Night of the Living Worms: A Speed Bump and Slingshot Misadventure by Dave Coverly (review)

The early bird gets the worm, but what about the younger brother of the early bird? Well, he has to cope with feeling inferior to a perfect older brother. Little Speed Bump (named after the author/illustrator’s long-running cartoon) would love to, just once, get that worm, but he can’t fly very fast and he’s inclined to oversleep. A contemplative mood leads to a midnight walk for Speed Bump, who encounters a field of angry nightcrawlers cooking up a dastardly plan to take the Early Bird out. Can Speed Bump use his birdbrain to thwart the plan, save his brother, and maybe get finally get a little respect? Coverly’s goofy humor, rife with bird puns (“they hatched plans, but got eggsasperated”) and pop culture references (one bird “tweets” on its phone), overlays a thoughtful story of a younger sibling finding an identity outside of his older sibling’s shadow. The cartoonish black and white illustrations, which take up as much or more space as the big-type print, feature plenty of visual gags and include speech bubbles, diagrams, and other imbedded text that will give budding readers opportunities to test their skills at every turn. Early Bird is a genuinely kind older brother, and Speed Bump’s realization that it’s perfectly fine to like him without being like him will appeal to plenty of brothers and sisters negotiating their own sibling dynamics.