Taming Horrible Harry

Chartrand, Lily. Taming Horrible Harry. Illus. Roge. Trans Susan Ouriou. Toronto, ON: Tundra Books, 2005.

The stunning image and design of the cover were enough to make me pull this book off the shelf. But, though gorgeously illustrated, Taming Horrible Harry was a somewhat disappointing read. Harry the horrible monster loves nothing more than to hide in the woods and scare people. But when a girl is too wrapped up in her book to be scared of Harry's first scream, he becomes fascinated with the book and learns to read. The story eventually culminates in a positive and remarkably boring ending, but the direction is clear from the fourth or fifth spread. Not only was the text long and surprisingly didactic, the story itself fell flat since there was very little tension, humour or actual plot past these first few pages.

The brightly coloured paintings seem to carry the entire weight of creating character, action and interest. Based on these illustrations, it is hard not to develop a fondness for the little round red monster in the green plaid pants. But for all their energy and visual appeal, these illustrations do little to extend the narrative itself in a meaningful way. For a story that begins with "Horrible Harry was a big, dirty, mean monster," and ends with a monster who spends his days reading peacefully in the forest and hoping to one day find the little girl whose book inspired him, the illustrations show little variation in mood, tone or colour pallette. The transformation which takes place in the text, unconvincing as it is, is almost entirely absent from the illustrations, with the exception of facial expressions.

This is a beautiful book with a great message, but the narrative - both in the text and illustrations - quickly lost my interest.

Translated from the French original.