Andy Griffiths (text) and Terry Denton (illustrator), Treehouse Tales, Pan Macmillan, March 2022, 208 pp., RRP $14.99 (pbk), ISBN 9781760987275
What would you say if your best friend wanted to flush you down the toilet just to see what would happen, and then did? What about inviting a friend to shrink down to such a small size they then could go for a walk in your brain to hunt down the rubber duck that’s causing your mental blockage? What is the right age for this kind of humour? I am seventy-two, and I am not yet too old for it. And I am pretty sure that anyone from four or five onwards won’t be able to stop smiling and calling out, and wanting to throw this book across the room, then retrieve it and keep reading. It is that kind of book.
There are tales of the day Andy and Terry put chairs up their noses, there is the return of Professor Stupido who can un-invent anything you can think of, there is a frogpotamus that loves to swallow human heads, and a mind-reading sandwich-making machine. We all need one of those. And how would it be to be a dog for a day?
In all, there are thirteen tales here, each one inspired by absolute silliness, each one of them silly enough for a reader to want to read it aloud someone else immediately. Terry Denton’s signature black and white line drawings are everywhere, and sometimes so funny and so tiny you just have to stop and examine them for a while. Andy Griffith’s deadpan delivery of these silly ideas is endearing, mischievous, and too much fun to miss. Be warned, if you read the first story here in order to find out for yourself just how silly a silly tale can be, then without any justification for wasting your time you will be on the couch reading for the next hour or more until you get to the last of this silliness.
Highly recommended for readers from four to eight or nine, or even seventy-two.
Reviewed by Kevin Brophy
