Fashion plates are pooh-poohing these poofy pants. Causing a big stink, bloomers — more disparagingly known as “diaper shorts” — are controversially rising as the hot season’s hottest bottoms. But the ...

In Don’t Go There! (Andersen Press), by British writer Jeanne Willis and Icelandic illustrator Hrefna Bragadottir, a young girl is visited by an alien. She keeps him in her room, “a silly thing to do, ...