Title: Underwear!
Author/Illustrator: Mary Elise Monsell, Lynn Munsinger
Reviewed by: Laura
Ok, here is my choice for the bizarre book that we have in our collection. It is in storage at the moment because we just moved across the country and are holed up in corporate housing, so I'll have to rely on memory since I don't have in in front of me. Anyway, This book is really bizarre in the hilarious way more than the "what?" kind of way.
There are a collection of animals--a zebra and an orangutan are the main ones--who love underwear and go to an "underwear fair". They have one friend, a buffalo, who hates underwear and won't put any on. (Why a buffalo needs them, and what kind he would be able to fit into, is beyond me). So they try and convince him that underwear is great and he should try it. It should be noted that they don't wear any other kind of clothing, just underwear.
Anyhow, all the animals wear boxers (and are all male) which might be harder to explain to an older girl child I guess. At the moment, mine is too young to even know what underwear is, but I bought the book simply because it uses the word about a MILLION times and I still find that hilarious (so sue me) and I am sure my daughter, at 5 or 6, will too (won't the kindergarten teacher just LOVE that!).
I just find it bizarre that they would make a book about animals with an underwear fetish, their trek to a fair to celebrate it, and their trying to pass this fetish onto other poor animals.
[ed note: still, it's better than Commando! at least from a "parents of young kids" perspective.]
In the UK, there is a great board book about underwear called Pants