Review of the Day: You’re a Bad Man, Mr. Gum!

You’re a Bad Man, Mr. Gum!
By Andy Stanton
Illustrated by Chad Dezern
Harper Collins Publishers
$9.99
ISBN: 978-0-06-115240-5
Ages 7-11
On shelves now

Children’s books about miserly, nasty, no good, rotten old men go one of two ways. Either the old man is redeemed at the end and Tiny Tim lives, etc. etc. or you get to the end of the book and the miserly, nasty, no good, rotten old man hasn’t changed a jot. He’s just been thwarted. A kind of Count Olaf ending, if you will. The nice thing about Andy Stanton’s Mr. Gum books is that they’re written with a two-dimensional villain in place with whom you never, at any point, sympathize. Stanton is a fan of goofiness and is willing to pile a whole bunch of weirdness on top of itself in the hopes that there will be enough funny material to keep the kids ah-reading. For the most part, You’re a Bad Man, Mr. Gum! works and even when it doesn’t it just seems to be so pleased with itself that you can’t help but feel some affection for it. This isn’t the strongest silly book for kids I’ve ever read, but it has its heart in the right place.

Mr. Gum is nasty, to begin with. Nasty heart, nasty soul, nasty housekeeping skills, the whole enchilada. The one thing about Mr. Gum that is not nasty is his lovely little garden. Lest you attribute this to something noble in his soul, you should know that the only reason he keeps it tidy is that if he doesn’t the angry fairy that lives in his bathtub will hit him repeatedly on the head with a frying pan. It’s one of those deals. All would be well and good if it were not for a big massive whopper of a dog named Jake. Jake likes gardens and he especially likes Mr. Gum’s garden. After getting whopped continually by the fairy every time Jake makes a foray into his yard, Mr. Gum comes up with a malicious plan to take care of the friendly canine forever. Now it’s up to a little girl named Polly and an eccentric old man named Friday O’Leary to save Jake from Mr. Gum’s nefarious intentions before (or possibly after) it’s too late.

The jokes are what make the book work, because when they’re on, they’re on. When we first meet Mr. Gum, for example, we hear that "the bed was never made. (I don’t mean that the duvet was never put back on the bed, I mean that the bed had never even been made. Mr. Gum hadn’t gone to the bother of assembling it. He had just chucked all the bits of wood on the floor and dumped a mattress on top." What’s more, "He would much rather hear a piano being demolished by illegal bulldozers than a Mozart concerto." I love that it couldn’t be just any bulldozers. It would have to be ILLEGAL bulldozer. Jake, on the other hand is, "a furry wobbler and friendly as toast."

Individual British terminology appears to have been maintained, for the most part. Mr. Gum’s punishment from the fairy is called "pan-whacks". A man is described as moving like "a footballer" rather than a soccer player, which is interesting. And continuing a trend I’ve seen in more than a few books for children this year, there is a glossary of amusing terms at the back of the book ala Lois Lowry’s The Willoughbys (though many of these are referring to Britishisms and the like). Here’s an example of one of the definitions then. "Scotland: It’s a place near England where everyone’s got beards, even the women. And the men wear skirts and everyone shouts a lot and has an okay time. By the way, it’s freezing up there in winter, so don’t bother." There you go then.

Sometimes the book is right on track and sometimes it skews a little too far towards the goofy. I mean the plot hangs together, which is important. You don’t want to get to the end of a children’s book and find the storyline erupt into some kind of Blazing Saddles/Monty Python and the Holy Grail unsatisfactory unfunny descent into madness. It doesn’t do that, but at the same time there are things that never entirely work. Friday O’Leary, for example, is a pretty superfluous character. The jokes have moments when they just don’t click. It’s all going to come down to the personality of the person reading the book, really. If the kid reading You’re a Bad Man, Mr. Gum! thinks that the inanity of a frying pan lobbing fairy is funny without explanation (and, of course, there never is one) then this will be the book for them.

Credit where credit is due to illustrator Chad Dezern too. While I’ve nothing against the British illustrations to this book, Dezern has a penchant for clear cut lines and heavy shading that complements Mr. Stanton’s words nicely. Plus, some of his images are more than a little interesting if you’re willing to peer really closely at them. For example, there is an image of a newspaper that Mr. Gum has purchased solely for the purpose of glaring at the picture of the boy on the front page (sometimes Mr. Gum just need a good glare at a child to make himself feel better). Of course, if you look at the newspaper, I mean really look, you’ll read not a story about a 10-year-old burping champion (as the headline suggests) but a story about a 53-year-old India born Toronto resident named Yegmb Varbade. This probably wasn’t intentional on the artist’s part, but I don’t think I’m the only reader who felt inclined to peer closely at the picture so as to tease out the story. It’s not entirely clear to me whether or not Mr. Dezern would have actually have been responsible for that item, though. In the book there are some fun "found item" types of things in this book, like slightly crinkled pieces of sheet music and the like. Is that the work of the illustrator or of the Art Director? It’s a bit unclear.

All in all You’re a Bad Man, Mr. Gum! is almost a kind of post-Captain Underpants title. There are lots of pictures, making this an ideal early chapter book for those kids not quite ready for full 200-page pictureless work of fiction. What’s more, I think that as a bedtime story, Andy Stanton’s book is ideal for reading aloud. Teachers may wish to try it out on their third graders, fourth graders, and maybe even fifth graders too. It has some gaps and some oddities, but like that massive whopper Jake, its heart is in the right place. For a certain kind of kid, this book will answer their prayers.

No! That’s Wrong!
By Zhaohua Ji and Cui Xu
Kane/Miller Book Publishers
$15.95
ISBN: 978-1-933605-66-1
Ages 3-8
On shelves now

Vast Quasi-Generational Fact of the Day: Underpants are funny. I’m sorry, but they are. Whether you call them bloomers or knickers or panties or undies, the fact of the matter remains that they amuse everybody. Adults watch Saturday Night Live sketches where Will Ferrell walks about in a thong and children’s books have Captain Underpants. Now I knew that underwear was funny to Americans, sure. But until I read No! That’s Wrong! by the dynamic duo Zhaohua Ji and Cui Xu I had NO idea that it was a universal love. You want to make a case for the common humanity of man? Well just hand this book, translated naturally, to anyone on this planet and I’ll bet you that a good 75% get the joke. Ji and Xu bring us a tale where a community supports the protagonist’s originality and it is the stuffy individual that tries to instill a sense of “normality”.

On a windy day a pair of red undies fly off a laundry line and directly into the path of a meandering rabbit. The rabbit takes one glance and immediately knows what he has in his possession. “It’s a hat!” At this point an omniscient narrator attempts to intervene and inform the rabbit of its mistake. “No, that’s wrong. It’s not a hat.” Paying scant attention to this advice the rabbit tries the hat on his other friends. Each one is impressed by the find, though it’s clear that the undies fit the rabbit’s head best. Unfortunately a donkey in purple sneakers informs the rabbit of its huge mistake. Shown the “error” of its ways, the bunny attempts to wear the underwear on its bum, but nobody (aside from the narrator and the donkey) thinks that this is a good idea. The rabbit considers the matter, releases the border of the pages so that the narrator can’t interfere any longer, and in a final leaping display of pleasure declares loud and long and strong, “It’s a wonderful hat!” And that is all there is to that.

Geez oh petes, there’s all kinds of stuff going on in this book. First of all, there’s the current "Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus" trend of breaking down the fourth wall and allowing the reader the chance to affect a picture book character’s actions. That’s huge. There’s the fact that the other animals in the community are totally behind the rabbit’s decision to wear the underwear as a hat and protest vehemently when he tries to wear them “correctly”. There’s the fact that the rabbit ultimately rejects the narrator’s advice by tearing apart the very borders of the book, allowing the watercolored background to seep into the white border around each page. And finally there’s the fact that the underwear on that rabbit’s head isn’t boxer briefs or even tighty whities. No, these are bright red, very lacy, rather sexy panties. I LOVE this choice. It is incredibly funny for a rabbit to wear something out of a Victoria’s Secret catalogue on its head and later on its tuchis. It also takes a bit of guts on the artists’ part, so kudos all around!

Speaking of the artists’, the work in this book is a remarkably successful mix of beautiful watercolor scenes of nature alongside hugely amusing characters. The beauty will probably be the first thing you spot when you open the book. Potted plants are just seas of foggy green with tiny speckles of white and black dotting the scenes, giving them depth. The buildings appear to be Chinese with lush purple mountains sitting in the background. Inside the forest itself the trees take on brilliant royal blues with purple backgrounds and a kind of green mist alongside the path. It is rare to find a book that is amusing and also, when you stop to look at it, exceedingly lovely. Kids will find the rabbit and his panties funny and adults will agree to read the book 100 times over and over if only to get another look at the hues and tones that permeate each page.

I love the publisher Kane/Miller because they’re not afraid to find and translation some of the most talented children’s book artists from around the world. There is, however, one bone I must pick about this book. It concerns the endpapers. Open up the front cover of this book. The very first thing you see, before you even get to the title page, is a remarkably peaceful scene of hanging pants, socks, and other accessories. Then you read the story and forget all about those items until you reach the end of the book. There, on the back endpapers, are all the animals we’ve seen before modeling the pants, socks, etc. as hats of their own. And there, in the lower right-hand corner, is the donkey who is now wholly and completely shocked. This is a great way to open and close the story, but it makes the book a problem for libraries. A lot of library systems glue the bookflaps of their titles to the inside front and back covers, a move that will completely obliterate the donkey (not to mention the benign crocodile). It’s not Kane/Miller’s fault, of course. They can’t exactly go about making 36 page picture books (32 being the standard length). Still, it seems a shame to know that this is one little detail that will get lost to a lot of kids reading the book. Libraries should not be surprised if they find their circulating copies torn or ripped as overeager 5-year-olds try to get a peek at the action.

This is the first picture book of Zhaohua Ji and Cui Xu. Hitting just the right tone of voice, artistic style, and storyline, I’m definitely looking forward to seeing what else Kane/Miller will be able to show us from this incredible team. A beauty of a book that will have kids rolling in the aisles, this is how to write a picture book, ladies and gentlemen.

When I showed my husband my latest First Second graphic novel, Three Shadows, he took a gander at where the book had originally been published. “France? Doesn’t First Second know that there are hardworking American graphic novelists being put out of their jobs because of guys like this?” He was joking of course, but after a while a person might begin to agree. Where DOES First Second come up with these people? If they’re not romancing us with handsome mummies as in The Professor’s Daughter then these overseas masters of the pen are shooting dogs into space like in Laika. Cyril Pedrosa is French, but looking at his style alone you wouldn’t be inclined to give his pen a strict nationality. This is maybe one of the most beautiful books I have ever read. Can you “read” an image? “Reading” Pedrosa can be dangerous. It means fully immersing yourself in a story that, at its heart, is about the death of a child and how parents fight and cope with the tragedy. You have to be able to trust that the artist will get you in and out of this kind of subject matter with skill. Fortunately, in this particular case there is little need for worry.

More than this, however, is the man’s use of line. He is to long thin curvy lines what Peter Sis is to dots and speckles. Whole scenes are carved out of twisted lines that sweep about the characters. And yet it is the sheer variety of artistic styles that will impress you the most. When Joachim’s father takes him away to be “safe” the sequence of the boy leaving his mother is done in sharp contrasting shadows, the mom almost barely more than a shadow by the end. Or there’s the golem sequence that looks more scratchboard than ink. And yet the image in this book of Joachim pulling a chair across the floor, in spite of all the technical beauty of Pedrosa’s ink, is my favorite image if only because it feels so real and true. That then is the true reason I respect the man’s work.

You may wonder if this is an appropriate inclusion in your children’s collection, to which I would have to reply, “Ah, the French”. About page four you get a look at innocent full family nudity that is highlighting the sweetness of their life together and will make many a parent shake in their shoes. Boobs! And later in the book when the family is sleeping, more boobs! And hanging dangling bits! So, taking into account the maturity of the subject matter, the allusions to what happens to African female slaves, and the sheer amount of breasts in the book, best to be putting this in the teen and adult sections of your library, I should think.

The book begins with the poem “Not Pleasant But True” by Deborah Garrison about a parent’s wish to die in their child’s stead. It’s a small poem. No more than ten lines in length, but the tone is there. And yet, this is not a story that dwells in misery and loss without acknowledging life in all its mysteries. Three Shadows is a sometimes subtle, sometimes chaotic, always beautiful book that dares to tackle every parent’s deepest fear. Heartbreaking and brilliant by turns, this is required reading.

On shelves April 1st.

Other Web Reviews: The Comics Reporter, SF Signal, and Technophobiac Sci-Fi