Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk by David Sedaris

Grade:  D+
Recommended for David Sedaris fankids.

Let's get the obvious out of the way first.  David Sedaris is funny, twisted and funny.  He can usually be counted on for some chuckles and belly laughs.  He is the same guy who did an in-store appearance while chain-smoking and brought along a helper monkey with his/her own Tupperware container of Cheerios.  The store is a non-smoking building and the helper monkey was not because Sedaris needed help with any task.  Sedaris was also telling dirty jokes and asking for the audience's dirty jokes.  Makes you wish you could have been a fly on a wall there.

Now that the obvious is out of the way, let's talk about Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk.  This is an off the wall odd collection of essays akin to Barrel Fever.  These are not tales of his nutty family's shenanigans, although some may be the inspiration behind some essays.  These essays are like a demented version of Aesop's Fables.  Chances are if you have young kids, you will recognize the illustrations are by the same illustrator of the Olivia books.  The illustrations are fantastic, fantastic and really gross.  Thankfully this collection is short, like under 200 pages short.

Not the finest collection from our darling David.  It does give me hope that he's squirreling away crazy stories about his family for another book.  Or maybe he will do a book of dirty jokes.  Just something that's a little less dark and a little more funny.  With a family like his, there should be no shortage of material worthy of some humorous essays.