monday, april 21. 1980
daily nebraskan
page 9
"The Babysitter' morbid;
typical detective story
By Scott Kleager
Detective fiction (or suspense Action) is
now one of the most popular genres in
America.
Like science fiction, detective fiction
has sold so well because it's a good way to
be entertained and an easy way to relax.
The Babysitter, by Andrew Coburn, is
relaxing in a morbid sort of way. The char
acters look familiar as trite creations and
include the police chief, the FBI men, the
victimized couple whoVe had their baby
kidnapped, the Mafia restaurant owner
who knew the babysitter before she was
killed and of course the totally deranged
killer-kidnapper. The characters themselves
are nearly transparent, reacting in an ex
pected way to just about everything.
The wife of the victimized couple, for
instance, is stereotypically "intuitive." To
ward the end of the book when she, her
husband and the police chief are unsuspect
ingly closing in on the killer and kidnapper,
she says: i feel closer to Paula now than
when she was alive, ... Do you feel that
way?"
Babysitter bludgeoned
Like most works of this over-worked
genre, The Babysitter starts out with a
crime. Mrs. and Mr. Wright come home
from a movie to find' their babysitter
bludgeoned to death on their living room
floor and their baby daughter gone, They
find out the sitter was using a false name
and gave the Wrights a false job reference,
which they didn't check (isn't it always
that way?).
From then on it's dirty laundry time
with all the Wright's friends saying the
wrong things, and coming more and more
under the watchful eye of the FBI. One of
Mr. Wright's co-workers, in fact, kills him
self because his wife has found out,
through the investigating agents, that he
likes young college women that study
under him. The college he taught for, and
Mr. Wright teaches for, is the usual Peyton
Place.
Cop 'kicks the bucket
Finally, the parents find the killer-kidnapper
with the help of the good-hearted,
over-worked police chief, who has a fatal
heart attack just before it all ends.
Although it sticks closely to the genre,
The Babysitter does a few interesting
things. Instead of just- the dopey cops
muddling things up, the author includes
the dopey FBI and various ways in which
they mess up things too. This aspect of the
book neither helps nor hurts the plot in the
end.
Amazingly enough, there's no protagon
ist in The Babysitter. It's a story seen
through the eyes of everybody, and con
sequently, lacks a reliable point of view.
One finds oneself mistrusting what every
one sees and says.
The Babysitter is detective fiction with
no detective, a horror story that's not
scary, a narrative with many small, confus
ing voices and a book that offers little ex
cept relaxation,
Illustrator draws children
into world of art, fiction
By Mary Fastenau
All he needs are pen, paper and a smile.
With those three elements a misshapen
raindrop becomes a funny little bird, a
wiggly cloud is transformed into a sheep
or a lion, and a child, aged 5 or 60,
acquires a host of new friends,
Jose Aruego, a leading illustrator,
brought his pen, paper and smile to
McPhee Elementary School, 820 S. 15th
St., and then took his audience into a
magical world of whimsical characters.
As he drew he explained, "This is what
I do most of the time for the very young
seven to nine and 15 to 50,"
All of the books he illustrates are stories
about animals because they are ,4much
more interesting " than people. Each
character is finished with a smile, evidence
that he loves what he does.
He has not always been an illustrator
but was educated as a lawyer, became
disillusioned and left his home in the
Phillipines for New York City.
Still smiling
Thirty-seven books later, he is still in
New York and still smiling as he shares his
philosophies on drawing and life,
"In my books, I have to make sure I
communicate," he said. He has made
communication easy by the facial
expressions of his characters.
There are only four basic expressions,"
he explained with the help of his pen,
"either you're happy or you're sad or
you're angry or you re scared."
As he demonstrated his drawing techni
ques, he directed many of the questions to
the third, fourth and fifth graders who had
come from Western, Neb. to learn about
the magical land in his hooks.
Students 'spellbound'
They sat spellbound, each clutching the
piece of paper that would contain Aruego's
signature when they left. The adults also
hoped for a signature, and had brought
books for him to autograph.
Aruego has written seven of the books
he has illustrated. Those works are
characterized by few words and lots of
pictures. One contains only two sentences,
"Look what I can do" and "I can do it
vtoo."
His books often show his feelings about
life. As an example, he gave a slide presen
tation of his latest book, "Another Mouse
to Feed," which he described as a 'Very
modern story."
The tale was about a mouse family with
32 children and a mother and father who
had to work to -support their offspring.
Another mouse child arrived on their door
step and they didn't have the heart to turn
it away, so all 32 children got jobs to help
' their mother, who was a rollerskating
instructor, and their father, who had three
jobs.
Character recreations
Before his presentation began, Aruego
had observed the art work of Betsey Pear
son's second graders, who had tried to re
create some of his characters.
He appeared delighted at the attempts
at artistic work and said with a smile,
"These guys have personality,"
Dee Story, elementary education
professor explained that Aruego's per
sonality was one of the reasons he was
selected to come to Lincoln to give the
presentation.
She explained that next year they hope
to bring in another author, through the
Nebraska Children's Book Award, This is
a program which will begin next year when
the children from across the state will vote
on their favorite author and that person
will be invited to Nebraska to receive an
award.
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