These books offer belly laughs for all
Published 6:41 pm Monday, November 24, 2008
Design is key to the humor of the tales
Breck Longstreth
My choice for this month’s book review?
Two totally silly books, suggested by visiting 20-something children.
Some background: When our children were little, we had a tradition that the siblings of the birthday boy or girl also received a present on that special day. (A parental tactic aimed at spreading the largesse and avoiding acute attacks of jealousy.) Surprisingly, our children, though they are now officially old, still continue this tradition among themselves.
So on Aug. 11, when our daughter turned 29, she gave her brother a present of two books (which I later found out he had expressed a desire to own). Giraffes? Giraffes! and Your Disgusting Head are marketed as children’s books, but to judge by the raucous laughter and sheer delight they elicited from my 25-year-old son, I’d put them in a different category entirely. I’d go with 10 and up, with “up” being death from old age. When I went to purchase additional copies at Island Books, I was told that these first two volumes of the How? Book Series keep floating around the store, filed sometimes in the children’s department, and sometimes in the humor section.
Intelligent design
Readers who know the work of Dave Eggers, editor of the literary journal “McSweeney’s” and author of the memoir “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius,” will not be surprised that he and his brother, Toph, provided research assistance for these books. Designed by Mark Wasserman and Irene Ng, the books won an award from the American Institute of Graphic Arts, and much of their humor derives from the design itself. Think vintage science textbooks with a twist.
The design is so integral to the charm of these volumes that I worry about putting people off by describing some of what I thought was funny, because the humor might get lost in the translation. It will be like trying to describe, by talking or writing, a particularly funny episode from “Sesame Street.” Though it appeals to both kids and adults on different levels, without the visual, it’s hard to get.
Take the opening of “Giraffes? Giraffes!” There’s a large photo of a crazed-looking woman scientist standing next to her dorky-looking husband. The text reads, “Greetings. I am Dr. Doris Haggis-On-Whey, the world-famous scientist and explorer you have heard so much about. The man standing next to me is my husband, Benny. He helps me with my work, and tells adequate knock-knock jokes. I am glad that you have picked up this book. It shows that you are someone who looks to discover new things, and who, like me, dislikes humans.
“For the past forty years, my husband Benny and I have traveled the globe, collecting information and writing down our findings. It is my opinion that our findings are the most important and startling scientific information known to humankind. If you disagree with me, you are wrong.”
Dr. Doris signs her introduction with a flourish of academic degrees, which includes M.D., M.A, and D.D.S. Benny’s signature is just that — Benny — in the handwriting of a 5-year-old. And there are jokes within jokes. My guess is that only adults who’ve traveled to the Cotswolds and Scotland will get the humor in the name of the county the Haggis-On-Wheys live in: Crumpets-Under-Kilt.
Giraffes can’t hum?
Adults and teenagers will find funny the first line of a story about Fredrick, the Giraffe who Shaved his Fur and Tried to Live as a Human: “Fredrick was a strapping giraffe of 15, who thought he knew just about everything, and certainly better than his parents and their weird friends.”
Everyone 10 and up should be able to laugh at the page written in extremely tiny, blue type. It begins, “Hello. Sorry for the extremely small type here. But we had to tell you things we couldn’t have the giraffes reading, and everyone knows that giraffes can’t read very small type, and they certainly can’t read anything in blue type, ever.” Among the negative things revealed about giraffes? They smell like pastrami and they can’t hum.
Yuck stuff
OK, by this point you’re either intrigued or you’ve abandoned hope and are ready to move on to the sports section of The Reporter. For those who want to stick around, I’ll give you a taste of the second book, “Your Disgusting Head,” whose subtitle is “The Darkest, Most Offensive — and Moist — Secrets of Your Ears, Mouth and Nose.”
Sections of this book include: “A Guide to the Sickening Fluids that Fill Your Skull”; “Songs to Sing to Your Earlobes”; “Pets Mumble”; and “Knitting Instructions for a Tongue Cap” (“Row 1: Try not to screw this up.”) A typical entry in the Troubleshooting Guide is: “Everything you smell smells like pig sweat.” Solution: “Are you in a place where lots of pigs are sweating? Leave this place.”
As in the book on giraffes, the visual is paramount. Under an illustration of a shark’s tooth, the caption reads, “Shark teeth, are, like totally sharp.” And under a picture of a younger Benny, the reader gets the back-story: “The picture above is taken while he is on his way to the Isle of Air, just minutes before the brilliant and athletic Benny is attacked by a swarm of squirrels and ferrets, and loses a good deal of his mental and physical powers.”
Bored no more
I’ve already mailed these books to a favorite young friend who is feeling a bit bored at work. It’s not his birthday, either. I picture him coming home from his job, opening up “Giraffes? Giraffes!” and reading, “For giraffes, dancing is a very serious business devoid of any fun or innuendo.” I can almost hear the belly laugh.
