Amazon.com Review
Ages 8 & up. The first children's book both written and illustrated by cartoonist Feiffer is a funny, poignant and profoundly insightful look at the inner life of an artist, who also happens to be a young boy. Jimmy Jibbett loves drawing cartoons and hopes to be great some day--but first he must cope with a lack of privacy, a father who wishes he liked sports instead of drawing, a popular older boy who pressures him to sell out and his own urge to give up when he's failing. Just when Jimmy's starting to think that he's "doomed to be as much a flop as a cartoonist as he was as a boy," he finds a way to look at failure in a new light. In a starred review,
Booklist called it "wickedly funny... reminiscent of Roald Dahl's edgy lampoons." In another starred review,
Publishers Weekly declared it "one of the best books of the year."
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
From Publishers Weekly
Feiffer--the noted cartoonist and playwright, and the illustrator of The Phantom Tollbooth --makes his debut as a children's author with a witty story that combines a comfortably oldfangled tone with up-to-the-minute characterizations and a playful use of graphics. Jimmy daydreams through classes and bungles the plays on the school ballfield; at home, he wishes his father would pay more attention to him, and he dodges his tantrum-prone older sister and his equally troublesome if adoring younger sister. All the while he devotes himself to making comic books, inventing superheroes and casting them in adventures. Then Charley Beemer, a prodigally popular older boy, starts supplying Jimmy with ideas, commissioning him to do a series that Jimmy finds revolting and that points up Jimmy's fatal flaw--his inability to draw hands. Expressive pen-and-ink illustrations of gangly figures and playfully ingenuous "examples" of Jimmy's comics enhance the ripe comedy at the same time that they underscore the intensity of Jimmy's feelings. Conveyed with such verve, Feiffer's age-old message about following one's own vision seems almost brand-new. Ages 8-12.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
