A likable variation on a universal fucking theme.
Mansbach’s (Rage Is Back, 2013, etc.) second children’s book satire/foulmouthed balm for exhausted parents spotlights the agony of managing toddlers at mealtime.
Go the Fuck to Sleep, the 2011 surprise hit by the otherwise serious novelist, was a canny blend of Dr. Seuss’ patter and Irvine Welsh’s profanity, all the funnier for the oddness of its sweet-and-sour combination. The book became an international best-seller, and Mansbach is careful not to mess with success for the sequel. A new illustrator, Brozman, is on board, but the overall strategy remains the same: There’s a problem (picky eaters) introduced in a lilting pastoral lullaby (“The bunnies are munching on carrots…”) that is then undone at the end of each quatrain with some angry-dad sputtering (“The fucking meal’s served. Time to eat”). Every parent of a toddler endures a series of crises daily (cleaning up toys, going potty, picking out clothes), and this series is bound to be tediously repetitive should it continue. But Mansbach and Brozman do just enough here to entertainingly tweak the formula, particularly in terms of its art. Unlike Ricardo Cortés’ gentle, painterly illustrations for Sleep, Brozman’s are more overtly cartoonish and absurd, like a cheetah stoically tolerating a boy’s tableside slovenliness and a panda parent glumly pushing a shopping cart through a bamboo forest. Mansbach voices genuine frustration in a way that would be irresponsible in kid lit and unprofessional in parenting guides—it’s a joke that, like most good jokes, has a serious point behind it. The lines are sometimes rhythmically clumsy: “You’re not finished, and no, you can’t go to school / In pajamas, a hat, and bare feet.” A world of weary moms and dads deserves better scansion, but then nobody’s here for the poetry.
A likable variation on a universal fucking theme.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61775-378-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Akashic
Review Posted Online: Oct. 4, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
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