Cousin Irv from Mars

April 15, 2013
Teddy is bummed out when his mother tells him that Cousin Irv is coming to visit from Mars (“We’re not close,” she says) and that he’ll have to share his room with his short, green, antennae-bearing relative. Cousin Irv breathes loudly and guilts Teddy into giving him his pillow: many doctors, Irv says, have told him that he carries “all his stress in his neck.” Although Cousin Irv sounds suspiciously like a middle-aged Borscht Belt refugee (“Those no-goodniks!” he exclaims about Teddy’s schoolmates), he earns the warm regard of the student body when he vaporizes everything in Teddy’s classroom with his electromagnetic ray—including the teacher. From that moment on, Teddy grows fonder of Cousin Irv, who “let Teddy eat pizza in the bath because he didn’t know you didn’t do that.” Kaplan (Monsters Eat Whiny Children) is a stylish, economical cartoonist, but his prose is responsible for most of the jokes, and there are laughs on every page. “I’ve had to go to the bathroom for days,” says Cousin Irv after his long flying saucer journey. Ages 4–8. Agent: Erin Malone, William Morris Endeavor.

April 15, 2013
Sometimes relatives are so weird that they seem to be from outer space. This one just happens to be from Mars. When Teddy's mother mentions Cousin Irv is coming for a visit, all he knows is that he lives on another planet. Irv lands and proves to be a bit difficult. He blames Teddy's mother for giving "the worst directions," eats everything in the kitchen--"in fact, he ate the whole kitchen"--keeps Teddy up at night with his loud breathing and listens "to the most horrible music." Kaplan (Monsters Eat Whiny Children, 2010), a veteran cartoonist for the New Yorker and television writer (Girls, Seinfeld), pairs the wry text with spare illustrations executed in pen and ink with watercolor. Things take a turn when Cousin Irv takes Teddy to school. Irv finds out Teddy has no friends and decides to do something about it. The duo causes a stir at school, especially when Irv pulls out "his electromagnetic ray and vaporized a few things in the classroom." The teacher bans the ray gun but as a result is vaporized as well. This spread is alarmingly effective: One side shows a close-up of a blue gun producing green rays, and the other is mostly blank except for a lonely pair of gray heels and pink streaks highlighting where the teacher once was. Soon Teddy finds more to appreciate in his eccentric relative, but then Irv returns to Mars, leaving Teddy quite lonely...until his dad has a change in work assignments. Clever, but the sophisticated humor seems aimed at older readers and adults. (Picture book. 5-8)

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August 1, 2013

Gr 4-6-In this picture book, Teddy's mother's cousin visits from Mars and must sleep in the youngster's bedroom. Throughout, commentary directed at readers moves the story along, giving them an earful about Cousin Irv and his noisy breathing. Meanwhile, Teddy's mother tells Irv that Teddy doesn't want him to know that her son has no friends. When the man takes out his electromagnetic ray in Teddy's classroom and vaporizes objects, Teddy is suddenly popular, and his feelings about his relative shift: "You know, if you only see what you don't like about someone, you never see what you do like about them." Nothing lasts long, though, and when Irv's vacation is over, disappointed Teddy admits, "We all know, or should know if we weren't always forgetting, accepting things is the only way to be happy." But there's more. Teddy's dad gets a job on Mars, and the family moves in with Coursin Irv. The unique pen-and-ink and watercolor artwork on white backgrounds is spare and looks rudimentary, and the characters have crude, claylike expressions.The pictures convey a sense of space, which adds to the pacing of the story and emphasizes the trajectory of the visit. Kids might be inspired by Kaplan's easy-to-imitate style. Nevertheless, the book is likely to have a limited audience of sophisticated readers.-Sara Lissa Paulson, The American Sign Language and English Lower School, New York City

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