You might think a book with no pictures seems boring and serious. Except . . . here’s how books work. Everything written on the page has to be said by the person reading it aloud. Even if the words say . . .
BLORK. Or BLUURF.
Even if the words are a preposterous song about eating ants for breakfast, or just a list of astonishingly goofy sounds like BLAGGITY BLAGGITY and GLIBBITY GLOBBITY.
Cleverly irreverent and irresistibly silly, The Book with No Pictures is one that kids will beg to hear again and again. (And parents will be happy to oblige.)
Age Range: 5 – 8 years
Grade Level: Kindergarten – 3
Hardcover: 48 pages
Publisher: Dial; 1St Edition edition (September 30, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0803741715
ISBN-13: 978-0803741713
B.J. Novak graduated from Harvard University in 2001. Afterward he moved to Los Angeles, California and began working in clubs as a comedian. His first live stand-up performance took place at the Hollywood Youth Hostel on October 10, 2001. He was named one of Variety’s “Ten Comedians To Watch” in 2003.
Novak was a writer for the short-lived WB sitcom Raising Dad. He performed on Comedy Central’s Premium Blend and on Late Night with Conan O’Brien.
Novak’s television acting career began on MTV’s Punk’d. He was the lead accomplice to Ashton Kutcher on the show’s second season in 2003, playing pranks on Hilary Duff, Rachael Leigh Cook, Usher, and Mýa.
After hearing Novak’s opening joke at a comedy club, executive producer Greg Daniels decided he “wanted to do something with him.” Novak was subsequently cast as Ryan Howard in the TV show The Office.
In addition to his television credits, Novak has appeared in the films Unaccompanied Minors, Reign Over Me, The Internship, Knocked Up and Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds. He played composer Robert B. Sherman in Saving Mr. Banks (2013), and Alistair Smythe in The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
On April 11, 2013, Knopf announced it had signed a seven-figure, two-book deal with Novak, with the first book slated to be a fictional collection of “Woody Allen”-like stories.
On February 4, 2014 a book of 22 stories, One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories, was published and spent 6 weeks on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Bestsellers List. Novak also signed a deal with Penguin’s children’s books label and wrote the title The Book With No Pictures, which was released in September 2014.
In this bunny eat bunny world, we’ve seen celebrity authors come and go. Mostly come, in droves, especially after Harry Potter put a spotlight on the profit potential of the children’s book biz. Ca-ching.
Everybody’s making millions!
For many of us non-celebrity authors and illustrators, dressed in our dreary clothes, clutching our cold coffee cups, it’s hard not to be a little, urm, disgusted at times. The crappy book by the “star” that gets a ridiculous amount of undeserved attention.
But that’s life, so we deal with it, and try to keep our petty thoughts to ourselves.
However, I hasten to add: not all celebrity books suck. Jamie Lee Curtis wrote some good ones, as I recall. Fred Gwynne — Herman Munster! — made a sincere effort to create singular children’s books. By that I mean, my sense is that they actually worked on the books, actually respected the idea of a children’s book, and got into it for the “right reasons,” however we might differ in defining what those reasons are. It wasn’t just a way to cash in on something.
Anyway, this fresh, new effort by B.J. Novak is brilliant. Yes, absolutely, he came up with a clever idea. A great idea. But then he pulled it off over the course of an entire book. That’s not at all easy. And it’s beautifully published, too. Great job, all around.
Kids today, they sure do love the meta.
Enjoy this book with no pictures, folks. Go ahead, stomp on that link, surrender to the video. It makes me wish that I had a room full of kids to read this one too.
.jpg?picon=694)
You might think a book with no pictures seems boring and serious. Except . . . here’s how books work. Everything written on the page has to be said by the person reading it aloud. Even if the words say . . .
