Little Lit It Was a Dark and Silly Night...

by Art Spiegelman, Barbara McClintock, Neil Gaiman, et al.

Book Overview

This collection of wild and silly imaginings will tickle your funny bones. Ages 8+. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060286288
• ISBN13: 9780060286286
• Release Date: August 2003
• Publisher: Joanna Cotler Books
• Length: 48 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 9.6" x 13.5"
• Age Range: 4 years and up
• Grade Range: Preschool and higher

Customer Reviews

A great book - a review by Eli (age 7)

This is a great book. I especially like the graphics on the inside cover, they are very funny and greatly illustrated. the stories are funny too. My favorite stories are "Jumpin Jupiter" by Basil Wolveton and the one by Neil Gaiman and Gahan Wilson. I like the general idea of the book -- that all the stories start with the same line and each author/illustrator creates a completely different story.

Father in search of graphic art for kids

Just the graphic art book I was looking for to entertain my daughter. She has enjoyed all three in the series so far.

Great for Kids

While the first two Little Lit books appealed equally to adults and children, it would appear that this third book will appeal more strongly to children. Maybe the editors felt guilty about starting battles between parents and children over who got to read their books first. It isn't that the stories are any less intelligent. And most of the artwork continues to be quite stunning (although William Joyce's contribution is my least favourite, he does an excellent job of imitating the art of Winsor McCay). The problem appears to be with the book's theme: silliness.All of the stories (except for the fun Basil Wolverton reprint) are entitled "It Was a Dark and Silly Night", and are quite nonsensical. Maybe adults are too serious to appreciate silliness unless it is hip or postmodern. Kids, however, never seem to grow tired of silly stories, perhaps because they are good at engaging the imagination. But regardless of the reasons why this book is less enjoyable for adults, you could do far worse than giving young children a copy. Desipte the fact that this book will appeal more to younger readers, I still enjoyed some of the stories. The entry by Lemony Snicket and Richard Sala begins with awkward narration, but its humourous take on the yeti legend is interesting and has a great, bizarre punchline. The story by Neil Gaiman and Gahan Wilson is slight, but it should be able to cheer up anyone (I've always had a soft spot for silly monsters). And Patrick McDonnell, whose contribution's silliness is matched by its lyrical beauty, demonstrates why he is currently the only person producing a consistently good comic strip for newspapers (Mutts).However, my personal favourite is the story by Kaz. With its extremely surreal imagery and humour, this one reminded me of some of the more outrageous, anarchistic Looney Tunes cartoons of which I was especially fond, such the one that takes place in the land of the Dodo bird. Except for its length, and the fact that it is kid-friendly, this contribution would not be out of place amongst Kaz' Underworld cartoons.The only story I wish was left out is the one by Joost Swarte, but I've never liked his work.I doubt any adult will enjoy everything in this volume (these books are for children at any rate), but I still highly recommend this book to anyone who has kids and to those adults who like to remember what it was like being a kid.

Maybe a little too silly...

As a big fan of Little Lit 1 and Little Lit 2, I found It Was A Dark And Silly Night to be a little disappointing. I am not sure where the disappointment comes from - the art is great (kudos especially to Richard Sala and Martin Handford), the stories are interesting (my favorite being the Yeti story by Lemony Snicket), and the editing is superb. It may be that the charm of the first two compilations was that even though they pretended to contain children stories, Little Lit 1 & 2 were really for the adults' entertainment. The humor in Little Lit 1 & 2 was not pressured or artificially created, instead, the humor rose naturally out of the contrast between having children's stories and directing them at adults, between illustrating as if you were illustrating for kids and realizing that the story being illustrated actually contains a lot of more mature humor with more literary tricks and irony.Little Lit 3 is proving to be a little too silly - it's nice to see your kids read the book, but Little Lit 1 & 2 were books you could read with your kids without being bored, or even read if you didn't have any kids at all. It Was A Dark And Silly Night is still a well-written, well-drawn, and well-edited compilation, however, the fact that it is purposefully directed at a younger audience makes it somewhat unreachable even for the most immature and young-hearted of adults.I'm still glad I have purchased this compilation as it is a nice compliment to the first two books, but it is definitely a sequel and were it the first book in the series, the series might've never become as popular as it is currently.