Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

James Marshall introduced the world to the Stupids, and now we meet the Dullards, a determinedly tedious family of five. Or, at least, Mr. and Mrs. Dullard are determinedly tedious, but their three children are showing disturbing signs of interest—they’ve been caught with books, and they’re asking to go to school and play outside. The family therefore moves to a more humdrum locale, but even redoing a room in lifeless taupe and watching paint dry isn’t enough to keep Blanda, Borely, and Little Dud from the excitements of their new home, so the Dullards pack up and return to the familiar boredom of their old neighborhood. It’s a solid joke, and the dry observations of the parents are humorous (“Please don’t use exclamation marks in front of our children,” Mr. Dullard reproves a new neighbor). Really, though, it’s the interaction with the art—sometimes illustrative, sometimes ironic—that ramps the comedy up here. Salmieri’s colored pencil, watercolor, and gouache scenes are funny in their own right, with the Dullards tubular-limbed, somewhat alien figures in gray who move between splendid impassivity and melodramatic emotion, and with witty details enriching the scenes. More importantly, the illustrations reveal the kids’ mutinous response to their parents’ strictures and follow a book-length trajectory as the kids move from reading about circus acts to practicing their skills in the hardware store to finally running off to the Big Top. Kids will immediately pick up the concept and make it into their own joke, and they’ll agree that this is the most enjoyable tedium they’ve ever experienced.