The Pre-Mammary Monday

As the submitter, Lola, points out, this seems to be a special Sweet Valley High edition of Big Love. All the ugly wives gang up on Taffy because of her blonde tresses. I would totally watch that.  Also, the cover artist was apparently busy the day they covered perspective in art school. Unless the redhead and the brunette really ARE seven feet tall.

2011 Seems like a good year to go to hell

I'm baaaaaaaaaaack! I've managed to crawl out of the pit of despair, only mostly dead, to once again bring you terrible, awful, horrendous, and highly hilarious book covers. And who better to start off the year with than Peek-a-Boo Jesus! I'm just dying to know what Aryan Jesus is hiding, don't you?

To my faithful hordes: Thank you for sustaining me in my hour of need. Jesus and I will be waiting, perhaps around the next corner, to jump out and shout, "Peek-a-boo!"



To my new readers: Welcome! This was once a very successful blog, and by golly, with your help, it will be so again!
To Biker Puppy: Thanks so much for sustaining the vibe. You rock!

In other news, I don't work in a library any more, so I need all the covers you can send me! Judgeabook@yahoo.com is open and taking suggestions. Mammary Monday and Phallic Phridays can't commence without your help. Thanks to Jane Dough for peek-a-boo Jesus!

And, as a shameless bit of friend promotion, my good friend Darin Bradley wrote a book. It's totally awesome and apocalyptic and you should go out and buy ten copies right now. The cover is rather cool, so I'll just let you cleanse your palate as you await the next installment of Judge. A. Book. By. Its. Cover. Be afraid.

Whenever I feel that my life sucks too much...

... I read this book.
Death is a subject too often thought of as a "heavy," depressing topic. What happened to the fun? What happened to the humor? What happened to making fun of death? Oh ... that was just MY family? Ok.

I absolutely adore the dinosaur's expression -- he looks so incredibly shocked and sad all at once. Deceptively simple yet amazing artwork, in my completely uneducated-about-art opinion.

Check out the pictures from inside (note, the ones of the old man are backwards, so start from the right or it won't make sense). Hilarious. I'm totally buying this book.

Happy Hump Day.*

(*please note: in no way am I implying that this book is appropriate for Hump Wednesdays on this blog. Even MY family isn't THAT weird. I'm just rejoicing that we're half way through the work week.)

I Felt a Little Dirty Clicking on the "See Larger Image" Link on Amazon

For your Hump Wednesday viewing pleasure (if you are THAT kind of person, anyway):


I'm kinda cheating here, since this was on Fail Blog, but.... Who thought this was ok? Especially with that creepy expression? At least we know why the boy is blushing.

Some things shouldn't pop....

As a little kid, I enjoyed popup books. The thrill of turning the page and being surprised by an elephant, a tree, or a flying trapeze was too much for me to resist! There's a wonderful connection that a child makes with something that literally springs off the page.

Why, then, did someone think THIS was a good idea???
I have no interest in turning the page and seeing a big hairy spider jumping out at me! Or, worse yet, a clown! Ack!! That would send me to the psych ward!!

This is little better!

Imagine, a gaggle of clowns (or is it a pod? a flock?) popping out into your face? Or an image of you naked in the middle of the office! Or a long, dark hallway with too many shadows and too many doors. Or ... whatever your worst nightmare entails (I expect details in the comments, people!! Nightmares and phobias!) This book is unnecessary, and like the one above it, very likely to cause permanent psychological trauma.

Then there's this one.

This one, I have to say, has potential.

Lost in Translation?

There once was a Kat from down under
Who saw in a bookstore, a wonder!
She went to Belgium for the beer, so we're told
And ended up with pictures of plunder!*


What happens when a kitty Kat travels to Belgium? She sends us a picture of books!

See Spot lick Dikkie Dik. Lick, Spot, Lick.

See Dikkie Dik dribbel. Dribbel, Dikkie Dik, dribbel.

See Spot flush a used kleenex.

Ewwwww.

------------------------------------------------------

p.s. Thanks sooooooooo much for the donations and purchases from my etsy store! You guys are the best readers, ever!!!

*Yeah...I think I'll leave the poetry to DocTurtle!

Word!

So yesterday I'm helping Maughta with her off-day book processing at the county library where she works (on holidays [Happy 4th!] they send some schlub in to go through the book drop so it doesn't get overloaded by the time the library opens again), and I come across this horrif...I mean...charming little number for the kiddoes:
...Dum dee dum dee GAAAAAAH!

In 1949 the great psychologist and evolutionary biologist Konrad Lorenz speculated that human nurturing instincts are triggered by infantile features, including heads that are large in proportion to the body, but COME ON, there's something to be said about too much of a good thing. Methinks Word Bird (the blue one on the right) must have one helluva chronic neck ache. That's an acre or two of prime real estate up top. And the duck ain't doin' so well herself.

A more recent edition of this classic has reduced our heroes' heads to a more manageable size:


Sadly it's also done away with the whimsical '70s font and border stylage that made the original cover so much more friendly and inviting. The new one, while assuaging my worry over Word Bird's chiropractic bill, seems cold and clinical in comparison with its older version. Or maybe I'm just instinctively drawn by Word Bird's ginormous noggin.

Not so subtle

I don't know if you've caught an episode of Sesame Street lately, but apparently Cookie Monster is being morphed into a fruit and veggie eating monster. His new slogan is "Cookies are a sometimes food." WTF? Seriously? Cookies are an anytime food!!!! Screw veggies!

Apparently to help make the point, Cookie Monster is now being drawn as morbidly obese in order to drill home to kids that fruit is better than cookies.

Heresy!

Phallic Earth Day (a little late)

Thanks to Tom, who sent me this cover, I now see phalluses in innocent little water bottles...turgid little water bottles...with glistening droplets, um, glistening...Oh, just look at this cover!

Yummy!

In keeping with the childishness I demonstrated with my last post, I thought this would be a great book for Friday. Nothing phallicky today (sorry!), but at least a good send-off for the weekend. I wasn't going to post it, but the comments on the Moose with Loose Poops post made me think I'm not the only one who appreciates juvenile (and somewhat scatological) humor. Teehee!

As with the last book, it's the title that gets me. Did they really not think of it when they titled this book? Or are they just as bad as I am, laughing to themselves ("poop!!") as they send the book out for distribution? I would suspect it's the latter, but given some of the awful book covers we've seen, it might be that some publishers are just more clueless than I give them credit for.

Enjoy! (And think of this next time you make cookies!)

Um.... what?

Sorry for posting twice in one day, but this made me laugh so hard I couldn't wait to put it up. Actually, I almost peed my pants. I know I'm not really laughing at the cover. My juvenile sense of humor can't get past the title. I'm sure this is a wonderful book to teach kids about being sick, but... the word "poop" is in the title! I just can't stop giggling. Make it stop!! Poop!!!

My Baby's Daddy is a Jack Russell Terrier (or a Beagle, we don't know for sure!)

Dr. Phyllis L. Tucker Wicks? More like Dr. Moreau H. Frankenstein. Someone tell that woman that it's not nice to splice people in half and then set their hearts on fire. (Thanks to Patrick in Saint Looie, I must now set my eyes on fire!)

Happy Thanksgiving to my American readers. Here's the cookbook I'll be using:

I'm giving thanks to Anna at Nerve.com who sent me this link: http://www.nerve.com/CS/blogs/modernmaterialist/archive/2008/11/21/I-Really-Hope-No-One-Makes-Recipes-From-This-Book.aspx. You're right, Anna. I do have a taste for the torrid. Just not a taste for body fluids that really should remain out of the kitchen...or at least safely cleaned up afterward!

Sun, Sand, Circle Jerks?

Ahhhh, back from the beach with a weird misapplied-sunscreen-burn and no jellyfish welts (DocTurtle got those!) and what should cross my desk but this lovely little children's book.






Now we all know I have the brain of a 15 year-old boy so guess where mine went. Yup. Daisy chain. Everyone looks so HAPPY! I especially appreciate the little drop of sweat on the pig's brow. One Two Three Pull is what she said!

On a side note, DocTurtle has been challenged! Will he accept it? Only time will tell...

Warm Fuzzies

From the aptly named Buzzy comes Little Fuzzy.

Take that, freakin' Ewoks! I hope these things live underground 'cause otherwise those eyes are extremely ridiculous. Oh, who am I fooling, those eyes are completely ridiculous any which way you slice it. If the Fuzzies get wet do they turn into gremlins?

Also freaking out children everywhere is this book from reader Melanie's library's easy reader collection:

Melanie says, "Now, I know this girl is blind, but she MUST be aware of where Annie Sullivan's hands are. I feel dirty just for having looked at it." Better hold onto that belt, Helen, or that dress is going to come flying off and this book will move from "easy reader" to the "adult" section!

Kinky Kids

Caffeinated Donut tells me that (s)he "found Kinky Kids in my brother's room about a year ago." The question I'm sure we all want answered is what your brother was doing with kinky kids. Or, well, maybe we don't want that answered...
Is that G. W. and Laura? Damn, I wish Jenna and Babs had done this years ago, the world would be a better place!

Fabulous!

I've already picked on Choose Your Own Adventure books here. But they're just soooooo rife with hilarity that I can't help but bring them around for ridicule again.

First is a little something I like to call, Your Code Name is Phallic Whale

Next up is Perspective is Not in My Dictionary, otherwise known as I Went to the Longarm School of Art

And finally, saving the best for last, I present to you Gay Viking Holiday*

*Okay, I stole this last one from someone's live journal icon over at The Society for Librarians* who say Motherfucker, but it's just sooooooo perfect!

Choose Your Own Mindfuck

Okay, I admit it. I loved Choose Your Own Adventure books when I was a kid. I loved reading and this was like interactive reading. What could be better? If you don't remember these, the books start out with about five pages of plot. Say, you're in San Francisco and the big one hits. A stranger is pinned nearby, but you know that a block away is someone whom you know and who might be in trouble. Then the book gives you a choice. Do you, A) save the stranger? or B) go save your friend? Either way could lead you to half a dozen more choices. In some of them you're a hero, in some you die, some scenarios just kind of fizzle out. As an adult I can look back and think about morality plays and critical thinking skills, but as a kid I was kinda a control freak (okay, so still am) and I enjoyed trying to make the "right" choice. Which was usually the boring choice. In Earthquake!, as detailed above, if you choose to save the stranger he ends up being a multi-millionaire and giving you money to go to college. Of course, the story ends there, which is dull and boring, whereas if you go the other way you run into tigers and poisonous spiders and all other kinds of cool things.

Choose Your Own Adventures also had cool plots like Journey to the Ant People and You Are a Shark! Of course, I don't think I ever ran across the following book:

Okay, so really I'm flabbergasted by the actual book and not the cover, but the cover is its own form of bad, too. My particular favorite aspect is the railroad that conveniently runs through the front yard of Mr. Slave-owning-rifle-shooting-but-not-chasing-guy. 'Cause kids are literal.

Mining the Mailbag

Hey there, ladies and germs! [squeezes horn attached to belt] Anybody out there? Is this thing on? [taps mike] Seriously, folks! I came here to be funny! Uh...yeah...

So Maughta's feeling under the weather and hasn't had a chance to update this site for a while, so to stave off the tar and pitchforks and the unending flow of bad book covers she's sent me (DocTurtle, a.k.a. TurtleBoy) to the gates to deal with y'all.

You've helped out by providing a good deal of material to work with. In addition to the lists of illy-illustrated books she's got scattered all over the place (her corner's a bibliographer's nightmare) and the mental list I've been mining for a while now ("Do this one, Maughta, this one!") your submissions give enough fodder for five or six healthy posts. I'll go ahead and start with a few gems from the inbox. For our first course, we have faithful reader Feral Boy to thank:

This looks like a Senor Wences skit gone very, very awry, a sort of Hieronymous Bosch meets The Muppet Show. I'm actually cheating here, drawing from the inside of the book, since the cover isn't nearly as bad, as pointed out by Feral Boy:

At least we know that John Stamos landed on his feet after Full House was cancelled. I like the fact that the illustrators were too ashamed to have their full names included on the front cover.

Yes, the above both come from Helen A. Rosburg's Elsie and the Elven King, which, if I'm understanding things correctly, is kind of like a Tolkienesque rewrite of the Kama Sutra. Elf sex, anyone? Regular comics readers might be getting a Brooke McEldowney vibe right now. Maughta checked this book out and had it lying around for a few days (though not prominently, lest the neighbors get ideas). Scary stuff.

Moving on, we find this beauty, courtesy of faithful reader Ryan:

What's not to like about this cover? It's got dragons engaged in in-flight swordplay, carrying laser cannons and semiautomatic pistols...I thought that dragons were fearsome for powers that inhered in their being, like fire-breathing and whatnot? Wouldn't a dragon catch hell from his dragon buddies if he started packing a sidearm? Just sayin'.

I dunno. The whole scene reminds me of an unfortunate Japanese import I would've seen back in 1980 on TBS if I'd turned the TV on on Saturday morning waaaaaaaay before the good cartoons came on. I think the cover artist here was going after his own demographic, to wit, fantasy-addled fifteen-year-old boys. (Note to fantasy-addled fifteen-year-old-boys: please don't sue. We don't have much money.)

Blam...er...thank Erin for our next course. The titles say it all:

I guess there is a niche to be filled here, and a captive audience [rimshot]. The cold, hard simplicity of that first title is just marvelous, poignantly coupled with the brutal black cover design. Bravo! I have to admit being intrigued by the second book. As advertized, I'm sure there's a treasure trove of useful information on any number of topics, from drug smuggling (what percentage should you tip the crooked cell block commander?) to romantic encounters (is the laundry room a good place for a first date?).

On a more serious note, if you do a little digging you find that this text was written in 1951 by a number of pretty well-known authors (such as Robert Lowell, William Everson, and William Stafford) who were imprisoned as conscientious objectors during the first half of the century.

Socially responsible snarking here, folks.

Damn, that killed the high, didn't it? Um...

...And we're back! Anna sends us this wonderfully-airbrushed 1925 Newberry Award winner by Charles J. "Pull My" Finger, chocked full of "stories of enchantment and mystery." I'm sure the stories are indeed enchanting (Anna calls them "quite good"), but you wouldn't know it from the look of the kids on the cover. They were so busy being enchanted that they didn't notice their transportation to the Silver Lands. Where exactly are those? I'm voting on fin-de-siecle Rhodesia. Colonial brutality, internecine warfare, oh the enchantment!

Meanwhile, girlfriend there looks positively enraptured by Saved by the Bell's Zack Morris. He's just spewing forth those hilarious hijinx with Screech and the gang, like the time when they all got together and sawed each other's arms off, replacing them with mannequins' limbs? Good times, good times.

On that note, I'll end my first guest posting. Maughta's on me to tag-team with her more in the future, so you might see more of me, for which I apologize in advance. Until next time, happy snarking!

Giant Creepy Baby Edition

This is a super popular book here in the library. And it creeps me the feck out:

Everything about this cover worries me (the "recovery classics" and Dr. Nuckols especially...well, Nuckols doesn't worry me so much as make me laugh like a 10 year-old boy), but I just can't get beyond that picture. Um, ewwwww. I know this post would be better if I could snark on it, but I'm just so freaked out!

Speaking of freaked out:

The picture isn't the best, so I'll describe this cover to you. Naked woman. See-through stomach. GIANT CREEPY FETUS! Now we know where some of the ideas for 2001: A Space Odyssey and Alien came from. That baby is all out of proportion, too. Can you imagine passing a thing the size of that head through a hole the size of a grapefruit? Not pretty. I do, however, recommend that you go to the library right now and check out a copy of this book, if only for the pictures inside. It'll make you rethink ever touching a member of the opposite sex (member--heh heh--the 10 year-old boy is at it again!).


Call me an anti-life, childless-by-choice, militant feminazi, but I prefer the cute to the creepy.




Ahhh, there's a baby-in-body that I can deal with.