by Raymond Briggs
Kliban the cat man and Shel Silverstein have for years turned out children's books that were notably (1) in bad taste and (2) very funny. With this work, however, Briggs establishes himself as the master of the revolting children's story. His bogeymen are those unseen fiends whose mission it is to make pipes rattle at night, wake up sleeping babies and give people boils. At home they relax by reading books like Yaws and Bengal Rot and admiring still lifes of rotten fruit. They eat flies and drink slime, and they invariably wear wet underwear, damp woolly clothes and soggy leather jackets. Briggs, known best for an irreverent book about Santa Claus (Father Christmas), was a source of outrage in Britain when this book was published there last year; the Times of London called it "a vivid and truly vile creation." There are indeed some sickening bits in it. Fungus grows on you, though—as when he's having a career crisis and muses, "Steady job...No prospects...but then what are the prospects for Bogeymen?" Anyway, someone has to teach kids to be perverse at some point. (Random House, $4.95)
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