Aliens love underpants!

Author                               : Claire Freedman

Illustrations by                     : Ben Cort

Age range recommended    :  3+

Theme                              : Aliens, silly humour

Opening lines –  

Aliens love underpants, 

Of every shape and size.

But there are no underpants in space, 

So here’s a big surprise…

When aliens fly down to Earth,

They don’t come to meet YOU…

They simply want your underpants –

I’ll bet you never knew.

Introduction and Synopsis –

If you thought that aliens come to Earth to understand life on this planet better and to make friends, you could not be more wrong. They simply want to steal your underpants, because they love them. But since there are no underpants available in space, they have to steal it from you! Their spaceships have radars that bleep and blink when they spot underpants drying on a clothesline. They dance and chant in delight when they see underpants in different colours and types. They play games, wear underpants on their feet and heads and other silly places and have fun with the elastic. When mum comes to fetch the clothes, the aliens take off in a hurry – and just to be sure that no alien is left behind in all the running around, you are advised to check your underpants before you wear a fresh and clean one – who knows who’s lurking inside one? 

Why did my caterpillar and I like this book?

ME -

There is no other word for it. It is absolutely silly. You might think twice before you buy/read it, maybe you might not even consider it – I mean, who buys a book on underpants? But don’t forget, it’s for your pre-schoolers – and they love this stuff. The book is full of pictures of underpants of all types from the first page to the last – frilly, long, woolly, stripey – and you will catch yourself grinning throughout! The rhyming text is madcap; check this:

They land in your back garden,
Though they haven't been invited.
"Ooooh, UNDERPANTS!" they chant,
And dance around, delighted. 

LoL! 

The illustrations are bright and bold and every page promises a few giggles from your little one. The games they play – wearing pants on their feet and heads, upside down pant races, see how many aliens can squeeze inside each leg – the utter nonsense actually comes across as being brilliant! Haha!

MY TINY CATERPILLAR -

She laughed a lot. She found it silly as well. She tried to understand each game as I read them out. She went running to her dad to show him each page and how silly the aliens were to love underpants that wouldn’t even show outside!! But she loved the illustrations of the aliens the best. This book is of huge appeal to kids who are enamoured by the stories of aliens. My girl picked up aliens at school (she loves anything relating to space these days - otherwise she had categorised all strange looking creatures under ‘monsters’). We finally realised that the idea had sunk in, when after a couple of days later A called out after we tucked her in – ‘Amma, do you think the aliens would come to take my pants as well? Hahaha!!

Online link -

We found this video of a reading of the book here. Not very entertaining, but that’s the best we could find. The story is also enacted on theatre and is a huge hit. There are more books in the series (Dinosaur loves underpants, Aliens love Panta Claus, Aliens in underpants save the world etc) though this is the only book we have read till now.

The cocoon rates it -

4/5

Its 'pants-astic'! 

It has all the ingredients of a good book. It entertains your kid throughout. This one is a winner. The only reason it does not score a 5  is because it might not appeal to a lot of parents because of the subject matter! :-)