Dream Big, Little Leader by Naguib Mahfouz: A street urchin plans a coup.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Samuel Beckett: Two baby chicks awaiting a third discuss a variety of issues during an active shooter drill.

Sheep in a Jeep by Abdulrazak Gurnah: A sheep on safari in Zanzibar muses over the irony of exile.

The Very Hungry Turkey by Orhan Pamuk: A melancholic turkey gains weight and is prosecuted for insulting Turkishness.

Please, Mr. Panda by Pearl Buck: An overly sensitive panda accuses a writer of cultural appropriation.

A Book of Sleep by Jean-Paul Sartre: Nauseated by his own existence, a depressed toddler takes a long nap.

Baby Shark by Ernest Hemingway: A newborn mako shark tries to befriend a crusty fisherman. There’s some joy, but mostly blood. (Editors’ Note: May not be suitable for all babies.)

Hug Machine by George Bernard Shaw: A professor gives lessons to a poor flower girl. She tells her friends he’s “an affectionate person.”

Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site by Albert Camus: Sick of his soul-crushing job, a bulldozer considers suicide.

Vegetables in Underwear by J. M. Coetzee: An adolescent aubergine moves to Australia, where he’s surprised by the prudishness of the locals.

Feminist Baby by Rudyard Kipling: A baby lectures her Black nanny on the Equal Rights Amendment.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by José Saramago: The entire population of an unnamed city inexplicably goes blind except for an unnamed bear.

Goodnight Moon by William Faulkner: A boy born into poverty leaves Moon, Mississippi, to seek his fortune.

Moo, Moo, La La La by Kazuo Ishiguro: A forgetful cow finds in her pocket a ticket to a concert by a reclusive opera singer. She Ubers over to Symphony Hall and discovers that she’s the singer.

Baby Loves Quarks by James Joyce: Baby Issy struggles to embrace her physicist father. (Editors’ Note: This one was published in an expanded edition. Also, we’re told JJ never won the Nobel.)