A good heist makes for a great story. There’s danger, action and the satisfaction of a daring plan that outsmarts the cops. But should responsible, grown-up writers expose such unlawful activities to an audience of innocent, impressionable children? Three new titles say yes. And I, for one, was excited to see the morality patrol flustered.
To my disappointment, there is little reason for pearl-clutching in any of these books. No one gets in trouble, hardly anything gets stolen and everyone learns their lesson in the end.
Sadly, our ongoing efforts to infantilize young readers have robbed these stories of much of their thrill.
In Anders Sparring’s chapter book THE PINCHERS AND THE DIAMOND HEIST (Gecko, 112 pp., $18.99, ages 6 to 10), being a thief runs in the family.
The artist Per Gustavsson’s illustrations are sly, moody and fun. He has a talent for facial expressions, and wins giggles with subtle background gags.
The main tension of the story comes from young Theo Pincher, the black sheep of the family, who is law-abiding to the point that he can’t so much as tell a lie without becoming sick to his stomach. Meanwhile, his parents unapologetically steal his socks and deny it when confronted.
The world of the Pinchers is populated by bumbling nincompoops. Prison guards are easily duped, police officers are gullible rubes, and mom and pop Pincher aren’t exactly masterminds. Much of the humor stems from this simple-mindedness. But when a life of crime is enjoyed without fear of consequence, the capers lose their stakes.
And yet the Pincher books (the second of which will be published in English in September) are apparently quite popular in Sweden, under the title “Familjen Knyckertz,” and the series was recently adapted into a live-action movie. The trailer features plot points familiar to any fan of crime films: casing the joint, planning the heist, evading the authorities. The book includes none of that narrative propulsion.
I suspect the charm of the original text stems from its use of puns and wordplay. It is extremely difficult to translate humor across cultures, though Julia Marshall makes an admirable attempt: I will be adding “dirty donkey” to my arsenal of playground insults.
THE ROBBERY (Berbay, 40 pp., $18.99, ages 3 to 7), by Joaquín Camp, is proof that writing a picture book is harder than it looks.
Three identical robbers named Thief 1, Thief 2 and Thief 3 resolve to dig a hole to rob a bank. They burrow their way into the middle of an orchestra concert, inside the ring of a Lucha libre match and onto the deck of the Titanic. Just when they are about to finally reach a vault full of treasure, however, they have a change of heart, decide to give up on the plan and instead host a dinner for all the characters they’ve encountered throughout their journey.
Camp’s illustrations are cute, and reminiscent of childhood scribblings where the coloring-in reveals marker strokes and the perspective is comedically flat. Unfortunately, the text seems like an afterthought. Perhaps the book would have worked better without words. It does build nice momentum as the robbers keep popping up in unexpected locations.
But the out-of-nowhere happy ending is so jarring it’s nearly criminal. The thieves themselves dismiss the sudden turn of events as “very corny,” which reads like a confession from an author who knows he is guilty of lazy plotting.
The chapter book BUNNY AND CLYDE (Candlewick, 128 pp., $16.99, ages 5 to 8), written by Megan McDonald and illustrated by Scott Nash, introduces a precocious pair of woodland creatures who decide to go on a crime spree. Bunny is the taller, beret-wearing rabbit half of the titular duo. Her spunky little partner, Clyde, is a chipmunk who is terrified of cats.
McDonald (of “Judy Moody” fame) is expert at adding relatable details that kids, and librarians, will love. Nash draws huggable characters with a timeless quality. But Bunny and Clyde’s crime spree leaves much to be desired.
When they TP a neighbor’s yard, they wind up protecting the rosebushes from an unexpected frost; when they put a fake spider in their friend’s bicycle basket, they accidentally help him with his science project; when they break into a house to steal money from a piggy bank, the owner thanks them for prying out the coins. No matter how hard they try, their schemes come off as saccharine and dull.
Compared with the artful menace of Tomi Ungerer’s “The Three Robbers,” or even the carefree antics of Pippi Longstocking, these new crime titles feel toothless. Meanwhile, the classics endure precisely because they are full of genuine mischief.
Young kids are more perceptive than they get credit for. When grown-ups talk down to them, they tune out. Books are a safe place to offer a whiff of danger, to make a new reader fall in love with the vicarious thrill of the written word. If the stories we offer are all bumper bowling and head-patting, children will get bored and give up on reading for pleasure. Now that would be a terrible crime.
