Monsters Eat Whiny Children by Bruce Eric Kaplan - review

I am not sure I even need to write about this book, given that title. You are either going to think that's the funniest thing that has ever entered your house, or you are going to think that's appalling.

Wait, I have 4 elementary school boys around my dining room table right this second. Lunchtime poll:

YNL: Look at the cover of this book. Would you read this book?

Secondo: No.

YNL: No? Too scary?

Secondo: No. I just won't say yes to anything you ask me ever.

YNL: Always suspected as much. Zhou?

Zhou: Yeah, sure, I would read it!

Prime: Looks good to me!

Mao: Ehhh... I'd rather read LEGO Star Wars.

YNL: Like, not right now... would you read it ever at all?

Mao: I've already read it and it's really funny.

 

Well that wasn't very satisfying. Maybe I'll ask a followup question.

YNL: If you were to eat whiny children, how would you prepare them?

Secondo: With pepper and salsa - a lot of salsa!

Zhou: I would bake them and then I would put them with a little bit of bacon, one egg, and all the materials for making a burrito except the tortilla.

Prime: I would probably chop them up, donate them to a restaurant, go to the restaurant, and order something good.

Zhou: With them in it.

Prime: That's what I mean.

Mao: I'd put them in a burrito with salsa, a lot of cheese, and some beef.

Zhou: But that makes you fart.

Better! Me, I would braise those whiny children. I like a slow braise. But there is no actual cooking in this book, although the oven does get preheated preparatory to baking the whiny children in a cake, which doesn't happen because somebody spills the flour. Sorry if I gave away a plot point. I thought it was maybe important to note that no children are actually consumed in this book. You'd be surprised what parents sometimes don't take for granted. Although, come to think of it, almost anything can happen in a picture book. That one book that I thought was about classroom manners and turned out to be about sexual abuse of a child? I have never gotten over that book. And this book is written and illustrated by a New Yorker cartoonist, and some of those guys have an odd sense of what is funny. There was a whole Seinfeld episode about that. And in fact, the guy who wrote that Seinfeld episode wrote this book. Huh.

Endpaper bonus: funny endpapers.

Comments

[Marc]

This post rivals the humor of the book title it's about. And I love that masthead design.

[:paula]

Hee hee hee thanks Marc! I love pestering kids about books. The banner was drawn by my friend Todd Brizzi, toddbrizzi.com. He usually does punk rock bands and roller derby teams, so I'm feeling all edgy nowadays! I'm having fun messing with the backgrounds too.