Quirky and unusual

Crafting With Cat Hair

Cute Handicrafts to Make With Your Cat

Kaori Tsutaya, translated from the Japanese by Amy Hirschman

Quirk, $14.95, paper

"Crafting With Cat Hair" shows you how to take all of the hair your cat sheds and turn it into finger puppets, coin purses and more. "A lot of soft felt handicrafts are made out of sheep's wool," explains Kaori Tsutaya. "So why not make super-soft felt handicrafts out of cat hair in much the same way?" Who could have imagined that cat hair could be recycled? There's no other word for this book except: purrfect.

The Brick Bible

A New Spin on the Old Testament

Brendan Powell Smith

Skyhorse, $19.95, paper

It had to happen. Lego blocks are everywhere, so why not illustrate books from the Bible with them? Here you'll find God creating Adam out of brown bricks; Pharaoh's army chasing the Israelites down a blue wall of rising water; Goliath getting hit in the noggin by a gray, single-stud piece representing one of the stones in David's sling … you get the idea. It's an entertaining book, but Brendan Powell Smith's motive is far more serious. He explains, in a brief preface, how he wanted to retell biblical stories in an interesting way that would engage readers. Don't visit your local toy store to order the "Genesis play set," though: There's no such thing. All of the pieces used, we're told on the author's website, come from Lego sets dating to the 1960s.

The Extraordinary Catalog of Peculiar Inventions

Julia Suits

Perigee, $15.95, paper

Fraternal groups and lodges were important social organizations in late-19th century America, and pulling pranks on new members was a big part of the experience. Enter the Demoulin Brothers, who invented a fantastic assortment of "prank machines" — like a set of steps that collapses into a slide or a three-wheeled mechanical goat — for the initiation rites of the Modern Woodmen of America, the Shriners, the Elks, the Sons of Malta and more. Later pranks included electrified carpets and teeter-totters (ouch!). The author, a New Yorker cartoonist, gives a tutorial on fraternalism before showcasing these wacky devices. Readers will certainly be amused by other eras' forms of entertainment — and probably relieved that they're not experiencing it.

Goodnight, iPad

A Parody for the Next Generation

Ann Droyd

Blue Rider, $14.95

Remember the sweet, lulling rhythm of Margaret Wise Brown's 1947 tale of a little bunny going to bed? It was just the thing to settle your toddler after a busy day. But in this pseudonym-concealed author's parody, there are far too many wired-up distractions keeping youngsters awake: "In the bright buzzing room/There was an iPad/And a kid playing Doom/And a screensaver of…." And what about the "little old lady whispering 'hush' "? Well, she's been replaced by "a fed-up old woman/who was trying to sleep" — she takes drastic action to restore some peace and quiet to this beeping, buzzing house.