They make a funny pair

Mole and Rat, Frog and Toad, Pooh and Piglet -- buddies have always been a staple of children’s literature, but trust celebrated collaborators Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith (“The True Story of the Three Little Pigs,” “The Stinky Cheese Man”) to give friendship a sly twist.

In the pair’s new picture book, “Cowboy & Octopus,” a natty cowpoke and a bug-eyed blue denizen of the deep are best pals -- through rainy weather, knock-knock jokes, fix-it mishaps and baked bean suppers.

It’s the latest off-the-wall creation from author Scieszka and illustrator Smith, who count Caldecott Honors among the awards they’ve earned for their multimillion-selling collaborations.

Scieszka will read the book during a whirlwind tour this weekend, beginning Saturday morning at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena, followed by an afternoon at Irvine’s Whale of a Tale and finally two Sunday readings, one at Mrs. Nelson’s Toy & Book Shop in La Verne and the other at Russo’s Books in Bakersfield.

“I show them the rough drafts, the first handwritten idea, and then I hold up the finished book and read,” Scieszka said by phone, after a reading for second-graders in Wellesley, Mass. “Having been a teacher, I think it’s just in my blood to explain that this didn’t spring from nowhere.”

Brooklyn-based Scieszka, a grade school and middle school teacher for 10 years and founder of Guys Read, a nonprofit literary program for boys, was especially gratified that his audience had gotten one of the book’s many written and visual jokes: When Cowboy and Octopus meet, they “shake hands . . . and shake hands, and shake hands” eight times.

“There was this great delayed laugh,” Scieszka said. “One kid got it first and went, ‘He has eight tentacles!’ and then everybody else went, ‘Ohhh. . . . Ha, ha, ha!’ ”

In the book, only Smith’s vintage-object collage settings change from page to page. Octopus appears to be a comic-book cutout, and Cowboy may have been a paper doll in a former life.

Smith (who also designed the characters for Tim Burton’s film version of Roald Dahl’s “James and the Giant Peach”) created the book’s retro, handmade look -- weathered wooden toys, old-time wrapping paper, photographs -- on a computer, giving context to the characters with “a little back story that still got across the humor that Jon wanted to convey,” he said from his studio, a renovated one-room schoolhouse in Connecticut.

Scieszka and Smith’s signature off-beat humor and penchant for doing the unexpected began in 1988 with their first collaboration, “The True Story of the Three Little Pigs” (a wolf’s-eye view). The duo has since produced “Math Curse,” “Science Verse” and “Time Warp Trio,” a book series turned into a TV show airing on Discovery Kids.

Smith’s wife, Molly Leach, designs the books, reflecting their spirit of comic anarchy with upside-down, mixed-style text and misplaced endpapers and tables of contents. Some critics have pegged the books as too sophisticated for children.

“It annoys me sometimes when reviewers say this is really for adults,” Scieszka said. “It’s an insult to kids. ‘Cowboy & Octopus’ is a case in point. Kids get it right away. It’s the adults who say, ‘Who is this cowboy? How can the octopus go to his house?’ No kid ever asked that question.”

Upcoming projects for the pair include Scieszka’s “Truck Town,” with an all-truck cast, which he envisions as a TV show for preschoolers, and Smith’s children’s books “Big Plans,” written by Bob Shea, and his own “Madam President,” whose title character is a little girl.

“It doesn’t have a message that girls can be president too,” Smith said. “It’s just about how cool it is to be president.” He laughed. “It’ll hit shelves around election time, so we’ll see what happens with that.”

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Jon Scieszka

Where: Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena

When: 10:30 a.m. Saturday

Contact: (626) 449-5320

Also

Where: Whale of a Tale, 4199 Campus Drive, Suite A, Irvine

When: 2 p.m. Saturday

Contact: (949) 854-8288

Additional: (909) 599-4558 for La Verne reading, (661) 665-4686 for Bakersfield