Children's book: The Bomb that Followed Me Home: By Cevin Soling
NEW YORK, Jan 5, 2009 - Rumpleville Books is pleased to release the third book in Cevin Soling's series of "fairly twisted fairy tales." The Bomb That Followed Me Home is the story of a boy, who is followed home by a stray bomb. The bomb follows him everywhere--by trees and landfills, and even the yard of a cantankerous neighbor who yells at the boy for running on their lawn. This same neighbor planted hedges three feet into the boy's yard. The boy's parents are resistant to keep the bomb, "who will polish it and change its fuse?" But still the young boy wants to keep it, and even has given the bomb a name-Rusty. The boy's father tries to find the bomb's original owner, calling all kinds of authorities like the Department of Defense. He also reaches out to the Weathermen. No one is missing a bomb. Finally the bomb is "given" to the cantankerous neighbors... And then his parents take down the hedges.
The Bomb That Followed Me Home has received its share of acclaim. Midwest Book Reviews cites the book, as "surreal .The whimsical, modern-art style of the illustrations are a perfect fit for the loopy mood of this delightful story." Flash News cites the book as author Cevin Soling's "vengeance" against "people who are mean and psychotic." FOREWORD magazine gave The Bomb high acclaim, writing that Cevin Soling and illustrator Steve Kille "have the power to make readers laugh, and then think. Then scoff at the futility of thinking."
The Rumpleville series are contemporary fables that are replete with social commentary The fairy tale format highlights the perverse morality of contemporary culture and foiled promises of "happily ever after" endings. Like Animal Farm, the simplicity of plot also draws attention to the political intentions of the work.
I thought this sounds like an off beat children's book. So I read it and really I'm flummoxed and perplexed. This is being marketed as a children's book. But as you can see in the book description they give the bomb to the cantankerous neighbors and the next thing you know they are taking down the hated hedge. Not only that, but if you look back at the 2nd paragraph it states: Cevin Soling and illustrator Steve Kille "have the power to make readers laugh, and then think. Then scoff at the futility of thinking." HUH?!? I don't think I ,as an adult, possess the ability to do that. Honestly? I'm not really sure what that means.
The illustrations are really cool; however, the story didn't flow well. We start off with the bomb following the boy home. As the boy gets to his neighbors yard, we digress for a couple of pages and it becomes all about the psycho neighbors. Then back to the bomb and how it has to be looked after... it just felt disjointed. I'm not sure if this was a book that was supposed to be a metaphor of society and how we lack the ability to deal with our neighbors and just bomb them instead of dealing with them, or just a very strange attempt at a children's book that thinks out of the box. Either way, I would not recommend reading this to children, they lack the higher level thinking needed to understand where this book is figuratively going.
I would have to give this a 0 out of 5 for a children's book.
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