The Mischievians by William Joyce (review)

Two kids are desperate for help when stuff—a sock from a pair, the television remote, car keys—keeps disappearing from their home. Enter Dr. Zooper, famous Mischievianologist, whose comprehensive encyclopedia of Mischievians, the little creatures responsible for all of these shenanigans, illuminates their plight (and constitutes much of the book). Written in a Q&A format, entries detail the lives of beings from the Yawn Mower—a wispy green guy who lives inside mouths and induces yawning—to the Endroller, a little monster with a suction-cup prosthesis that unravels the end of the toilet paper roll. Some entries are significantly cleverer than others (an amusingly named Mista Blista is responsible for your achy feet, while the sprite who’s eaten your homework is simply dubbed the Homework Eater), but the encyclopedia’s creative take on familiar situations will garner enthusiasm. The prose is similarly uneven, with an appealing conversational tone clashing with awkward sentence structure. The oil illustrations with their retro-inspired palette and watery detail evoke Mark Teague’s, and the Mischievians themselves are cleverly designed to perfectly match their particular form of roguery. The multiple, lengthy entries will likely make this a text kids dive in and out of rather than read cover-to-cover, but those looking for a scapegoat for any sticky situation will likely find one to blame here.