Fuse 8 n’ Kate: The Adventures of Sparrowboy by Brian Pinkney

Suggested alternate title for this text: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.

Our very first Brian Pinkney! Are you surprised? So am I, quite frankly. Even thought we’ve done multiple Jerry Pinkney books at this point (Mirandy and Brother Wind, John Henry, Little Red Riding Hood, Goin’ Someplace Special, etc.) I thought for sure we might have at least done Sukey and the Mermaid or something, but nope! Not as such. Today, then, we tackle our very first Brian P. text, and we’re not starting small. This book? It’s a doozy.

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Show Notes:

HUGE apologies. Jerry Pinkney did create anything for the book Flossie and the Fox. That book was illustrated by Rachel Isadora (and we’ve never done it before so… that’s on the old To Do list).

I also say at one point (I was just on fire with misinformation this week) that Brian’s daughter also does picture books. Nope. That’s his niece, Charnelle Pinkney Barlow. The book A Walk in the Woods was the collaborative work (partly posthumously) between Jerry, Brian, and Charnelle. And a beautiful title it was too.

Credit to Kate for remembering the old Commodore 64 video game “Paperboy”. If you’re curious, this is a pretty accurate rendition of it:

Lord. I am old.

Surely… SURELY the Instagram account newspapersillustrated would be aware of this book already, but just in case, we wanted to give them a heads up.

State Trooper Mark Steed is a magnificent name for a superhero. No notes. 10 outta 10.

We’re sorry. So… to be clear. There is a kid in this neighborhood who lets loose, on a regular basis, a freakin’ GERMAN SHEPHERD, which bites kids all the time and… we’re all okay with that? What the HECK was going on in middle America in 1997?

So, we’ve established a Bruno is a terrible human being. But Henry here sends the boy down a steep hill and he is never heard from again. Uh… huh.

Okay. I think all the children in this neighborhood are up-and-coming serial killers. Did you hear these two children say they’re going to take the sparrow to their “laboratory”? This book takes place in Serial Killer, U.S.A.!

Kate says that the longer you stare in to this cat’s eyes, the more they seem to move. Also? What precisely is going on with this nose here?

From a storytelling perspective, I’d just like to give Mr. Pinkney loads of credit. By catching the falling bird on the very comic pages that will explain what is going on, this book is able to succinctly explain to the reader the situation in a minimal number of pages.

Kate Recommends: Conform by Ariel Sullivan

Betsy Recommends: Marlon and Jake Read Dead People the podcast is BACK, baby!

Filed under: Fuse 8 n' Kate