edward Gorey, though quite a bit sillier. Readers may very well be inspired to try some of these excuses themselves, but the caveat could not be clearer: there’s no fooling the teacher.