Littlest Black Nerds: PJ Boy vs. The Evil Vacuum

PJ Boy vs. The Evil Vacuum is the first in a planned series of books titled The Bedtime Adventures of Pajama Boy by Ebony and A. Mack. In this first installment (spoilers are coming, so don’t let your toddler read over your shoulder), we meet Jack AKA PJ Boy and his family – Mommy, Daddy, and Kobie AKA Super Pup. Jack is a mild-mannered kid by day, but when night falls and dons his favorite pajamas he transforms into Pajama Boy! As the title suggests, Pajama Boy meets the vacuum, Mr. Vroomberg and antics ensue. The antics being that after his parents put him to bed, he gets back up, sneaks into the living room to do battle with the vacuum who, as fate would have it, is a totally decent fellow. When I first looked at the book, I was distracted by the pictures (which are pictures and not illustrations). They seem to be snapshots with a filter applied to them (cartoon, perhaps?).

A photo posted by @pajama_boy_books on Dec 10, 2015 at 4:07pm PST

Which is not inherently a bad thing, but in this instance the book reads as though the story was retrofitted to available photos, so there are moments when I know my kids would lose interest because nothing is happening and/or nothing is designed to be visually appealing to a child. For example, the opening shot of the book is of a house with a car parked outside – and nothing else really except for the text: “It was a beautiful day at the little ranch house. It seemed to be a day like any other.” And maybe the entirety of why I did…