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Forney, Ellen – Monkey Food: The Complete “I Was Seven in ’75” Collection

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Monkey Food: The Complete “I Was Seven in ’75” Collection

I have to admit, I was ready to give this book a bad review. Most books can’t save themselves after 50 or so pages of so-so stuff. Then it slowly dawned on me that it wasn’t mediocre stuff, it was just stories told in a really low-key fashion. When you’re done with the whole book you have a really great portrait of what it was like growing up in the 70’s, which is all the more impressive because of the fact that these strips were done mostly in weekly installments. She tells about dealing with the possibility of someone figuring out in grade school that her last name rhymes with “horny”, going to a nudist camp with her parents, her stupid dog, traveling, and her parents getting in trouble for having pot, among many other things. It totally won me over, anyway. I don’t know if she’s still doing a weekly strip, but she has a few samples on her page. Unfortunately it’s only a few samples, so you’re going to have to make up your mind from those (and the one I’m putting up) as to whether or not you’re interested. I think she’s worth a look, but who am I anyway?