The Portmanteau Book

The Portmanteau Book was one of my favorite books as a child. I must have signed it out of the school library a dozen times at two or three different schools, and even the copy I own today is an old library discard. I was a weird kid, and The Portmanteau Book is a weird book. It was written by Thomas Rockwell (son of painter Norman Rockwell), who also wrote the much more widely known How to Eat Fried Worms, and I don't honestly remember if I knew that when I first pulled it from the library shelf. What I know for sure is that I revisited The Portmanteau Book far more often than I ever did How to Eat Fried Worms. He also wrote a book about a giant bird that grows out of a book called Squawwwk!, also illustrated by his wife, Gail show more Rockwell. But I digress.

It would be a fool's errand to attempt even a partial list of what is stuffed inside The Portmanteau Book; poems, short fiction, interviews, mock ads and puzzles, weird comics... Rockwell seems to be throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks, and in this case it nearly all sticks, leaving you with a very stick wall... I've lost control of my metaphor. Let me regroup.

Just one example of the kind of stuff you'll find in The Portmanteau Book, there's Sgt. Buck Slasher, a comic book illustrated in words, a short story about a boy trapped in a stall of the girl's bathroom, a poem about onion ice cream, and can you handle the awesome of... the Two Bonus Pages? This is a kid's book crammed full of experimental fiction and silly nonsense, and any child (or adult) that prizes creativity and warped humor will not want to pass this one up. show less

The Portmanteau Book is simply unique.

I mean that literally; in many years of reading books for children and young adults, I've never come across anything like it. Within its 142 pages, Thomas and Gail Rockwell managed to cram in more ideas, more humor, and more sheer creativity than most authors come up with in a lifetime.

There are adventure stories. An alien invasion. Nakedness. Toilet paper. Love. A saga. Poetry - lots of poetry, all of it funny. An utterly unique comic book that includes a full page of advertisements in the classic old comic book style that will reduce you to helpless laughter if you've ever read the ads in the back of comic books.

A contest to answer the question "I like The Portmanteau Book because:" (one show more disqualified sample answer is "You can read it while you're eating spaghetti because you don't care if sauce spatters all over it"). Recipes, including Liver Punishment, Fried Hall Closet, and Parent's Goose ("To cook a Parent's Goose..."). A unique backwards story. A Rebus. A quiz. A Chinese Demon Maze.

A Consolation Page. A Double Crostic. An index which includes a story that runs from entry to entry. The results of a poll (about The Portmanteau Book, of course). And there's lots more. The book is, simply, packed.

It's beautifully and amusingly illustrated in a variety of styles, to boot. Gail Rockwell illustrated some of Thomas Rockwell's other books as well, so readers of his other books will probably recognize her work.

Thomas Rockwell is best known for the extremely funny [book:How to Eat Fried Worms], of course. And it's a great book, no question (the movies, on the other hand...well, that's a different story). But the humor in The Portmanteau Book is more intense, more surprising...and yet, the book has been virtually forgotten. It's out of print, and has been for many years.

Why?

I honestly don't know. Could it be some of the recipes? Some of them could, I suppose, lead to a lawsuit if some child made the mistake of actually trying one (for example, "Candied Peach", which uses a sugar-based glue to glue a teasing girl to her chair). Some of the story titles might frighten timid publishing companies, although all of them are really pretty innocent.

It's just wrong that such a brilliant book should be out of print, while so much garbage is being churned out for children these days.

I first read this book when I was eleven or twelve (shortly after it was published). That's probably the perfect age to read it, although bright younger children would probably enjoy it too. And it reads wonderfully for teenagers and even adults; I've continued to reread it for pleasure fairly often over the decades.

Now I'm looking forward to reading it to my son. I've already read him two of the "Hot" stories in the book, and he loved them. But he's still a little young for some of the other material (he's seven). The humor is wonderful, but some of it is perhaps a little too advanced for him still. Nonetheless, I'm sure that within two or three years at most he'll be reading it and laughing his head off. show less