Bruno

Perceptive, Funny, Irreverent and a Touch Surreal

To say that a book has "charm" is often a way either to damn it with faint praise or to say something nice without really saying much at all. Because I so admired this book I'll try harder to be clear. This book combines pleasant and appealing drawings of amiable and idiosyncratic characters with crystal clear, sharp, deadpan wit. It's smart, casually odd, and offered with a smile, a shrug of the shoulders, and a raised eyebrow.

The first of the six interconnected stories is titled "A Peculiar Day", and peculiar, in a good way, is exactly the right description for the entire book. It's a touch surreal and a bit bizarro, but just around the edges. In my favorite story, (the first one), Bruno runs into a fish who has somehow left the water and found himself swimming in the air. (When questioned, the fish merely sighs and responds, "I can't understand it. Something very strange is going on...") It's as though the Belgian artist Rene Magritte had decided to abandon the canvas in order to write children's books.

Bruno reminds me a bit of the unflappable heroes you encounter in books by writers like Daniel Pinkwater. Whether it's a lizard jazz band, a giant Hoboken chicken, or a hamburger diner operated by aliens, his kids just roll with the dada punches and keep on keepin' on, with a slight nod to the oddness surrounding them. Those are books, though, for older readers, and maybe one of the most appealing aspects of this book is that it is, after all, a picture book for little guys. I'm thinking that if your little reader/listener gets into this book, then you are on your way to having parented the hippest kid in the first grade.

Catharina Valckx is Dutch, raised in Paris but now living in Amsterdam. She writes in Dutch and French. The illustrator, Nicolas Hubesch, is also based in Paris. So, it seems fair to make a reference to Gallic humor - that peculiar combination of gaiety, keen perception, irreverence and joy - as a fine way to describe the effect of this work. That the book so crisply gets its surreal feel across is no doubt also due to the fine translation by Antony Shugar, who never gets mentioned in the blurbs.

Anyway, bottom line, I was very taken by this book, and very much entertained. It's smart; it's funny; it is - come on let's say it - charming. A very nice find.

(Please note that I received a free advance will-self-destruct-in-x-days Adobe Digital copy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)