[BOOK REVIEW] Pat the Beastie by Henrik Drescher

Title:  Pat the Beastie

Author:  Henrik Drescher


Genre: Horror / Humor / Monsters


Year Published: 1993


Year Read: 2010


Series: Pat the Beastie #1

Publisher: Orion Children's Books

Source:  Purchased

Content Rating:  Ages 5+ (Some Gross Humor and a Scary Scene)

Buy on:  Amazon  //  Book Depository 

“Pat the Beastie” is a hilarious and revolting story from the creative mind of Henrik Drescher about the consequences of mistreating pets.  “Pat the Beastie” may be a bit too gross and disturbing for smaller children, but older children will definitely be delighted with this book.

Henrik Drescher’s parody of Dorothy Kunhardt’s popular book “Pat the Bunny” is incredibly hilarious and disgusting for many children.  Henrik Drescher goes into great detail about how the kids torture their pet beastie, Pat such as jiggling at Pat’s eyes and pull Pat’s fur.  Henrik Drescher’s illustrations are highly creative and creepy at the same time, especially of the illustrations of Pat the Beastie as Pat is illustrated as a very hairy and wrinkled green dragon and the expressions on Pat’s face are priceless as the readers can see the pain that Pat goes through as Paul and Judy torture Pat relentlessly.

Parents should know that smaller kids might not handle the gross humor and the disturbing ending.  I will not tell you what happened at the end of the book since I do not want to spoil the book for you, but the ending will definitely creep out kids who are scared of monsters.  Also, kids might want to watch out for the gross humor displayed in this book such as the kids jiggling Pat the Beastie’s eyes and pulling at Pat’s worm boogers.  Parents might want to read this book first and decide if their children love gross humor and can handle disturbing endings.

“Pat the Beastie” is probably Henrik Drescher’s grossest yet most creative book since it is Henrik Drescher’s first pop up book.  This book is definitely a great treat for children who love pop up books and gross humor.  I would recommend this book to children ages five and up even though the book suggests that the age group be ages three and up.  Yet, there is gross humor and a disturbing ending that might not be appropriate for young children.

[BOOK REVIEW] Love the Beastie by Henrik Drescher

Title:  Love the Beastie

Author:  Henrik Drescher


Genre: Friendship / Humor / Monsters



Year Published: 2011



Year Read: 2012



Series: Pat the Beastie #2

Publisher:  Workman Publishing

Source:  Purchased

Content Rating:  Ages 3+ (Some Gross Humor)
 

“Paul and Judy were naughty children who teased their poor pet Beastie to no end. Then Beastie decides to eat them!”

If you had read the first book “Pat the Beastie,” then you would know what had happened to Paul and Judy in that book!  “Love the Beastie” is the sequel to Henrik Drescher’s classic children’s book “Pat the Beastie” and this time, Paul and Judy have learned their lesson and are now good friends with their pet Beastie!  “Love the Beastie” may have some slight gross moments that might make some children feel queasy, but it is truly a wonderful book to read to small children!

The book picks up from where Beastie eats Paul and Judy and afterwards, Beastie decides to spit the children out of his belly after it sees that Paul and Judy promised to be good from now on.  Now Paul, Judy and Beastie are the best of friends and they do fun things together like spin each other on the carousel, playing hide-and-seek and brushing Beastie’s gunky teeth!

When I first read Henrik Drescher’s “Pat the Beastie,” I never would have thought that there would be a sequel to that classic book! I really enjoyed the ending of the first book (though it is creepy and twisted) and it was one of the few times that a children’s book could go to such high levels of gross humor.  However, the sequel “Love the Beastie” is the complete opposite of the first book, but just as memorable.  Henrik Drescher has done an excellent job at both writing and illustrating this slightly gross yet sweet natured tale about two children redeeming themselves after they tortured their pet Beastie and becoming fast friends with their Beastie.  I loved how Henrik Drescher gave the tone of this book a sweeter note since the first book was more malicious as the kids tortured the Beastie while in this book; the kids are friendly towards the Beastie.  I like the way that while this book was less malicious than the first book, the tone of this book still remained consistent with the first book as gross humor is the main priority in both books and this book does have some gross moments such as Paul and Judy brushing Beastie’s dirty teeth and the characters passing gas in bed.  But probably my most favorite part of this book was:

THE ILLUSTRATIONS!

I am a huge fan of Henrik Drescher’s illustrations and his illustrations definitely do not disappoint me here!  Henrik Drescher’s illustrations are wonderfully surreal and hilarious to look at and I loved the illustrations of the Beastie as it is green, large and hairy and instead of seeing images of the Beastie being tortured, we see images of the Beastie playing with Paul and Judy happily and it was interesting seeing the smile on the Beastie’s face.  Probably my favorite images were of the beginning pages where we see what last happened in the first book with Beastie eating the kids and letting them out.  I also loved the little pop ups in this book especially the one where children can pull on the Beastie’s tongue to let Paul and Judy out of Beastie’s stomach.

The only problem with this book is that there are some gross moments in this book such as Paul and Judy brushing the Beastie’s messy teeth and the beginning of the book where Paul and Judy get out of Beastie’s stomach by sliding on its tongue.  However, since the gross moments in this book are only slightly gross, small children might not have a problem with the gross scenes in this book.

Overall, “Love the Beastie” is easily one of the best sequels I have ever read from Henrik Drescher’s work and this will definitely be a great classic for fans of the original book,“Pat the Beastie” for many years!  I would recommend this book to children ages three and up since there is not much gross humor that might disgust smaller children.

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