BANG

Silly results turn a multivehicle accident into a street party in this onomatopoeic import.

Spread-filling iterations of the title or a long screech appearing at every other page turn prompt young audiences to chime in on the noise. It all starts when a deer driving a yellow roadster while reading (a book, not a cellphone) hits a garbage can (“BANG”), then takes a rear-end hit from a hog driving a truck full of chickens (“BANG”) who become festooned with fashion accessories after a collision (“BANG”) with the giraffe on the way home from the store, and so on. Subsequent tailgating motorists shower the growing chaos with tires, fish, veggies, little bunnies, paint and, in a climactic four-page foldout panorama, ice cream. Just to give the escalating catastrophe/frolic a more surreal air, Timmers wildly exaggerates his animal cast’s features and expressions and adds high-sheen highlights to the surfaces of his brightly colored, sharply defined scenes. Carping critics and motor-safety wonks may be displeased to see all of the victims laughing at the way their flying cargoes end up adorning all and sundry. The violence here is strictly cartoon-style though, with no harm done and ice cream for all at the end.

A cautionary tale on the hazards of distracted driving? If anything, just the opposite, but it’s sure a lot of fun.