Arm-wrestling aunts and wicked captains

By Russell Hoban

Illustrated by Quentin Blake

Godine

32 pages

By Comrade Reviewer Marienka

All of us have had an Aunt Fidget Wonkham-Strong in our lives—the kind of aunt who, when we were little, made us eat “cabbage-potato-sog” and “learn off pages 65 to 75 of the Nautical Almanac” so we wouldn’t “fool around so much.”  Fooling around looked suspiciously like playing to the Aunt Fidget Wonkham-Strongs in our lives; and if there was one thing such aunts couldn’t abide, it was playing.  If we didn’t behave, our Aunt Fidget Wonkham-Strongs sent for Captain Najork and his hired sportsmen “who taught fooling around boys [and girls] the lesson they so badly need[ed]” . . . the dangers of fooling around. Some of us have never recovered from the trauma of an Aunt Fidget Wonkham-Strong. And some of us still have one hanging around, spoiling our parties, raining on our parades, and dispensing advice we don’t want.  In our adult years, these aunts go by the name of Great Aunt Martha. They are our crosses to bear because we did not learn, indeed never have learned, to stop fooling around. As P.G. Wodehouse once said, “Aunts aren’t gentlemen.” You need to be Tom to triumph.

Those of us who are lucky are intrepid children who don’t stop fooling around and who never learn our lessons and who are never sorry we haven’t. All of us aspire to be Toms, but most of us wimp out. We simply don’t have what it takes to invent an anti-sticky, jam-powered frog or beat Captain Najork and his hired sportsman at games of “womble, muck, and sneedball.”  We need help to best the Aunt Fidget Wonkham-Strongs, Captain Najorks and the  infamous bands of hired sportsmen.

By Russell Hoban

Illustrated by Quentin Blake

Godine 

32 pages

Enter Russell Hoban to the rescue.  In two easy books—How Tom Beat Captain Najork and His Hired Sportsmen and A Near Thing for Captain Najork—Hoban shows us how to show those arm-wrestling aunts what’s what.  Despite his scheming aunt's efforts, Tom triumphs over Aunt Fidget-Wonkham-Strong and the nefarious Captain Najork (and his hired sportsmen) every time. And in the end there’s always Aunt Bundlejoy Cosysweet, who has never stopped fooling around either and who is not sorry she hasn’t.


Ages 4 to 95 (or 110)