And Now For Something Completely Different

I discovered Highly Inappropriate Tales for Young People at my local public library and it gave me new respect for librarians. Who could have guessed their taste to be so eclectic and irreverent as to choose a book so completely true to its title.
Author Douglas Copeland has come a long way since Shampoo Planet and his pairing with illustrator Graham Roumieu is a marriage made in heaven--if your idea of heaven is a bulimic bacchanalian fest of rudeness and gore.
Stories include Sandra, the Truly Dreadful Babysitter who turns her charges into shoplifters and arsonists. (Isn't that precisely why they invented nannycams?) Mr. Fraser, the Undead Substitute Teacher convinces his students to submit essays on their tastiest classmate with graphically hilarious results. And I must admit I'm tempted to read Donald, the Incredibly Hostile Juice Box to my seven year old nieces who would roll around on the floor with glee but no doubt, in their parents' eyes, that would turn me into Sandra.
Roumieu--whom readers will recognize from cartoons for the Globe and Mail--is a genius, no less than the Edward Gorey of our times. Tales is undoubtably geared towards the same fanbase as The Gashlycrumb Tinies and Roumieu's own Bigfoot books, written in deliciously bad taste.
It will make you laugh until you pee. Definitely not for kids or their parents.

                                      What more could you want than a dog, a book and a blog?