We can all use a good laugh or two
If comedy can get kids to books, then hallelujah! These picture books will send them off to laugh land and tickle adults’ funny bones, too.
“Georgie’s Best Bad Day” by Ruth Chan; MacMillan Publishing; 36 pages; $17.99.
What seems like a sad sack group of pet friends having a bad day at first ends up in hilarity and laughter. Ruth Chan’s flowing tale begins when Georgie the cat literally wakes up on the wrong side of the bed — on the floor. She slips on a banana peel, and then rounds up her friends, who are also having bad days, to make some pickles. “But pickles take forever, and they wanted to feel better now,” one character says, so they go out to garden, and they fail. Knitting results in tying themselves together, and cake making is a messy disaster.
Things can’t seem to get worse when the pickle jar becomes stuck on Georgie’s head, which turns out to be so funny the friends make a picnic with the messy blanket, food and pickles, and go to sleep dreaming of the next bad day.
Funny faces and mishaps should make kids chuckle and think about the power of laughing at mistakes.
“Stack the Cats” by Susie Ghahremani; Abrams Appleseed; 32 pages; $14.95.
Susie Ghahremani’s creative concept book, though at first glance a counting book, is a quirky fun book that happens to be filled with cheeky cats and subtle math. As the designer of the gift brand Boygirlparty, Ghahremani’s whimsical, adorable cats teeter and totter, yawn, stretch and then stack up in more combinations, prompting kids to count and even multiply. “Nine cats agree to three, three, and three,” but 10 seem too many, so one cat sleeps; two cats climb up a cat tree; two more hide; and so on.
The funniest thing about this super cool little book? The droll, slightly interested facial expressions of the many kinds of cats when they tumble, nap, hide and stack on top of one another. And the colorful artwork is appealingly vivid.
“The Legend of Rock Paper Scissors” by Drew Daywalt; illustrated by Adam Rex; Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins; 32 pages; $17.99.
The creators of “The Day the Crayons Quit” return with a bombastically hilarious battle tale that begins, “Long ago, in an ancient and distant realm called the Kingdom of Backyard there lived a warrior named Rock.” Rock first screams at a clothespin “Drop that underwear and battle me, you ridiculous wooden clip-man!” who replies, “I will pinch you and make you cray, rock warrior!” Rock wins and then duels with an apricot, who he taunts saying, “You, sir, look like a fuzzy little butt.”
Soon, “in the empire of Mom’s home office,” we meet Paper, who defeats “giant box-monster” by causing a paper jam, while “in the tiny village of Junk Drawer, Scissors is fighting strange and sticky circle man known as Tape.”