Bang (Gecko Press Titles) - Hardcover

Leo Timmers is one of Belgium's preeminent picture book authors, with a large and loyal following. Trained in graphic design, he illustrates magazines as well as picture books. He lives in Brussels with his wife and daughters.

Leo Timmers is one of Belgium's preeminent picture book authors, with a large and loyal following. Trained in graphic design, he illustrates magazines as well as picture books. He lives in Brussels with his wife and daughters.

"Watching vehicles bash into one another is a perennial rib-tickler for kids, and Timmers (The Magical Life of Mr. Renny) exploits this with a marvelously loony series of fender benders. The story opens with a self-referential gag as a googly-eyed deer in a bowler hat drives what appears to be the official Bang convertible, the back loaded with copies of this very book. He's reading a copy instead of looking at the road when, 'Bang,' he drives straight into a dustbin. Behind him, a man in a red jalopy filled with chickens sounds his klaxon, but it's too late: 'Bang.' A giraffe returning from a shopping trip is next; the force of the collision dresses the jalopy chickens in fashionable new clothing. An alligator with a load of tires smashes into the giraffe, and so on. No one is hurt, there's no major damage, and a magnificent four-page foldout depicts the final catastrophe, which provides ice cream for all. Timmers never skimps, painting with devoted attention every automotive detail and gleam in every chicken's eye, and providing a plausible cause for every new accident." ―starred, Publishers Weekly

"A zany traffic-jam story. An antlered bookseller in a yellow roadster totes a stack of books titled Bang and has a fender bender with a trash can, into which all the books fly. Behind the accident, a pig in a red truck bearing 16 google-eyed chickens can't stop quickly enough. Chickens fly, then land atop the head of the bookseller. Next, a giraffe with bags of clothing in its open-trunk roadster piles into the pig's truck, sending the garments soaring into the air, then onto the chickens. The fun compounds with an alligator-piloted tire truck, a purple jalopy toting fish, and more. Each 'BANG' scene uses the background color of the crashing vehicle and brings more hilarity and opportunity for conversations about colors, names of animals, and predictions. Single-word repetition and a final brake-squealing 'eeeeeee' near the end will encourage audience participation. The spreads stretch out the humor, and a gatefold scene after an ice-cream truck nearly bumps into a paint-can vehicle leads most characters to a happy ending." ―School Library Journal

"Silly results turn a multivehicle accident into a street party in this onomatopoeic import.
Spread-filling iterations of the title or a long screech appearing at every other page turn prompt young audiences to chime in on the noise. It all starts when a deer driving a yellow roadster while reading (a book, not a cellphone) hits a garbage can ('BANG'), then takes a rear-end hit from a hog driving a truck full of chickens ('BANG') who become festooned with fashion accessories after a collision ('BANG') with the giraffe on the way home from the store, and so on. Subsequent tailgating motorists shower the growing chaos with tires, fish, veggies, little bunnies, paint and, in a climactic four-page foldout panorama, ice cream. Just to give the escalating catastrophe/frolic a more surreal air, Timmers wildly exaggerates his animal cast's features and expressions and adds high-sheen highlights to the surfaces of his brightly colored, sharply defined scenes. Carping critics and motor-safety wonks may be displeased to see all of the victims laughing at the way their flying cargoes end up adorning all and sundry. The violence here is strictly cartoon-style though, with no harm done and ice cream for all at the end.
A cautionary tale on the hazards of distracted driving? If anything, just the opposite, but it's sure a lot of fun." ―Kirkus Reviews