Runaway Mummy: A Petrifying Parody

by Michael Rex, Michael Rex (Illustrator)

Overview

Another hilariously spine-tingling parody of a childhood classic by the creator of the New York Times bestselling Goodnight Goon. Now in board!

Mike Rex has created a delightful, monster-y romp that reinterprets the classic picture book about motherly love, The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd. In this parody, the little mummy comments on his mother’s sometimes overly exuberant love, and the escalation of their outrageous ideas for leaving and (of course) finding each other will make modern day parents and kids laugh aloud.

A fabulous Halloween treat for every little monster!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780593859599
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	08/27/2024
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 6.00(h) x 0.72(d)
Age Range:	1 - 3 Years

About the Author

Michael Rex lives in New Jersey. He's a big fan of The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd but feels that it's biased against giant trampling monsters and man-eating plants.

Editorial Reviews

…[a] witty sendup of The Runaway Bunny
—The New York Times

Julie Just

Rex, who parodied Goodnight Moon with the creepy Goodnight Goon, pokes monstrous fun at another Margaret Wise Brown/Clement Hurd collaboration, The Runaway Bunny. Instead of the cozy call-and-response of Brown's rabbits, Rex crafts an amusing, mock-threatening exchange between a green-faced mummy and her son, who is threatening to run away. “ 'If you run away,' said Mother Mummy, 'I will get you! For you are my rotten little mummy!' ” Though their conversation is neither cute nor fuzzy, the images reveal mutual affection. When the child mummy says he “will become a gargoyle and hide on a freezing mountaintop,” his mother responds that she “will turn into a dragon and breathe fire on you to keep you warm!” A double spread, modeled on Hurd's wordless paintings, shows the dragon heating the grinning gargoyle, who says, “That's a little hot!” Only when the little mummy threatens to become a soccer and piano–playing “little boy” rabbit (he and his family are shown in a familiar green room with a red carpet) does his mother express horror. Rex fondly and cleverly imitates the original, echoing its tenderness even as he mocks it. Ages 3–5. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

K-Gr 2–Children will enjoy comparing this parody page by page to Margaret Wise Brown’s The Runaway Bunny (HarperCollins, 1942). When a little mummy gets in trouble, he begins an imaginary game of chase with his mother. Distinctive headgear and occasional bandages identify the two through their spooky transformations. When her child becomes a serpent, gargoyle, or huge bat, the mother becomes the sea monster, dragon, or ancient cathedral necessary to be with her child. Only when the little mummy becomes a boy (actually a bunny) who “takes karate and learns to play piano” does his mother have to use her “most savage, awful, terrible, bloodcurdling shriek” to save him. She bursts into a room, which Clement Hurd might have painted, and terrifies the parents while the green goon from Rex’s Goodnight Goon (Putnam, 2008) peers through the window. Little mummy thinks it’s all a scream and decides to be his mother’s “rotten little mummy” forever. Rex uses pencil drawings colored in Photoshop for his lively cartoon illustrations. Librarians might pair this story with Brown’s classic or with Robert San Souci’s Cinderella Skeleton (Harcourt, 2000) for a spooky take on another classic tale and an eerie, laugh-filled storytime.–Mary Jean Smith, Southside Elementary School, Lebanon, TN

School Library Journal

"Once there was a little mummy who wanted to run away. ‘If you run away,' said Mother Mummy, ‘I will get you! For you are my rotten little mummy!' " As he did in 2008's Goodnight Goon, Rex puts a monstrous spin on a Margaret Wise Brown favorite. True to the pattern set forth in the original, mummy and mommy imagine themselves turning into a variety of monsters, from sea serpent to gargoyle to bat and so on. The parody quickly pales, but the author rescues himself with a metatextual turn to social satire: The little mummy says, "I will become a little boy who takes karate and learns to play piano!" as he imagines a little white bunny in a great green room. The horror. (Picture book. 10 & up)

Kirkus Reviews