A story about a whole crew of aliens who visit Earth, befriend a child

Question

It was a book I read when I was a kid, so I am assuming it was a book aimed at kids/young adults. A whole crew of aliens of different species meet an Earth kid. He befriends them. One of the aliens comes from a planet with dozens/hundreds of different sexes/genders.

At one point, the Earth kid is talking about a swamp:

Alien: "I live in/near a swamp on my home planet"

Kid: "Oh, do you come from a swamp planet?"

The alien points out that just because there is a swamp on his planet doesn't make it a swamp planet, there are dozens of biomes on his planet, just like Earth. Earth isn't just a swamp planet.

Answer 1

Aliens Ate My Homework by Bruce Coville.

The exchange you remember can be found here on Google books:

"Do you come from a swamp planet?" I asked, thinking of some old movies I has seen.

"Do you come from a swamp planet?" he replied.

I started to ask what he meant, but then I figured it out on my own. A planet is a big place, and it's pretty silly to think it will be the same from one pole to another. That should have been obvious to me, since in this little walk we were going from lawn to swamp to field, and possibly to forest.

This has already been the subject of story id questions twice:

• What is the name of this young-adult book series from the '90s featuring miniature aliens?

• Teen Sci-Fi book probably from 80's possibly early 90's - aliens help a teenager on Earth