Boy reading a book with a tiny green creature, his booger, reading with him.
Hilarious nonfiction picture books can be hard to find.
Gentle, amusing, sweet. It’s a lot easier to find nonfiction picture books that fit those descriptions.
But rollicking, silly, laugh-out-loud nonfiction picture books are rare.
William Joyce has provided just such a rare duck with his “sorta” memoir about the first book he wrote. At the beginning of the book, we meet Billy, a misfit but enthusiastic schoolchild. He happily embraces his eccentricities until his failure to win a prize in a book-writing contest suggests to him that his unique talents are not of use in the world.
Until he discovers that the winners of the contest remain on the library shelf while his own zany, irreverent book is constantly checked out.
The book is full of Joyce’s distinctive art. The book Billy writes is bound inside the book. The pages of Billy’s book are not only a different size than all the other pages of the book but are also a different texture than the rest of the book.
So why are funny nonfiction picture books so rare? Maybe because it’s hard to laugh at significant moments from the past? Maybe because funny moments are less likely to be preserved in the historical record? Maybe because we nonfiction picture book writers are just not very funny?
I’m not sure why, but I’m glad–as will be many, many children–that William Joyce ventured to this side of the fiction/nonfiction divide.
Billy’s Booger: A Memoir (sorta), by William Joyce (Moonbot Books: 2015).