A bizarre collection of monsters who are ugly, gross, and pretty much useless. I'm sure this is fun to read aloud to a young child who would enjoy such things, but as a stuffy old adult I just sort of breezed through it and felt a little confused. ( )

Flanimals is a picture book written by Ricky Gervais, illustrated by Rob Steen.

Plot:
The book is split in three parts. In the first one, Gervais introduces the flanimals – some weird, rather unknown creatures. In the second he details some of their behaviors and finally he provides you with a test to see how well you know the flanimals.

Flanimals is wonderfully weird and unique and funny, in a slightly mean way. I liked it.

Read more on my blog: http://kalafudra.wordpress.com/2012/02/16/flanimals-ricky-gervais/ ( )

Utterly stupid, even for a children's book. Basically this is a taxonomy of a bunch of random creatures, ostensibly funny ones, but you'll only find it amusing if you find descriptions of the creature like "Blunging" ("Hamble-springs around happily caring for its young. It's not so happy when it has to watch the adult Mernimbler rip its baby's head off.") amusing. It relies too much on the theory that you'll get a laugh out of nonsensical neologisms, and doesn't actually go the distance on actual humor. Not to mention the fact that there's no plot and no story, which would've been helpful.

If you want to get your kid something in this vein, try something from Michael Whelan. Maybe they won't be rolling with laughter, but then again, they'll only be rolling with boredom if you get them this book. ( )