From the madcap mind of Adam Rex comes a book about the improbable, downright bizarre remedies for a problem kids have faced since the creation of gum.
How do you get gum out of your hair—a pair of scissors? Butter? The cat? Call your aunt, she'll know what to do. She doesn’t? Try the fire department!
With each page turn, this situation—relatable to any family—grows stickier and more desperate.Full-color illustrations painted in Photoshop.
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Shown wordlessly before the title page, our unnamed protagonist is in a sticky situation after falling asleep while chewing gum. Upon awakening, and after that unpleasant discovery, the child’s gum-removal process begins, starting with scissors—which, whoops, get stuck to the gum, still in the hair. The narrator is offstage, but the advice is in-your-face, and progressively, hilariously, outrageous. There’s an offbeat rhythm to the sometimes-rhyming text that, likewise, keeps listeners guessing. “We went on some websites. / And all of them swear / if you want to get scissors / and gum out of hair / you take two sticks of butter / and smear them along, // I see. / It appears that those / websites were wrong.” The humor is in the page-turn (pre- and post-butter, for example); and the anticipation of what method the family will try next, shown in the unfailingly entertaining colorful and textured caricature illustrations centered on the wide-eyed child. Finally the kid has had enough—“STOP! GET OUT! Please” says the text, in bubble gum–looking speech balloons—leading to one of the problems being solved. But several remain; and on this, of all days. A rollicking cumulative tale that many listeners will want to choose and re-chew-se. ELISSA GERSHOWITZ