Benny's Brigade

by Arthur Bradford, Lisa Hanawalt (Illustrator)

Overview

At recess one day, sisters Elsie and Theo spy a nut wiggling on the ground. Out pops Benny—the world’s smallest and most gentlemanly walrus. After the girls learn that Benny misses his home in the sea, they send him sailing in a milk-carton boat, along with a trusty band of adventure-seeking slugs. Together, Benny’s Brigade (as they call themselves) begin their voyage to a truck-sized island paradise, avoiding the salt water as much as they can. Slugs don’t like salt.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781936365616
Publisher:	McSweeney's Publishing
Publication date:	08/07/2012
Pages:	48
Product dimensions:	11.90(w) x 9.60(h) x 0.60(d)
Lexile:	AD900L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Arthur Bradford is an O. Henry Award winning writer and filmmaker. His writing has appeared in Esquire, McSweeney's, Vice, Zoetrope, Men's Journal, and many other publications. His first book, Dogwalker, was published by Knopf in 2001 and Vintage paperback in 2002. It has been translated into nine languages.

Bradford is also the creator and director of the acclaimed "How's Your News?" documentary series, versions of which have been broadcast on HBO/Cinemax, PBS, and Channel Four England. Most recently Bradford developed the concept into a series for MTV which ran throughout 2009. He has also directed several shorts and music videos.

Bradford lives in Portland, Oregon and serves as co-director of Camp Jabberwocky, the nation's longest running residential summer camp for people with disabilities.

Lisa Hanawalt lives in Brooklyn and was born and raised in Palo Alto, CA. She got an art degree at UCLA in 2006. She has received multiple awards for her comic books (2009 Ignatz Award for Outstanding Mini-Comic and 2010 Ignatz Award for Outstanding Comic) and is pretty good at mimicking the sounds of animals.

Clients and publications include: The NY Times, Chronicle Books, Vice Magazine, McSweeney’s, The Believer, Arthur Magazine, Motion Theory, LA Weekly, and Teefury.

Editorial Reviews

Bradford and Hanawalt make their children’s book debut with a slow, surreal outdoor adventure that begins when sisters Elsie and Theo discover a “strange nut wiggling on the ground” as they walk to school. Stranger still, when they pry it open, they find a miniature walrus named Benny inside. “I really don’t know how it happened,” he tells them. Benny accompanies the sisters to school, but longs to return to the ocean. The girls and their classmates build him a vessel from a milk carton, complete with a crew of “three healthy, fat slugs, ready for adventure.” Hanawalt capitalizes on the plot’s inherent oddness in neatly drafted panoramas dotted with solemn-looking insects, lizards, frogs, and elaborately plumed birds—readers may suspect that Benny isn’t the only animal with a story. Bradford’s non-ending, though, lands with a thud; the sunset-colored closing scene (replicated on a large foldout poster printed on the book jacket) shows an island Peaceable Kingdom of seals, slugs, and snails, along with the non sequitur, “And this is why you never know what wonderful creatures you might find living on an island.” Ages 4–8. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

PreS-Gr 2—While walking to school, Theo and Elsie find a wiggling nutshell. The sisters carefully pry it open and discover Benny, a pocket-size, talkative walrus. After he sings about wishing to return to the sea, a group of children builds him a boat. Theo and Elsie place Benny and a brigade of three slugs in it and put it into a creek, hoping the creek will transport Benny and company to the sea. Remembering that slugs' skin can be harmed by salt water, the travelers make their home on a small island inhabited by an assortment of creatures. Bradford's unusual plot may have some appeal to children with broad imaginations. There is plenty of dialogue among the characters in the at-times dry text. The story presents positive images of children concerned for an animal away from its natural habitat as well as children who take charge of returning it to its original environment. Working cooperatively to construct a milk-carton boat for Benny provides a nice example of problem solving. Hanawalt's large, single- and double-page artwork, done in muted colors, is filled with a variety of plant and animal life. An assortment of creatures hides among the plants and roams freely in the outdoor terrain. Changing illustration angles offers differing perspectives of the outdoor environment. When removed from the book and fully opened, the book jacket transforms into a poster depicting the story's creatures enjoying their lives on the island. Images from the artwork are replicated on the end papers; each one is labeled. Benny's Bridage is an odd fantasy that ties-in with lessons on compassion, animals, and environments.—Lynn Vanca, freelance librarian, Akron, OH

School Library Journal

In this bland but surreal tale two children find a tiny walrus in a nut. Prying open a coconut-sized walnut, sisters Elsie and Theo free little Benny--who thanks them profusely, accompanies them to school, where he sings a sad song about missing the sea, and then sets out for home aboard a milk-carton boat. Three adventuresome slugs (looking much like Benny, aside from lacking tusks) come along for the ride but, being salt-averse, debark before reaching the sea. The language is downright fustian (the children "were sorry to see Benny and the slugs go, but now it was time for school, and they had adventures of their own to which they must attend") and printed in blocks of small type that look lost on the large pages. Moreover, Bradford's narrative has none of the illustrations' luxuriant strangeness. Frequently zooming in for extreme close-ups, Hanawalt floats the simply drawn children and their blubbery buddy slightly above leafy, grassy meadows that are thickly strewn with both low wildflowers and an astonishing menagerie of onlooking birds, insects, lizards and other wildlife. A huge foldout poster featuring crowds of picnicking walruses, slugs and fantasy animals in a "peaceable kingdom"–style scene serves as dust jacket and also echoes the culminating spread within. A perfunctory plotline, buried among visual wonders that more than compensate. (Picture book. 6-8)

Kirkus Reviews