I Do Not Like Stories

This is the story of a boy who doesn’t like stories, or at least that’s what he claims — over and over and over. Everything that happens to him reminds him of the kinds of stories he doesn’t like. He doesn’t like stories about waking up or any kind of transportation, be it planes or trains or buses or bikes. He doesn’t like stories about things that happen in school, or that he is given to eat, or even about going home. Nope. There are no kinds of stories he likes.

As we watch the boy go through his day complaining and complaining about every kind of story imaginable, we also watch his cat go through the day having adventures about the very things the boy complains are no good in a story. Everything is represented in simple illustrations in tones of gray with pops of yellow and red. This is a clever idea for a story, but it may well be too subtle for young readers to really get the point. It has some humor at the end, but by then most readers will have been put off by the negativity of the boy whining about not liking any stories.