[Welcome to the EL Book Introductions series. These posts are all short (<180 words) introductions/reviews of books in the EL library. They focus on telling you what we think will be interesting for you, a college student and English learner, so use them to help you find the right book for you. You can also use the tags to find books about topics you might be interested in.]
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This is a weird, weird picture book. The story takes place in the distant future, after North America is destroyed by an overflow of junk mail. Everything about American culture and history has been forgotten…until the archaeologist Howard Carson discovers a buried motel. The book tells the story of everything he finds in the motel, and what he (mistakenly) thinks it means. For example, he assumes that the television is an altar to the gods, like a butsudan.
This book contains some difficult language and a little bit of wordplay (dajare). However, each page can be read by itself almost like a short story. The pictures are appealing, and help you understand what Carson is describing. This is a good book for close reading: instead of reading the entire book, you can choose one page and treat each joke like a puzzle. What is the thing in the picture? What does Carson mistake it for? Do you think it’s funny?
My two cents: Because some of the language and jokes are difficult, I recommend just reading a page or two at a time. Pages 22-25 are a good introduction to the story, and “The Treasures” (starting page 51) are each good, very short, paragraphs that should be easy to understand jokes.
