Celebrity-authored children’s books have come in for a bit of a kicking recently, accused of being lazy, cynical ploys that have everything to do with expanding the brand of a star at that middle-aged point of their fame and precious little to do with nourishing the hearts and souls of their young readers.
Not this one. The first children’s book by the American comedian Kate McKinnon bucks that trend by actually being good. It’s exactly the kind of misfit celebration story you would expect from a performer who kept Madagascar hissing cockroaches as pets as a child, before gaining a cult following for her impressions on Saturday Night Live and stealing scenes as Weird Barbie in Greta Gerwig’s Barbie film.
Oddball is McKinnon’s shtick, and it is put to effective use in this anarchic story about three sisters who come under the tutelage of an eccentric pariah after being kicked out of the last etiquette school in their stuffy, sexist town. These girls don’t want to learn the “85 different poses” for the velvet fainting couch, or how to “laugh at the Admiral’s joke”. They want to study slugs, make explosions and excel in the various fields of mad science, such as “whatany — the study of bizarre plants” and “fryzzics — the building of impossible machines”.
Enter Millicent Quibb, “a woman in a filthy lab coat and hair like a blooming onion”, who has the tendency to make grand aerial entrances riding on the back of “a flying motorcycle in the shape of a housefly”.
Gertrude, the eldest sister, is the main character, but no one here is worried about emotional depth. She says: “It’s not easy to be the protagonist, because you are the one who has to feel the most and ugh, who has the energy?”
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McKinnon doesn’t do feelings. She does lolz.
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The action whizzes by in a giddy blur as the girls try to stop a giant, cross-eyed worm from devouring the town’s population of bichon frisés (or something) but, really, it’s all about the fun along the way.
The narration is packed with wry asides. The writing has the kind of rhythm and the gags the kind of polish that could only have come from someone who has spent years as a stand-up in unforgiving comedy clubs. As the narrator says in one of her footnotes: “Have you ever heard the sound of only two people clapping? It is somehow much worse than the sound of zero people clapping.”
The story is so desperate to tee up a sequel that this first book feels almost unfinished with many of the key questions left unanswered. Still, it’s an enjoyable reminder that what makes you weird may also make you a winner.
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The Millicent Quibb School of Etiquette for Young Ladies of Mad Science (9+) by Kate McKinnon HarperCollins £14.99 pp256. To order a copy go to timesbookshop.co.uk. Free UK standard P&P on orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members
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