Little Lit Books

Jack and the Box (Toon Books)

Art Spiegelman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 33 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Silly, perhaps, but not witty 2 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

I've never been a great fan of Art Spiegelman in his adult incarnation, and this children's book by the famous cult graphic novelist suffers from some of the same heavy-handed flatness that flaws his adult work. This little 32-page story of Jack (the rabbit) and Zack (the jack-in-the-box) owes a good deal plot-wise to Dr. Seuss's classic "Cat in the Hat," but shares none of its linguistic vivacity or situational surprise. Jack has a linear series of encounters with Zack, which do not develop or relate in any organic way, and the silliness escalates in a kind of inane spiral. The resulting catastrophe feels inauthentic.

Like some other reviewers, I reserved my adult judgment until I could test the book with young children. My daughter read it to the 3- and 5-year-old children (boy and girl) of a friend, and their response was decidedly lukewarm. The 5-year-old seemed merely puzzled by the story, and when polled registered an emphatic thumbs-down. Neither child asked for a second reading.

I think there are dozens if not hundreds of better children's books to spend your money on.

Editorial Review:

Jack's parents gave him a new toy and he can't believe how silly it is! Sometimes it's funny and other times it's scary. Sometimes it talks to him and other times it hides. At first, Jack loves all the surprises that his toy can offer, but after a while he starts to think his toy is a little too silly - in fact, it's gone out of control!

Little Lit: Folklore and Fairy Tale Funnies

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

These days, most comics really aren't for kids. But Little Lit fixes that with funny and fractured all-ages fairy tales by some of the best comic artists around. Annoying magic pumpkins, a horrible ogre queen, and strangely hungry horses are just some of the strange characters guaranteed to delight both children and adults.

Twelve great tales, some new and some retold classics, with weird and wacky pictures fill the pages of Little Lit. Comic fans will recognize the talents of Dan Clowes, Kaz, Joost Swarte, and many more. Kids will love the unexpected twists on old favorites, like the lions who populate Barbara McClintock's "The Princess and the Pea." Like all good fairy tales, many of these stories have lessons hidden in them. Maus creator Art Spiegelman tells the story of a young prince who finds out he doesn't have to change the thing he likes best about himself in "Prince Rooster." And Harry Bliss's "The Baker's Daughter" finds out the hard way that she shouldn't be stingy.

Walt Kelly's 1943 "The Gingerbread Man" gives today's kids a taste of the comic books of yesteryear. There are even activities, like Charles Burns's "Spookyland" and Bruce McCall's silly "What's Wrong with this Picture?" But the very best part of the whole wonderful package is the hilarious game included on the endpapers. It's called "Fairy Tale Road Rage," and it's beautifully illustrated with the exquisite, nostalgic art of Chris Ware (Jimmy Corrigan). Players race to complete a silly story. Bedtime was never better! (All ages) --Therese Littleton

Big Fat Little Lit (Picture Puffin Books)

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

There's No Knocking This Pup's Pedigree 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 6 people found this review helpful.

Let's say that you've heard of the "Little Lit" books, edited by Art Spiegelman and his wife Francoise Mouly, but that you've never actually gone so far as to pick one up. Let us also say, while we are at it, that you are aware of the massive loads of talent that have gone into the series, but that this was still not quite enough to draw you in. Well, my lovelies, I have an answer for you. Like yourself, I somehow managed to catch a snatch of a comic strip here or a lovingly drawn panel there without actually sitting down and reading the "Little Lit" books cover to cover. Then, out of the bright blue sky, "Big Fat Little Lit" falls into my lap. So I read it through with not a little skepticism. Truth be told, I've always suspected that the books were written for adults rather than children. You can cast a book in a childish shell and claim your artists are working with the younger set in mind but will kids actually read what you create? Slowly I've come to the conclusion that yes, there is definitely an audience for this series that is under the age of 21. Still, if you're gonna hand them a "Little Lit" collection, better to go for the best. Give them a compendium of selected past works. Give them "Big Fat Little Lit", the best of the best, and save yourself some time.

Behold before you thirty-six comics created by thirty-three "of the world's most beloved authors and artists", or so says the backflap. Compiled from parts of the three "Little Lit" collections already in existence (with some extra goodies for spice) "Big Fat Little Lit" has it all. Ghouls and fools and fables both traditional and with a twist all working together to fill this 144 page beauty. You'll find old classics like Crockett Johnson's, "Barnaby" alongside all new tales by people as varied as Daniel Clowes or David Macaulay. The result is eye-popping jaw-dropping assortment of stories of varying styles and macabre natures. Puzzles too pop up between comics that can range anywhere between one to nine pages.

The sheer weight of celebrity is both a boon and an drag on enterprises like "Little Lit". On the one hand, adults like me are bound to go gaga over the luminaries who've worked on this puppy. Where else can you find David Sedaris working with Ian Falconer (outside of The New Yorker, of course)? Neil Gaiman and Gahan Wilson? Heck, forget the pairings. They have two William Joyce offerings, Maurice Sendak unleashed, Jules Feiffer, and God knows who else. Illustrators that work primarily in the realm of children's books like Barbara McClintok pair with kid-only authors like Lemony Snicket (as opposed to Daniel Handler, of course). Most impressive to my eyes (and proof that I never examined the original collection it appeared in closely enough) is a Walt Kelly piece. Publishers out there might do very well if they were to republish Kelly's non-Pogo related fairy tales in a compendium, seeing as how they work so nicely here and all. So that's on the one hand. On the other hand, it's sometimes hard not to get the feeling that child readers sometimes come across as a secondary concern. Since Spiegelman and Mouly founded "RAW", the alternative comics magazine, is it fair to think of this as a slightly watered down version of that magazine's material? Or is it its own separate beastie? I can answer the question of whether or not any kid is reading this collection, but nothing's simple.

I once worked in a Greenwich Village library where I would proudly display the first collection of "Little Lit" on the top of my bookshelves where it was easy to pluck and check out. No takers. That book sat solitary and untouched for weeks on end. At the time I blamed the publication itself. Then I moved to a different library branch. In my new location I created a Graphic Novel shelf and put the exact same publication there, visible for all to see. Within mere minutes that puppy flew off the shelf. What I deduce from all of this (aside from the average Greenwich Village native's reluctance to disturb book displays) is that if you put "Little Lit" out there without any explanation, the viewing public isn't going to know what to do with it. They've slowly been acclimated to the idea of what a graphic novel is, sure. But thrust something with pages the size of dinner mats in their face and they go all to pieces. Is it a picture book? A comic book? Fairy tales? So my advice to you is to make it crystal clear to people that this is a beastie like no other. No, it's not really a graphic novel. But if you put it under that heading then at least people will have some kind of a context to work with.

But do CHILDREN read it? I direct you, in this case, to a conversation I had just today. I spoke to a homeschooler and her mother who were recently in my library, and the subject of graphic novels came up. When I mentioned "Little Lit" in passing, the two lit up. Apparently the girl was given the first collection when she was two and has been read them ever since at bedtime. Hearing this I was, to put it mildly, stunned. Then a co-worker informed me that her son likes the books because he likes fairy tales and he likes comics. Apparently the only way he can justify reading the one is if it is combined with the other. It bears some thought. I think that another reason that "Big Fat Little Lit" succeeds where its predecessors merely did okay is that due to the sheer volume of twisted puzzles, games, and I Spy-like ventures, this book can sit down and seriously court fans of "Highlights" everywhere.

The collection doesn't contain all the past "Little Lit" ventures, which is logical. I was very very sad, however, to see that Chris Ware didn't make the cut. His "Fairy Tale Road Rage" board game is not included, much to the chagrin of my Ware-lovin' heart. Still, I was able to come to terms with his disappearance. Then I was perturbed by the reduced size of the individual comics in this book. Overall I think it was a very wise choice to reduce the size of "Little Lit". The large size of the earlier collections, while they evoke the comic pages of our youth, are bulky and hard to fit on personal and public bookshelves. Unfortunately with this new size we now face a problem that comic artists face nationwide whenever a newspaper wants to fit in more copy. Small panels can sometimes crush otherwise perfectly nice reading matter rendering it difficult to see. In general this isn't a noticeable problem until you come to Barbara McClintock's, "The Princess and the Pea". McClintock's delicate lines and meticulous details have been scrunched and shrunken down so far in this book that the reader definitely loses something in the process. Ah well.

Now if your child/neice/nephew/grandchild/what-have-you already owns one of the "Little Lit" collections (or all of them, for that matter) then perhaps this gift might come across as a tad repetitive. Then again, there is new material to be found here that you could not locate elsewhere. Did I mention to you that the talents of Martin Handford are utilized here? Don't know who Handforth is? Does the name "Where's Waldo" mean anything to you? Aw yeah, baby. He's here and he is, as the blurb on the back of this book states in general, "in top form". By and large, I'm a skeptic when it comes to this many sophisticates pooling their talents to bring small children joy. All that aside, this is undoubtedly my favorite "Little Lit" of the lot and is undoubtedly THE best way to enjoy the series. If you're gonna give a kid some comics, make `em read "Big Fat Little Lit". I seriously doubt it'll take much prodding.

Editorial Review:

New in paperback for the very first time comes the New York Times bestselling Little Lit series! Choice comic stories culled from the three bestselling comic collections edited by Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly: Little Lit: Once Upon a Time, Little Lit: Strange Stories for Strange Kids, and Little Lit: It Was a Dark and Silly Night. The gorgeous paperback features flaps and beautifully reproduced full-color interiors. Hilarious and charming, the collection contains comics from such award-winning and bestselling authors and artists as Harry Bliss, Daniel Clowes, Ian Falconer, Jules Feiffer, Neil Gaiman, Crockett Johnson, Barbara McClintock, David Sedaris, J. Otto Seibold, Maurice Sendak, Lemony Snicket, and Art Spiegelman.

Strange Stories for Strange Kids (Little Lit, Book 2)

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Editors Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly have packed so much top-notch talent into this flabbergastingly funny all-ages comic collection that you'll have a terrible time deciding what to read first. Just as with the previous Little Lit book, Folklore & Fairy Tale Funnies, you'll find some of the most hilarious, intelligent, and diverse short comics around inside these pages: Maurice Sendak's omnivorous infant gobbles up everything in sight in "Cereal Baby Keller"; David Sedaris pairs up with Ian Falconer to define true cuteness; "Where's Waldo?" creator Martin Handford searches for old socks; Paul Auster (yes, that Paul Auster) and Jacques de Loustal's offering follows a man who's found he's disappeared; Crockett Johnson (Harold and the Purple Crayon) brings back the beginning of his classic '40s strip, "Barnaby" (a favorite of Duke Ellington and Dorothy Parker, among others); and Spiegelman himself takes on "The Several Selves of Selby Sheldrake." And that's not even the half of it. This downright quirky collection will charm comic fans of all ages--and, no doubt, make fans out of those who weren't already. Even the endpapers are funny, thanks to Kaz of "Underworld." (All ages after 9 or so) --Paul Hughes

Little Lit: It Was a Dark and Silly Night...

Art Spiegelman, Francoise Mouly

List Price: $19.99 By: Joanna Cotler Amazon Marketplace: 33 new & used starting at $6.95

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Maus creator Art Spiegelman and art editor of The New Yorker Françoise Mouly created a gorgeous splash with their deliciously oversized comic art collections Little Lit and Strange Stories for Strange Kids. In their latest compilation It Was a Dark and Silly Night... fans will find darkly delightful comics by Lemony Snicket and Richard Sala, William Joyce, Neil Gaiman and Gahan Wilson, J. Otto Seibold and Vivian Walsh, Carlos Nine, Kaz, and more. The editors asked this talented crew of cartoonists, novelists, and children's book illustrators and authors to begin a story "It was a dark and silly night." Lemony Snicket took "silly" to stand for "Somewhat Intelligent, Largely Laconic Yeti." William Joyce tells the story of "Art Aimesworth, boy crimefighter and all around whiz-kid" who attempts to isolate Giggle-illium, the long-searched-for silly atom. Neil Gaiman begins his dark and silly night with "a light and grumpy afternoon." Kaz spins the tale of a bizarre upside-down family that only rights itself when a gas explosion blows the house up, in both senses. As with the other Little Lit collections, readers will be amazed, amused, baffled, turned upside-down and righted again, all in the course of a happy afternoon of browsing. (All ages over 9 or so) --Karin Snelson