I Was a Child

New Yorker cartoonist Kaplan (Everything Is Going to Be Okay) recalls the somewhat stifling years of his conventional childhood in Maplewood, N.J., in his first nonfiction endeavor. The young Kaplan finds solace in television’s “clarity of emotions,” empathizing with I Love Lucy, idealizing the Newhart’s marriage, and treating the annual airing of The Wizard of Oz with profound reverence. Kaplan’s distinct imagery captures the vaguely suffocating aura of the family home: the giant cabinet record player, everything “repaired with Scotch tape,” and the TV antenna assisted by tin foil. Further, ’60s and ’70s nostalgia abounds, as Kaplan lovingly recalls baseball card packages with stale gum, Jonny Quest, and S&H Green Stamps rewards from the grocery store. The memoir is, of course, peppered with Kaplan’s famously simple illustrations depicting subjects like Lucille Ball, a childhood friend’s unhinged mother, Barbara Streisand’s nose, and Superman pushing a manual lawnmower. Fans of Kaplan’s art will find a similar style in his prose: quick, humorous sketches of the everyday, with the occasional moment of pure poetry. [em]Agent: Erin Malone, William Morris Endeavor. (Apr.) [/em]