I also discovered the Bill and Pete books by Tomie DePaola. Now, I grew up on Tomie DePaola, and LOVE him and his books. But somehow I had never read Bill and Pete until recently. Speaking of charmingly weird! I think you have to have a very particular sense of humor to enjoy these, but if you do, you really do. Bill and Pete Go Down the Nile is the middle book and, in my opinion, by far the best. But all three are remarkable for their matter of fact presentation of outlandish facts and the relationship between the text and the illustrations. (The picture of the little crocodiles going up the side of the pyramid gets me every time.)