Let's do nothing! by Tony Fucile - review

Let's do nothing! by Tony Fucile

Frankie and Sal have done everything there is to do. Baked cookies, read comics, played every sport ever invented. The one thing they haven't done is... nothing. So they try it. Unprompted by any adult, I might add - and how many times have adults clutched their heads in frustration and pleaded, "Just sit still for TEN MINUTES!? Oh please?"

Well, Frankie and Sal demonstrate the impossibility of such an exercise. Pretending to be statues, Frankie is beset by pigeons. Pretending to be the Empire State Building, a giant ape steals his glasses. Pretending to be a redwood, he is visited by a friendly dog. It just can't be done. Even when his body is motionless, Frankie's imagination is still motoring along. Love that kid. Frankie and Sal may be my favorite pair of boys since Righty & Lefty, or Trouble Gum.

But as I savored the extremely natural, cartoony-sketchy boys, with their Dennis-the-Menace-y outfits and messy hair, I wondered why the wild and crafty eyes of Sal, the mastermind of the pair, looked so familiar. Hmmm.

That's right. Tony Fucile has spent most of his professional life as an animator, notably, on the greatest animated family movie of all time (YES I SAID IT), The Incredibles. This book, his first standalone picture book, has all the wit and energy of that movie, encased in a small-scale story that kids and parents will recognize and enjoy.

Comments

[Laura]

Of course it's the greatest. Edna Mode is my personal heroine: "I never look back, darling. It distracts from the now." Hell yeah.

[Paula]

How much can one person love that movie? I love the furniture in that movie. I love the monorail in that movie. I love Squeaker, fer Pete's sake ("He's quite tame!").

[AZ]

Animators make great picture book illustrators... I've noticed more and more of them doing it...