The Littlest Hitler: Stories

This book contains some very original stories like a serial killer going to his son's elementary school to explain what he does for a living or an 18-year-old getting a letter from Uncle Sam saying he has to murder his parents. My only complaint is that some stories don't take the premise far enough. For example, in the title story a child dresses up as Hitler on Halloween. Instead of following through, the author has the child feel guilty and take off the costume. But all in all these were entertaining stories. I look forward to seeing more.

I am working on the 7th story from this book, which I couldn't put it down at all today. After reading some of the bad reviews of this book, I decided to add my two cents. This book is for free thinkers that can grasp a witty weirdo grip on this pseudo-reality marvel. I think there's a small part of me that can actually see some of these things happening, especially with such an uncertain future and shaky time right now. I was shocked by a few of the stories and the twist that ran through them and I thought to myself, what type of person could think of such absurd stories and be able to produce a book out of them? Maybe he's a little mad or insane but some of the best writers were also insane. This is a great easy read that takes you way out of your element and great for free thinkers and semi-conspiracy theorist. I recommend this book for anyone who wants to escape reality.

Ryan Boudinot writes so well in The Littlest Hitler that you often forget you're being taken for a satirical ride. Robin Williams with a Shakespearean Troupe. Olivier with pig bladder. Theodore Dreiser with a fake arrow through his head. Camus and Costello. You get the point by now. I would give it five stars but that would only incite the prissy among us to try to find fault. Of which there is precious little in this fantastic book.

I'd never heard of this guy and almost didn't pick up the book due to its awkward cover, but boy was I glad I did. Boudinot has written some of the most entertaining short fiction I've come across in quite a while. This isn't your pitch-perfect Raymond Carver, John Cheever stuff, nor is it unreadable experimentalist riffing. Rather, this is somewhat skewed, oddball storytelling that gets a little nerdy without ever getting too precious or angsty or anything like that. I guess the closest comparison I would make in tone is to some of music writer Chuck Klosterman's better essays. About half of the stories occupy a fairly realistic everyday American landscape -- albeit one in which very strange things happen. A good sense of the collection's tone can be found in the title story, in which a 9-year-old boy with a clueless single father is inspired by too much History Channel to dress up as Hitler for Halloween. Maligned by adults and classmates (including the class belle, who is costumed as Anne Frank), he struggles to understand what the fuss about his outfit is since, as he puts it, Hitler was "a really, really mean guy", and therefore, perfectly suitable as a Halloween monster. The story ends with a bang on the last line, as does the following one, "On Sex and Relationships." This story satirizes a pair of wealthy Seattle dot-com yuppie couples whose friendship has drifted a little over the course of a year. Boudinot effortlessly creates a millennial-era"Big Chill" vibe and again ends things with a killer last line. "The Flautist" follows a flute player who works for a factory studio operation and plays a flute owned by Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull fame. It starts with a great first line ("I can really bust **** out on a flute.") and goes on to describe an atypical day in his life. Perhaps the strongest story is "So Litttle Time", about a trio of boys who work as field laborers one summer in order to save up money to go to a Dr. Who convention. One of them is trailer-park poor, which leads to some interesting situations and a vivid ending. Other stories are set in a world very much like our own, but with crucial fabulist twists, many of which involve some seriously dark humor and violence. For example, "Bee Beard", is a pretty straightforward deadpan office farce driven by the conceit that a woman come to work draped with a beard of live bees. The two parts of "Blood Relatives" are Tales From The Crypt-like takes on classic American suburban parents. Without spoiling the surprise and fun, I'll just say that the key word in the title is "blood"... The story "Containment" would be a straightforward portrait of blue-collar workers at a frozen food factory were it not for the fact that one of the workers is a zombie. The premise of "Civilization" is that some teenagers are selected to kill their parents in order to maintain population control, and the story takes us through one such selectee's pregame jitters. "The Sales Team" is, as the first parag