Saturday 15 December 2012

Books with black humour for children

Warning: These reviews all contain spoilers. These books have shocking endings that some will find very amusing, but may upset other children . These books do not end with happily ever after - they end with dinner and the main characters are also the main course.

1. It Ate Billy On Christmas - Roman Dirge
The most horrible, twisted book for children ever written! Do not give this to a child without the parents reading it first. This book will delight some children - but traumatise others.

 It begins with a lonely little girl who is traumatised by a truly evil older brother who makes every waking moment misery. He parents are cold and indifferent, and she lives a life of constant abuse at the hands of her brother, neglect from her parents and cruelty from school bullies. The only thing Lumi has ever really wanted is a puppy - but Billy destroys anything she cares for, breaking her toys, killing her hamster - and he is thought to have killed the neighbours cat as well.

Meanwhile in a deep dark well lives a creature of unspeakable horror, for many years it has fed on the neighbouring children, but then the well was closed off and no longer used, the beast was forced to survive on insects - even a stray cat, growing more and more hungry and desperate. Finally, as Christmas Eve comes, it can bear no more. It emerges from it's lair - looking for food. Creeping and crawling it inches closer to the home of Lumi and Billy. I quite like the way the author builds the suspense as the creature comes closer and closer. It finds the chimney and makes it's way down.

This horrible creature and a small loveless child will come together, and despite the fact that it is horribly ugly, evil and a monster, Lumi will come to love it with the pure innocence of a child, thinking at last she has her long dreamed of puppy. I think it goes without saying that Billy will be eaten - and for once Lumi will be safe and comfortable in her life - but where will the monster stop?

 This book is horrible, sick and twisted, but my children loved it. I realise some people will feel it is wrong to read such a book to a child, but I grew up on a diet of war stories from my Grandfather, the original Grimm's fairy tales and the best of all treats- ghost stories in a darkened house. My children are easily able to distinguish between fictional and real violence - and like many children very much enjoy the old fashioned tales where something is eaten up. Perhaps this dates back to a very primal time when our greatest fears were really hunger - or finding enough to eat and in fact being eaten by another hunting beast.

A part of me hoped that Lumi would change the monster. That given pure and innocent love - this evil creature would learn to love as well. But this is not a heartwarming tale of redemption. Love does not triumph. There is no redemption here, nor any hope of it. The monster remains a monster, destroying anyone foolish enough to love it.  And so the moral of this story, at least in my opinion, is - don't fall in love with a monster.

If you are considering buying this - please read my full and more detailed review here:
http://members.dooyoo.co.uk/comic-book/it-ate-billy-on-christmas-roman-dirge/1673387/
This does give more spoilers, but it essential that parents know the ending of this book before considering it for a child.

2. Rotten and Rascal
Rotten and Rascal are two terrible Pterosaur twins. They live in a land filled with thunderstorms, active volcanoes and landslides - but the noisiest thing of all is the screeching and screaming of two quarrelsome siblings - meaning their neighbours never get a minutes peace and quiet. The illustrations in this book are absolutely perfect. You can see the little Pterosaurs faces scrunched up and beaks open wide as the scram, shout, screech and bellow and each other morning noon and night. My sons loved the expressions on their angry faces - as well as all the screaming screeching and shouting.

Now the prehistoric pest were always arguing, but one day they both dived down to catch the same fish. Rotten said he should have it, because he saw it first, but Rascal felt he should have the fish because he was the loudest. A terrible screaming hullabaloo ensued until Triceratops tried to settle the argument by saying the fish should go to the Pterosaur with the best beak. So naturally the next screaming argument was over who had the best beak. Other prehistoric reptiles suggested other ways to settle the argument - all of which led to more screaming and arguing. Even a suggestion that the fish should go to the dinosaur who argued the least erupted into a screaming match with each dinosaur claiming they argued least. This was another part my sons found especially funny with the little creatures screaming and spitting about how little they argued. Ankylosaurus thought the fish should go to the toughest dinosaur and this resulted in a terrible fist fight, with even more screaming and shouting.

All this racket disturbed a Tyrannosaurus Rex. He is drawn to look very angry with furrowed brows and a huge mouth full of teeth as he yells at the screaming twins to quit fighting and yelling - so we have even more screaming! T Rex demands to know which little reptile is " the fattest, the juiciest, the crunchiest and the tastiest". Of course this sets off another screaming match with each Pterosaur claiming to be the fattest, juiciest and tastiest. And finally silence fell as for the first time ever the twins stopped their incessant squabbling. The illustrator has done a brilliant job drawing the T- Rex leering down with drool dripping from his sharped toothed jaws as the twins stare with wide open mouths finally shocked into silence.......

3. I Want My Hat Back
 The story itself is quite simple. Bear has lost his hat - and he wants it back. Bear is a good natured fellow. He politely asks each animal he meets if they have seen his hat, and helps others where he can. Most of the animals reply that they haven't seen his hat. One asks what a hat is. Only one answers quite rudely. Rabbit's lines are in red as he angrily replies that he hasn't seen it - he wouldn't steal a hat and why is Bear asking him? Bear walks away politely but later realises Rabbit was wearing a red and pointy hat. Bear's hat was red and pointy. A very angry Bear runs back shouting "You stole my hat!"

The next scene shows a very happy bear wearing his hat. But when squirrel asks if he has seen a rabbit wearing a hat he replies angrily - in red that he has not. He has not seen any rabbits anywhere. He would not eat a rabbit. "Don't ask me anymore questions" he says.

This is one of those books you just have to get very involved in reading - shouting and taking the huff when reading the conversations in red. It would easily adapt to a play for beginning readers. My sons love the arguing, but especially the realisation that bear has eaten rabbit. Other children might not find this nearly so amusing though.

In addition to being a funny story - this book is ideal for children learning to read.  It is very simple, with large bold text which is double spaced on a white background. The vast majority of the text is in black, but a limited amount is in red for emphasis. Most of the words are very easy words to read such as "hat", "look" and "please". There is quite a lot of repetition, and there are only 68 different words used to create this whole story. This makes it ideal for beginning readers, and I would compare this with Oxford Reading Tree level 2 or perhaps 3. The most challenging words in this book were "pointy", "excuse" and "questions", but even if your child is unfamiliar with these words, the vast majority of the words will be familiar to any child who is beginning to read - so you can easily point out the 3 most difficult words. As far as reading level, I would put this at age 5 - possibly even age 4 and feel this would be easier for a new reader than even the easiest of Dr Seuss books.  Because this book has a unique - if slightly twisted approach I feel this book would be perfect for older children who struggle to read more advanced books but feel embarrassed or bored with traditional picture books.

4. This Is Not My Hat
This story is about a small fish who steals a hat from a much larger fish. He is quite pleased with himself, gloating about how he will get away with his crime - but crime doesn't pay and tiny fish should not antagonise big ones. Tiny fish swims through blackened ocean happily talking to himself about how big fish will never know what happened, will never find him etc.... All the while big fish is swimming behind getting closer and closer. I will not give away the ending - but I will say it might upset some children. However, the unhappy parts are not actually shown, they are simply implied by illustration so you can easily craft your own happier ending.

This has an absolutely delightful deadpan humour. My children are ages 4 and 7, and although my 7 year old rarely reads picture books anymore, he did enjoy this - and I have to admit - so did I. The illustrations are striking as well. I very much like the black water as opposed to traditional blue. It adds to the uniqueness of this book. It also a nice book to discuss the morality of taking things that do not belong to you with children.

But in addition to being a brilliant story certain to entice reluctant readers, this book, is a wonderful resource for reading instruction. The early readers by Dr Seuss were limited to 250 words. This book uses only 92 and almost all of these are extremely easy to read words, which would be on the same list the Dr Seuss books were drawn from. Most of the words are common one syllable words easily sounded out with phonics and familiar to most children such as "hat", "fish", "big" and "small". The most challenging words in this book were "probably" and " worried" but if a child can read the rest of the book they can easily learn two new words for one book. In addition, the text is in a very large clear black font, on a white background with good spacing in between lines, making it ideal for new readers or children with dyslexia. Most pages only have one or two short sentences - this would make the ideal reading primer and it is ever so much more fun than Peter and Jane. It's high interest level and slightly wicked wit will appeal to older children as well, making this the perfect book for children who are reading below age level. This really is a book that can be enjoyed by all ages.

5. Tadpole's Promise - Jeanne Willis
Tadpole's promise is written by Jeanne Willis. We have enjoyed many of her books including: Who's in the Loo, That's Not Funny, The Really Rude Rhino and Bottoms Up. Most of the books we have by her tend to be funny, but at first glance this looks very sugary sweet. It begins with a tadpole and a caterpillar who meet and fall in love. The caterpillar has coloured stripes down her side and the tadpole calls her his beautiful rainbow. The Tadpole is shiny and black and caterpillar calls him her shiny black pearl. She declares her love for him, and makes him promise never to change.

But change is part of a caterpillars nature, and soon he grows legs. The caterpillar is angry because he has broken his promise and the poor besotted tadpole begs her forgiveness. The next time he has front legs and the caterpillar is even more upset saying she will forgive him this time - but it is his last chance. Of course he continues to change and the butterfly refuses to forgive him the third time. She doesn't think he is beautiful anymore and refuses to forgive him for changing. the poor frog is heartbroken - he would happily give up his legs for her - but as much as he wants to, he can not change what he is. The caterpillar builds a cocoon and falls asleep. When she wakes up she decides to forgive the caterpillar after all. She doesn't even think of asking him for forgiveness. She flutters down to ask a frog if he has seen her friend, but before she can finish her sentence the frog has shot into the air and gobbled her up. Then he sat back down to think of his beautiful caterpillar and wonder where she could have gone.

My oldest son doesn't care as much for picture books anymore, but he will still listen to one the first time. He found this very amusing and we feel it would make a perfect stop motion project with a bit of plasticine. My youngest is only 4 and just starting to get to the age where he can laugh at awful things - as long as it is fiction. He did seem drawn in a bit by this story, feeling very sorry for the poor tadpole. He took an instant dislike to the shallow caterpillar, who could only love the tadpole as long as she found him beautiful and thought the ending was especially funny. I don't know if he would have liked this at all a year ago though, and might well have ended up feeling very sorry for the butterfly at the end. I would only recommend this book for children who do clearly understand that story books are not real. I can very clearly remember my youngest crying his eyes out at the ending of The Very Hungry Caterpillar two years ago - simply because he didn't want the caterpillar to change into a butterfly. I certainly would not have considered this book for a very long time after that.