Ogre Fun

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian studies at
Concordia University, and the author of Kurlek, Margaret Laurence: The
Long Journey Home, and As Though Life Mattered: Leo Kennedy’s Story.

Fans of Loris Lesynski’s first picture book, Boy Soup, may think it
unbeatable, but Ogre Fun exhibits the same imaginative energy and
rollicking sense of fun.

As the story opens, a bored tribe of ogres are hesitant to continue
attacking other creatures, for fear of “catching something awful
back,” like hiccups or itches. Young Gronny sets off to find for his
tribe something safe to scare. He happens upon some little
creatures—boys and girls playing baseball. Unfortunately for Gronny,
the kid on second base is yawning, so Gronny takes back explosive and
bottomless yawns to his tribe. The clan is devastated. They’ve never
seen yawning before, and once caught it’s uncontrollable. The ogres
cannot stop yawning.

Gronny returns to the children to find the cure. The sight of him
peering through a window at bedtime prompts the children to scream.
Screaming turns out to be the cure for yawning, and the ogres’ new
“song.” The tale is told in rhyme, in four-line verses.

The ogre features were inspired, the author tells us, by rotten turnips
and sour pickles. Despite their greenish hue, bulbous noses, and
monstrous yawns, the ogres are unmistakably human. Ogre Fun is fun for
children and adults alike. Highly recommended.