A passionate, persuasive, and perceptive case for embracing children’s fiction—at any age.
An acclaimed children’s book author calls on adult readers to hold fast to childish things.
All too aware that kid lit is routinely dismissed (Martin Amis once said in an interview that he’d consider writing a children’s book only if he had a “serious brain injury”), Rundell has penned a rousing, essay-length defense of children’s fiction. While many explorations of the topic focus on how these titles benefit young people, however, this one argues that it’s just as crucial that adults read them, too. She offers a brief history of children’s literature, naming the mid-19th century as its golden age—a time when “children’s fiction began to take the actual desires of children into account.” Though kid lit, especially the didactic fare written centuries ago, has often set out to teach concrete lessons, Rundell wants grown-ups to emerge with a sense of imagination, of play, but also with a keen realization of what it feels like to be vulnerable; she perceptively notes that kid lit is aimed at members of society devoid of political power. Above all, kid lit offers readers hope and joy. The author blends a scholar’s deep knowledge with the ardor of a reader still in love with young people’s literature. Although she writes with great affection for her subject, she never romanticizes children’s books or childhood itself; she’s well aware that kids are capable of selfishness and cruelty—and that the best literature recognizes young people’s darker impulses. Nor is she a literary purist. In a section on fairy tales, she muses on what a new version of “Cinderella” might look like, perhaps one in which the title character, literally or figuratively, consumes her own fairy godmother. Rundell closes by not only acknowledging that there are many who would shame adults for revisiting these books, but also by urging her readers to ignore the naysayers. “Refuse unflinchingly to be embarrassed, and in exchange you get the second star to the right, and straight on till morning.” Readers would do well to follow suit.
A passionate, persuasive, and perceptive case for embracing children’s fiction—at any age.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2026
ISBN: 9798217230747
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2026
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
Sedaris at his darkest—and his best.
In which the veteran humorist enters middle age with fine snark but some trepidation as well.
Mortality is weighing on Sedaris (Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977-2002, 2017, etc.), much of it his own, professional narcissist that he is. Watching an elderly man have a bowel accident on a plane, he dreaded the day when he would be the target of teenagers’ jokes “as they raise their phones to take my picture from behind.” A skin tumor troubled him, but so did the doctor who told him he couldn’t keep it once it was removed. “But it’s my tumor,” he insisted. “I made it.” (Eventually, he found a semitrained doctor to remove and give him the lipoma, which he proceeded to feed to a turtle.) The deaths of others are much on the author’s mind as well: He contemplates the suicide of his sister Tiffany, his alcoholic mother’s death, and his cantankerous father’s erratic behavior. His contemplation of his mother’s drinking—and his family’s denial of it—makes for some of the most poignant writing in the book: The sound of her putting ice in a rocks glass increasingly sounded “like a trigger being cocked.” Despite the gloom, however, frivolity still abides in the Sedaris clan. His summer home on the Carolina coast, which he dubbed the Sea Section, overspills with irreverent bantering between him and his siblings as his long-suffering partner, Hugh, looks on. Sedaris hasn’t lost his capacity for bemused observations of the people he encounters. For example, cashiers who say “have a blessed day” make him feel “like you’ve been sprayed against your will with God cologne.” But bad news has sharpened the author’s humor, and this book is defined by a persistent, engaging bafflement over how seriously or unseriously to take life when it’s increasingly filled with Trump and funerals.
Sedaris at his darkest—and his best.Pub Date: May 29, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-316-39238-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
PROFILES
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
