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written and drawn by master trickster
Sam Bartlett
Workman 2008
While I recognize that April is National Poetry Month it also happens to be the month that begins with one of my favorite non-holiday holidays: April Fool's Day. Is there anything more delicious than planning and pulling off that perfect prank, that preposterous practical joke? It seems such a shame that there's only one day a year dedicated to (mostly) good-natured frivolity; after all, they repackage Halloween candy as Christmas candy, and as Easter candy, and even in "fall colors."
But I think the problem is that it can be difficult to come up with the perfect stunt to pull off in a given situation. Putting a vacuum cleaner under someone's bed and waking them up with it instead of an alarm clock (as I did this year) doesn't work at a party, and similarly you can't pin a glass of water to the ceiling with your elderly aunt the way you could with younger sibling. Wouldn't it be great if someone could collect hundreds of these sorts of things, illustrate them in an amusing cartoon format, and present them in one volume with an index so you could look up the exact stunt you are looking for when you need it?
Ta da! I present you with Sam Bartlett's collection, The Best of Stuntology. Like the subtitle says, 304 pranks, tricks and challenges to amuse and annoy your friends.
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But Stuntology is more than pranks, as its name implies, and there are plenty of stunts that don't embarrass or otherwise deliberately set out to cause grief or hard feelings. Many, in fact, are participatory fun. One can, for example, engage in a conversation where each side only gets to say two words per sentence. Good fun. Not easy. Takes practice. Or you could dealing with some other annoying aspects of life via stunts. Say you've got a telemarketer on the phone and you can get past your immediate response to just hang up. Why not tuck your tongue between your teeth and lower lip and attempt to have a conversation until the person who called gives up in frustration?
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The pranks are single-page mini comics and Bartlett's illustration style has a playful naive quality, filled with rubbery pranksters and patsies who convey the full range of emotions. And without being explicit, one can gather from the response of the cartoon victims what a prankster or stuntologist can expect - no claims of "but I didn't realize you'd get upset" will be accepted.
3 comments:
David, What about age level? Is this something I can put in the Children's Room? I can think of many a child who would enjoy something like this, but I'm not getting a good sense of whether or not it would be appropriate.
Age level is an excellent point, and I probably should have noted that.
I'm going to have to nix the idea of the children's room only because there are a number of stunts that have "adults only" warnings that are clearly winks to teens. There is a disclaimer up front about the contents being "for reading enjoyment" and for that I would say this book works best at the teen level.
It's too bad, now that it's out there, that there couldn't be a junior version of this as there are plenty of items in the book that would be totally appropriate for middle grade and younger. But I'd hate to see a library (or librarian) pilloried because a youngster ignored the "adults only" warning and burned down the house trying to light a match with his or her feet.
I hope this helps, even if it means not giving the youngsters access.
Well, you know, I'd rather find out from you than an irate parent calling me about the whole burning-down-the-house thing. That's always so uncomfortable. I'm going to recommend it to our teen librarian, though.
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