With an outsize gift for comic hyperbole, James (Leon and Bob) launches a trio of infectiously funny paperbacks in the U.S. starring a kid with an Attila-like talent for laying waste to his surroundings. Each book begins with the same two sentences—"Jake was difficult. Jake was a problem"—and then proceeds with a plot that goes goofily haywire. In Babysitter, for example, the giggles arise from something James wryly leaves unstated in the text—that Jake's caretaker is actually a gorilla, who is trying to pass for human with a hilariously ill-fitting wardrobe (Jake's parents don't notice because they're grateful anyone will show up to baby-sit their bad seed, while Jake is overjoyed to find someone who shares his delight in destruction). The tables turn with equally madcap results in Sidney, when Jake looks after his baby cousin. In Vacuumed, the most imaginative entry, the pint-size anti-hero discovers that he can hoover up the family cat, then reasons that if he's going to get in trouble, "I might as well make it big trouble!"—and vacuums up his entire family and their belongings (plus "a whole page of this book"). In his exuberant watercolor cartoons, James visually articulates Jake's unalloyed enjoyment of his own incorrigibility by letting Jake's mischievous grin occupy most of his face and a black-ink scribble suffice for his hair. Jake's glee (and his ability to emerge undaunted from the wreckage) should tickle the Dennis the Menace that lurks within even the most well-behaved child. Ages 3-7. (Aug.)
