Jules Feiffer

Like all great artists and authors, Jules Feiffer was not a fully formed world-class creator until he’d composed a children’s book. Remember that E.B. White, his brilliant colleague and contemporary at The New Yorker, didn’t really gild his impeccable reputation until he’d composed Charlotte’s Web. This rite of passage separating the great from the legendary is now a truism. Everyone from Garrison Keillor to Maya Angelou has put pen to paper on behalf of the pre-school set. And while this is often an exercise in pretension and self-congratulation, Feiffer has been creating award-winning children’s books since 1993. His new book, By the Side of the Road, explores the cliché of the classic family road trip in which an irate dad asks the kids to behave or he’ll leave them on the shoulder. One of them takes Dad up on the threat, and spends the rest of his life right there where Dad left him, growing up by the side of the road. We sense this one’s bound for immortality like Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree, or Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are. Barnes & Noble, Edina (952) 920-1060


Posted

in

by

Tags:

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.