Hard knock life.

Children's literature is apparently a tough market to crack. Kids have a rather brutal approach to what they like and don't like. If the book is good, they'll read it non-stop for a year. Everyone in their extended family will read it. They might even hold onto it for years, to give to their children one day. But if they hate it, then it is treated like rubbish. It can be used as anything from a napkin to a towel. But it wont be read.

Yet their books are complete rubbish. Bad watercolour paintings of what can only be described as nonsense. My favourite book was about a boy who played with cars. There was no character development, no plot twists. In fact, I could have been playing with cars myself and I would have had an exponentially more fun time. Yet that book was my favourite. I look back on it now and think what a waste of paper it was.

I've decided to devote my time to becoming a children's book reviewer. But I'm not going to dance around the tough issues. I don't care how easy it is for 5 year olds to read. I'm going to ask it the tough questions, the sort of critical eye that every other piece of literature gets subjected to.

To begin, 'Axel the Freeway Cat' by Thacher Hurd. (Read it online here.)

Straight off the bat, come up with a better pseudonym, Mr/s Author. That name sounds like a burp.

Now, Axel is a cat who lives under a freeway overpass, in a car body, in a muddy ditch. So Axel is an abandoned animal. And in the realm of abandoned animals, he's essentially a bum. Yes he seems happy. This book is teaching children that if they abandon their animals, they'll be fine, they'll just shack up under a freeway somewhere. Unfortunately, they are more likely to end up dead on the freeway than living under it.

But Axel is happy. Good for him. He wears clothes, eats breakfast and has a job apparently. This job? He picks up the litter on the side of the freeway and gets ignored by the drivers. Sounds like he's actually a convicted felon, because that's the sort of "job" they get criminals to do. While they're in prison. I believe they call them 'chain gangs'.

Still, Thacher maintains the illusion that Axel is happy, because Axel collects this rubbish. Including old food. Oh, and a harmonica, which he plays under the overpass. Axel is, without a doubt, a vagrant.

One day there is a big traffic jam and the reader learns that a little cat in a little red car is the cause of the disruption. Note that the cat is a female cat and she looks suspiciously like an old woman cat. Well done enforcing the stereotypes that old people and women are bad drivers Thacher.

Axel fixes the car, and the old woman invites him to take her car for a spin. Now I'm not sure if Axel even has his license, but apparently that's not an issue. It should be, because Axel speeds off into the sunset, driving dangerously for hours. Eventually he invites the old woman into his house (read: abandoned car body). Hear that kids? Invite strangers into your car, particularly ones that live under bridges. And then go back to their "house" for dinner.

Axel caps off a day of reckless driving by crashing through his own fence, vegetable patch and irrigation system. Nice, so whatever good work he'd done fixing the car has been undone. And when the old lady suggests they clean up? Axel just wants to have a drink of milk. I suspect there may be a dash of whisky in that milk.

The book then ends abruptly. Axel and his hostage have dinner and then jam for a while. And that's it. There is no message, no closure for the reader. What now? How does the old lady cat get home? What about her car? Is Axel going to suffer any consequences? I haven't learnt anything, particularly no valuable life lessons.

Thacher Hurt, if this was your fourth book, I am concerned about how bad the other three are.

I've been your cybrarian Tom, allow me to play you out...