Squiggle <small>by B.B. Wurge</small>

This is one of our "Best of the Year 2009 Books"

Well I have to say that this was one fun read! B.B. Wurge has a quirky sense of humor, quirky outlook on live and a wonderful imagination. Add these factors to the further fact that he can write and writ well, and you come up with a winner.

Now I will say right off that I was put in mind of the Lemony Snicket series right from the start and I can assure fans of those books that if they like them, then they will certainly enjoy this one. I happen to be a Lemony Snicket fan so I was quite in my element here. We have the same smooth crisp writing that is the Snicket trade mark and also the sudden and unexpected turns that make you think of the author "did he really say that?" All in all, this entire book is an absolute hoot.

Very briefly, we are introduced to a really, really rotten and spoiled little girl. We are actually talking beyond rotten. This kid had no redeeming features what so ever. That being said, we also have a set of parents that, to say the least, have few if any parenting skills. Anyway, our rotten and obnoxious little girl is setting in bed, where she spends most of her life, chugging soda (Coconut Bacon Cheddar Cola) and eating her favorite snack (Salami Surprise Deluxe Potato Chips) while doing the only thing she ever does which is watching T.V. and throwing temper tantrums while her parents cower in another room. Hey, the kid throw stuff at them. Anyway, she is visited by a magical creature, a Mr LeFuzz who is NOT an ELF, but rather a Lesser Spotted Pickfloo. He has been sent by the department of magic and lives on top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Will the transformation from girl to monkey make our obnoxious child a better child? Will she be able to recover her headless body? And what about the evil villain? Is the half mad professor who takes her home from the zoo all that he seems to be? Are his bearded wife and nine year old boy all they seem to be? What do you feed a artificially stuffed toy monkey who is constantly hungry? Will her parents who are actually quite thrilled of being rid of her change their minds?

You can see the hilarious silliness this book is taking right from the beginning. Anyway, Mr. LeFuzz gives Lobelia (that is the little girl's name, although her parents often refer to her as "Lobotomy.") a magic formula which is to make her happy. Lobelia misuses the magic potion and her head blow off and her soul or life force is immediately transferred to a small stuffed monkey.

And so the adventure begins. We are taken through the streets and zoo of New York and on to Paris France! Along the way we are treated to an entire cast of very, very strange and wacky characters; each stranger than the one before. I will give you a spoiler here and tell you the book has a happy, if bizarre and unexpected ending, but that is it...for the rest you will simply have to read this work yourself.

This work will appeal to its targeted age group and will appeal to grown up little kids (like myself). The word play, surprise twists and off beat humor will have the kids laughing out loud and you chuckling to yourself. I found very little, if anything, to dislike about this work.

Like another reviewer here, I was a bit concerned over the little girl's head exploding and did raise by eyebrows a bit over the reference to such things as eyeball collections, but surprisingly the author has been able to pull this off and this is actually a rather gentle book with very little violence and the sequence of events leading up the exploding head are actually rather hilarious.

This is a good read and I strongly suspect that we will be hearing more from this author.

Don Blankenship
The Ozarks