Goblins

Rating:
Summary: most Beautiful Pop-up book I've ever seen
Review: I found this book at a thrift store and just had to buy it! The Illustrations are great, typical of Brian Froud of course, and the pop-ups are fun. There are few words, as it is written for young children, but the story is told more with the pictures anyway. If you can find this book in good shape, with all the pop-ups intact, snatch it up!

Rating:
Summary: most Beautiful Pop-up book I've ever seen
Review: I found this book at a thrift store and just had to buy it! The Illustrations are great, typical of Brian Froud of course, and the pop-ups are fun. There are few words, as it is written for young children, but the story is told more with the pictures anyway. If you can find this book in good shape, with all the pop-ups intact, snatch it up!

Rating:
Summary: Review of "The Sticky Sandwich"
Review: Purchased and read at great personal peril, I am glad that I took the risk to obtain this book as it is the ultimate weapon against anxiety, stress, and general bad moods caused by life in urban America. One need only pick up "Goblins!" and open it to any page to be granted a glimpse into the special world of these creatures, thanks to the brave efforts of Fraud-face and Berk-head, I mean Brian Froud and Dr. Ari Berk. This deliciously irreverent book is a must-have for anyone who has ever read a fairy tale, watched a scary movie, had the water gone cold during the shower, lost a sock and found a wire hanger, swallowed sour milk by mistake... in short, lived through the normal trials of daily life.

The book is chock-full of details about goblins -- not just biographies of the devious creatures -- but a deeper look at their culture (holidays, games, personal relationships, guilds and social structure); in short, the collaborators have done their homework and shine forth as the leading ethnographers of the faerie world. Along with "The Runes of Elfland," these two books are an exquisite fusion of Froud's deeply evocative art and Berk's incredibly clever and literate prose.

P.S. Dis nice reevue but dat's not troo wot she say bout Fraud-face 'n Berk-head. Dey not gud pitures dey not gud wurdz. ok mebbe some pitures ok. Oh. dis not dat pop-up booke dat Fraud-face did long time ago. Eat cheeze when reeding dis booke. Make marks on da pages. dis gud ting to do.



Rating:
Summary: Cheese! Cheese in the deeps! They are coming!
Review: With a scientific rigour that is second to none and only matched in enthusiasm, perhaps, by the Muppet Labs, Ari Berk and Brian Froud set out to unearth the truth about the goblins (err, Goblins!) that infest our refrigerators, our pets, the spaces between our sofa cushions and in fact, our very lives. Yes, it's a lofty undertaking but who better than Professor Berk (latest in a distinguished if somewhat squelchy line of curators of the Lady Cottington archives) and the artistically forceful if not yet forcibly restrained Froud to narrate and illustrate the effort. They may not be Holmes and Watson, but they're a lot funnier.

Among the contents so minutely examined are the goblin's holiday Almanack; a field guide to goblin types, with portraits and principal characteristics; and vast amounts of ill-assorted notes about goblins at play and, uh, play. There are also a few astonishing photographs (realized in the end by the long-suffering Mme. Froud) presented with date, time, and cheese conditions; a partial transcription of the ancient and largely apocryphal Codex Goblinensis; and the pearl beyond price: how to know if you have goblins (you do).

If you're looking for the delicate mysteries of "The Runes of Elfland", you're on the wrong page. If you're looking for fun and more surprises than you expect to find even in a completely mad, outrageously well-illustrated and delightfully written large-format volume, you're totally in the right place. Oh, and don't mind the cover. It's a little sticky. Some of the pages are upside down, and goblin graffiti is everywhere. But that's all right. As soon as you're willing to leave the house in their care, it will get worse. But at least you'll know why!