Aaron Zenz Books in Order

Aaron Zenz is a children’s author and illustrator who lives in West Michigan with his wife and six children. He has worked on more than forty-five books for young readers, sometimes writing and drawing the whole book himself, and sometimes creating the artwork for another writer’s story.

His path to picture books wasn’t a straight line. Before and alongside his book work, Zenz has been an illustrator, graphic designer, multimedia designer, toy designer, fine artist, graphic recorder, and college instructor. Those jobs all asked him to solve visual problems and tell ideas clearly, skills that fit naturally with making a story work one page at a time.

He’s especially known for colorful, rounded artwork made with colored pencil, though he also works digitally. Zenz has said that his home collection includes thousands of children’s books, so he has clearly spent plenty of time looking closely at how a good read-aloud is put together.

His breakout book, The Hiccupotamus, shows the basic ingredients of his work. A hippopotamus has an enormous case of hiccups, and a growing group of animal friends tries increasingly silly cures. The rhymes are built for speaking aloud, and the joke keeps moving as each attempted solution creates more trouble.

That playful animal chaos returns in The Chimpansneeze. When a chimp’s sneeze sends a kinkajou flying, one small sniff becomes a chain reaction through the animal world. Zenz likes sound effects, invented words, and characters whose problems are just big enough to feel exciting without becoming frightening.

He also brings a little learning into the fun. Chuckling Ducklings and Baby Animal Friends introduces the special names for young animals through bouncy rhyme and a crowded cast of babies. Other animal-focused books explore the unusual words used for animal parents, turning vocabulary into something families can discover together.

Not every Zenz book is about pure commotion. Monsters Go Night-Night takes familiar bedtime steps and gives them a friendly monster twist, inviting children to guess what each creature might do next. In Little Iffy Learns to Fly, a young griffin is scared of going up, while patient friends encourage him to try.

The silliness is deliberate.

His books often make room for a useful feeling beneath the joke: it’s okay to be nervous, curious, noisy, or a little different. The stories stay simple enough for preschoolers and early readers, but they give adults plenty of chances to join in with a rhyme, a sound effect, or a question about the picture.

Zenz also visits schools and libraries, sharing presentations that encourage children to read, write, draw, and make things. It suits his wider career. He doesn’t treat creativity as a mysterious talent reserved for a few people, but as something kids can practice with a pencil, an idea, and a willingness to play.

Across his picture books, the mood is warm, goofy, and welcoming. Whether he’s following a hiccupping hippo, a nervous griffin, or a roomful of bedtime monsters, Zenz makes space for laughter first, then lets a small bit of heart sneak in.