Strollerderby

It’s odd when a children’s book is adult-relatable. Kid lit usually takes you to another world, frequently animal, with the express goal of teaching your little ones valuable life lessons. But Dudley the Daydreamer by Anders Brundin, illustrated by Joanna Rubin Dranger and translated by Frank Perry is a little more sophisticated than your favorite mouse. When we join Dudley in his ordinary world we get a load of adult drudgery: getting rained on at the bus stop, burning sausages, writing supplementary draft reports.

This Walter Mitty of Swedish children’s literature escapes his ho-hum job as assistant supervisor in the Civil Service by daydreaming of feeding ice cream to antelopes and landing on the moon. Even Dudley’s home life requires escapism. Rather than absorbing the nightly news, Dudley tunes out:

All they talked about on the news last night was war. War and more war. Someone’s got to save the world. “Find inner peace – stop making war!” says the head of the peace movement, Dalai Dudley.

While living in this alternate universe does not initially bode well for Dudley – he gets fired and can no longer daydream because he’s so incredibly hungry - eventually Dudley finds fulfillment in his “dream” job.

Other than the trite, “Hold on to your dreams,” the life lesson of Dudley the Daydreamer is this - when mom is shopping in the children’s book aisle, sometimes quirky illustrations and adult issues win out over sweet teddy bear families. – April Peveteaux

Dudley the Daydreamer (WingedChariot Press, 2008) can be found at Amazon for $11.01.