For Sale: One Brother

Elizabeth St. Jacques is the author of Echoes All Strung Out and
Survivors: The Great Depression, 1929-1939.

Patti Stren’s full-color artwork explodes from this large hardcover
book like nonstop fireworks. Each page has one or more illustrations
(cartoon drawings integrated with rubber stamps) that are peppered
heavily with wisecracking notes and exclamations (the book having to be
turned this way, that way, and upside down to read them). As a result,
the written story plays second fiddle to the artwork’s blaring buzzes,
varooms, and pows.

Amid all this hullabaloo, a very simple story unfolds. Molly, who has
just had a birthday, puts up a handmade sign on her apartment
building’s laundry room door, offering to sell her pesky 4-year-old
brother. When her mother discovers it, Molly serves punishment for a
week by having to spend every spare moment with David, who has a pet
worm, plays a “LOUD, LOUDER, and EVEN LOUDER” trombone, and engages
in other nerve-wracking activities. By the end of the week, Molly has
reached the end of her rope and disowns David. When he temporarily
disappears, Molly realizes (a little too quickly) what a large and
important part of her life her little brother really is. Thereafter, she
is an overly affectionate big sister.

There’s no doubt that Stren knows how children think, act, and speak,
and the author writes well, but the story is too simple and the cartoon
humor too slippery for children over 7. On the other hand, older
children will have a great howl over the wild and wacky illustrations.
Recommended with reservations.