The New Yorker Book of Kids Cartoons: And the People Who Live with Them

We've had this book for 4 1/2 years (someone with a wry sense of humor gifted it to us when our daughter was born) and it still makes us laugh everytime we flip it open. It's a great gift for new parents or for someone who marries into an existing family with young kids.

Kids really do say outlandish things! They have a knack for making an honest comment at the most inopportune time. The cartoons depicted here are so true to life that parents, particularly, will be able to relate only too well to what these kids have to say. Each page is filled with plenty of chuckles and laughs that are sure to remind you of things your own child has said in years gone by. The best qualities of the book are the realism and candid honesty which comes so openly from the mouth of a child.

Before reviewing this book, let me note that the cartoons contain several examples of foul language. If such things offend you, skip those pages or the book. I have read all of The New Yorker collections of subject-oriented cartoons, and found this collection to be by far the funniest one! The average quality of each cartoon is unusually good, as well. While many of the other collections either lack introductions or have limited, lame ones, this collection is anchored by a superb introduction.As Roz Chast points on in her witty, illustrated introduction, "kids actually do say the darndest things." So do their parents. Ms. Chast's introduction is the best one I have ever read for a book of cartoons. She touches on the subject from the perspective of having been a child, reading The New Yorker for the cartoons as a child, being a cartoonist looking for ideas, and as a parent. She sees the family as a Bottomless Pit. You will learn the details about the day she threw a hot dog and said an off-color word The volume contains 11 cartoons by her among the 126 in the book. The volume has an appropriately heavy dose of the brilliant work of Robert Weber (14), Barbara Smalls (8), Lee Lorens (7), and Jack Ziegler (7).The humor typically builds by having kids saying what adults would, or vice versa. Other themes include having grown-up children speaking as though they were still 2 or 3, and anthropomorphizing animals with human speech. Some of the best work well simply with the gag lines . . . and then are enhanced by the cartoon. My favorite example of this is "I guess we'd be considered a family. We live together, we love each other, and we haven't eaten the children yet." The cartoon shows lots of guppies swimming a fish bowl. Some of the humor is bittersweet, especially when it touches on divorce. Two small children in nursery school are working at a table. One turns to the other and asks, "So, what's your custody deal?" Some of the most original offerings are those that take a female perspective where many will not have considered before. For instance, a mother and young daughter are looking out of an office window at a factory. "Someday, sweetheart, all of this will belong to your ex-husband and his attorney." In another one, a little girl tells her father, "I love you too, Daddy, but it just kills me that you're a man." Parents also turn themselves in for their follies. A child is reading and looks over at his father watching television and asks, "Dad, can you read?" One of the up-to-date offerings has a child annoying his father wondering when they will get there. But the twist is that the child is asking his questions from the back seat of an SUV using a cell phone. Parent-teacher communications are hysterically translated. "Creative" becomes "Not too bright." "He's doing fine" becomes "What's your kid's name again?" After you finish enjoying this fine volume, I suggest that you think about how you can relieve the stre