Bark, George
A Poem in Praise of Jules Feiffer and for my friend, rand
(cross-posted to
Instapoem)
1.
There's a picture book I really like called
Bark, George.
It's written and illustrated by Jules Feiffer.
If you know anything about Feiffer, you probably suspect that the book is a little unusual.
Another great but unusual book written by Norton Juster and illustrated by Feiffer is called the
Phantom Tollbooth.
I like it, and so does my eleven year old son, Michal.
2.
In the book, George is a dog who has a little trouble barking.
So, his mother takes him to the vet to get the problem looked at.
The vet says, "bark, George," and, instead, he meows.
So, the vet puts on a glove, reaches inside George's mouth, and pulls out a cat.
They try it again, and George makes another, non-barking noise, and the vet pulls out another animal.
The last sound George makes is moo, and the vet pulls out a cow.
Even after all that, there's still a surprise ending.
3.
Feiffer has also written some other pictures books that are quite good.
One of them I got from the library recently is about a
dog with no tail.
Like Bark, George, it certainly is a book with an original sense of humor.
For example, at one point in the story, the dog finds something to use as a tail, but it doesn't wag.
The dog finds a wagon maker, and asks him to make it wag.
When the wagon maker says he can't do that, the dog looks for another solution.
He goes to battery park and puts a battery in the tail and that makes it wag.
4.
Feiffer has a new book out called
My Side of the Car.
He made the book with his daughter, which I think is a nice thing.
Another author, Bernard Waber, did the same thing recently.
Starting in the sixties, he made a series of books about
Lyle the crocodile.
Lyle is a good natured crocodile who lives on the upper East side of Manhattan.
Waber and his daughter, Paulis, did another book about Lyle, recently.
This one is called
Lyle Walks the Dogs.
My daughter, Marta, and I both like this one.
Marta also likes Bark, George and Feiffer's book about the dog with no tail.
She's only in first grade, so she's a little young for the Phantom Tollbooth.
