The Day the Mustache Took Over
The Day the Mustache Took Over
By: Alan Katz
Illustrated by: Kris Easler
I’ve been looking forward to this book before it was released. My friend, Kris Easler, did the illustrations. When she announced that she was working on this project, I knew it was going to be good. She did the artwork for my website and in our conversations about being a freelance artist, she told me that she loves being able to be a little picky about her projects. She likes working on things that she likes—which makes a lot of sense. So I knew this was going to be a good book. And oh my goodness, it is!
The Day the Mustache took Over is a middle grade novel—meaning it’s great for upper elementary. It’s the story of a set of twin boys who get into a ton of trouble and can’t keep a nanny. They fight a lot and struggle with following rules.
All of their nannies quit on them because they are too naughty. Until Martin Healey Discount shows up. In front of the parents, Martin is a posh nanny with a British accent. But when it’s just him and the boys, Nathan and David, he is all kinds of trouble. He makes messes and nonsensical decisions. He is whimsical and foolish. The boys need to compensate for his nonsense by being well behaved.
This is a story with great quirky humor. It only took me a couple of days to read over my lunch hour—probably a total of 3 hours committed to it. I think it would be a fun read aloud book. What I liked most about this book was that the boys were the ones who came to the conclusion that they needed to make a change—and that they could still have fun while following directions.
Part of me expected this book to be a variation of Mary Poppins or Nanny McPhee, only with a male nanny. But it really wasn’t it was totally different from either of those stories, and it truly stands out as a unique story. (Though, I would have been okay with it being like Mary Poppins as well.)
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in a fun story with a big dollop of whimsy.
