THE BOMB THAT FOLLOWED ME HOME

In Soling’s picture book for adults, a schoolboy adopts a stray bomb.

The first-person narrator, a boy in the mold of Martin Handford’s Where’s Wally?/Where’s Waldo?is walking home one day when he finds himself shadowed by a fuse-lit bomb. This central piece of whimsy—a stray bomb in place of a stray dog—gives way to what seems a lengthy digression (five double-page spreads) about the boy’s crotchety old neighbors, the Greenspans. Upon arriving home, the boy tries to convince his parents to let him keep the bomb. His mom says no (“A bomb is a big responsibility”), so they try to give the bomb to the right authorities, or at least to a good home. In the end—a deliciously dark twist that takes place off-page—they give it to the Greenspans. Soling writes in a conversational style with droll, rather deadpan delivery. Though presented as a picture book, the tale is more akin to an adult parody of that genre. Certainly, some children might not get the humor (“Why, some crazed anarchist is probably worried sick wondering where his bomb is”). Mrs. Greenspan is a formidable mean neighbor, portrayed with a Roald Dahl–esque gleefulness: “Mrs. Greenspan saw me and began shrieking incomprehensibly, as usual. ‘Bluagh!!! Urgoakjfa! Rougaujklb!!!’ she raged. I had little difficulty translating her gibberish as it was a dialect of babble that I had learned from my teachers at school.” Passages like this place the text—and its implied ending—in the realm not so much of malicious irresponsibility, but rather of daydreaming flights of fancy, an impression furthered by Kille’s wobbly, intricate illustrations. These have an appropriately raw feel to them, and make effective use of dark hues and inky textures. Readers who enjoy Soling and Kille’s approach will be pleased to learn that the current title is just one of several in the Rumpleville Chronicles series.

A clever and entertaining gallows-humor satire.