I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: THE HAPPY RACERS–“Lovabye Dragon” (2012).

This song was the first track on the inaugural playlist of Out With the Kids back in March 2012. This is a sweet song about dragons and monsters and no more nightmares.  For a children’s song, this is quite intricate.  The opening riff is enticing, and the occasional falsetto was unexpected.

But the bridge is a delicate lead in to the chorus which is not as catchy as one might expect for a children’s song.  It’s a very sweet song.  And indeed, a lot of the elements are things that I would normally love in a song (it actually reminds me a bit of Airborne Toxic Event, but more poppy).  And yet I’m not all that compelled by it.  Although a few listens has really warmed me up to it.

[READ: September 30, 2012] Stories 1 2 3 4

Last year, McSweeney’s started a new imprint–McSweeney’s McMullens–which would publish children’s books.  As with everything McSweeney’s does, the books are beautiful!  Lovingly created with amazing illustrations.  And in each book, the cover unfolds into a giant poster (usually of the pictures contained inside).

And, like other McSweeny’s books, the stories are all a little odd.  I usually try to read the books once through before reading them to my kids to find out just how odd they turn out.  I didn’t read this one first because it was quite large, and boy, were we surprised by it.

Eugène Ionesco writing a children’s book?   One of the foremost playwrights in the Theater of the Absurd?  Indeed, that Ionesco.

And, indeed, this book is pretty weird.  There are 4 interconnected stories about a girl and her parents.  In each one, the Papa tells the little girl, Josette, a story.  And in each case the story is very very strange.  In the first, the papa tells Josette a story in which every character (male and female) is named Jacqueline (which is the maid’s name…there’s a prologue in which the maid keeps trying to bring the mama and papa food).  It ends with a dismissal that the stories are just silly things her papa says.

All four books are equally absurd, with the papa (either trying to sleep longer in bed or wondering where his wife has run off to) telling Josette a while bunch of weird nonsense.  Some of it is funny, and there’s a lot of random repetition.

I’s a very strange book and my kids (especially my 7-year-old) did not enjoy it.  He claimed it was too weird (which is a very funny thing for a 7-year-old who loves weirdness to say).  Anyhow, it was kind of fun to read out loud, but I could tell they weren’t really that interested.

The illustrations, by Etienne Delessert (who also did the translation!) were wonderful, though–many were even more absurd than the stories in a soft pastel style–very realistic, almost hyperrealistic–a very neat trick.  And when you open the cover into a poster, it reveals the entire third story running around the edge of the beautiful poster.

McSweeney’s describes the book this way: “Back in print for the first time since the 1970s, these illustrated stories by one of the twentieth century’s great playwrights make ideal bedtime reading for young children. The “silly” stories, as Ionesco called them, are accompanied by nearly 100 full-color illustrations, all painstakingly restored by the artist for this brand new edition.”

I thought the books were kind of fun, and maybe the would be more palatable to the kids one at a time instead of all four at once (they were originally written and published at least a year apart).  You can see more about the book here.

For ease of searching, I include: Eugene Ionesco