The Book-a-Week Project, Week 12

The Littlest Hitler: Stories
Ryan Boudinot

With a title like that, I looked forward to a collection of crass, over-the-top stories. The title story, even with its funny, weird premise of a fourth-grader going to school as Hitler for Halloween, isn't over the top. When the popular girl comes as Anne Frank, the story becomes a meditation on cliques, family, and the awkwardness of trying to manage life in the strange social environment of grade school.

For the most part, the remaining stories function similarly; a piece of weirdness is injected into an otherwise banal situation and watched. In “Bee Beard”, the beard of bees a woman wears to work destroys her burgeoning romance with a co-worker. Other stories feature suburban cannibalism, state-enforced parricide, and packs of hopped-up, murderous salesmen. Despite their premises, the stories in The Littlest Hitler are (mostly) subtler than one would anticipate, and far more striking because of it.

Now if I can just finish Jenny and the Jaws of Life by Jincy Willett before the week is out, I'll be back on track.