Bad Little Children's Books: Kidlit Parodies, Shameless Spoofs and Offensively Tweaked Covers by Arthur C. Gackley (Abrams)

Oh dear...! Not one that I could possibly review on Read It, Daddy this one. Despite the appearance, this anthology of spoofs and parodies of "Golden Age" children's picture books - by fictional author Arthur C. Gackley, is definitely not one for kids. In fact you will have to hide this away from their prying eyes, lest they feast their peepers on some pretty questionable stuff.

"Bad Little Children's Books" is an idea that's been floating around on the Internet for quite a while. Classic children's book covers are subtly 'tweaked' for shits and giggles, spawning an ever-increasing whirlwind of madness and hilarity for those of you with a distinctly warped sense of humour, the sort of kids who spent way too much time hovering over anthills with magnifying glasses in our misspent youth.

The cover sets the table for what you'll find inside pretty well - an image of a lactose-intolerant little girl yakking up her morning milk. It really doesn't get much better from there...

Eek. 

The core idea isn't that bad, but some of the jokes fell hopelessly flat while others were the sort of jokes you nervously laugh at if a colleague at work blurts one out during coffee time.

Ack.

As I said at the top of the review, you really don't want this getting into the hands of your little ones!

Slightly worrying that I can think of a handful of folk who would probably love this as a christmas pressie stocking filler, and I can well imagine it doing very well in the run up to the yuletide season. It wanted to be cleverer than it actually was though, parodies really only work on me if they're smartly intelligent AND funny, not just the equivalent of someone farting into a cushion then holding it over your face.

"Bad Little Children's Books" by Arthur C. Gackley is out now, published by Abrams.