The Book of Time Outs: A Mostly True History of the World's Biggest Troublemakers
by Deb Lucke
Simon & Schuster
The adage "well-behaved women seldom make history" apparently holds true for men too, if you believe Lucke's take on the baddest overgrown kids to ever hog the world stage. In this witty, original take on historic greats, Napoleon "took things that didn't belong to him. Like other people's countries," and ended up cooling his heels on an island. And Bach "simply could not live in harmony." Heh.
Other biggies are given the burlesque treatment, humorously reducing them to ill-tempered brats and miscreants fretting over their misdeeds in exile or prison. More than a few women make the pages, from Cleopatra coveting brother Ptolemy's throne to Rosa Parks and her infamous bus ride. Lucke's sole misstep is one of tone and occurs in the endnote, lumping good and evil together:
It's possible that one or two of our time-outers looked deep into their hearts and thought, "Maybe, just maybe, I did need to cool down a bit." We can't know for sure.
That seems a bit harsh to the beloved Parks, no?
The illustrations get down and dirty with their naughty subjects, and pouts, grimaces and tears flow freely across brightly colored, double-page spreads.
The prose is tight and sardonic in tone, meant clearly for fun and not as a primer. Still, it can foster discussions on who all these famous tyros were, and how to distinguish civil disobedience from just plain ol' contrariness.
Rating: *\*\*\
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