Fungus the Bogeyman

Product Information

The book follows a typical day for Fungus the Bogeyman, starting when he wakes up and ending just before he falls asleep. On this night, he startles a vicar, a woman in her bath, and stinks out a couple’s bedroom using his Bogey umbilical cord. The level of detailed world building of Bogeydom makes this such a fun and worthy inclusion to the 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow-up. She reassures him and we are shown that bogeyman, disgusting as they are potrayed in this book, still possess the strongest human emotion, love. Bogeymen like: silence, tasting books, losing or drawing games, wetness, rotten smells and slowness.

In 2002 the BBC began work on a three-part TV comedy series, which ultimately aired in November 2004 and is available as a DVD, starring Clare Thomas as Jessica White, Martin Clunes as her father and Mak Wilson as Fungus. So it's a wonderful, hilarious and elaborate pop-up book full of Slime and Muck, and if it could smell would really stink! The Bogeymen that live there revel in every kind of nastiness imaginable - especially their day-job of scaring human beings. A stage production, based on the book, was performed at artsdepot in North London between November 2007 and August 2008. Briggs not only gives the reader a clear indication of what the Bogeyman wears, eats and wash’s himself with but also the bogeyman’s hobbies, habitat and modes of transport.Deep down underground, in the dark, dripping tunnels of bogeydom, live the bogeys, a vile collection of slimy, smelly creatures who revel in everything revolting. Bogeydom is not a place I would particularly like to visit, but I am glad I am aware of it, and that while reading about its goings-on my dinner, and sense of humour, remained intact. Written and illustrated by Raymond Briggs, a much loved children's author, perhaps best known for his Christmas classic, The Snowman. I have had this book for years – but it is now time to pass it on to a little boy, who will hopefully love it as much as I do. And it is was a revelation to discover that even the sublimely happy Fungus was not above an attack of existential angst .

And even considering that many children do seem to massively relish and cherish humour based on bodily functions and liquid excretions, I do have to wonder whether the massive amounts of the latter occurring in Fungus the Bogeyman might well end up being potentially distracting and even too much of a "good thing" (so much so as to even jade and feel dragging for children who usually enjoy this type of humour, these types of jokes). Life in Bogeydom is full of snot, smells, slime, scum and other unspeakable things, and Bogeymen live under the ground revelling in allthe nastiness imaginable.An immensely inventive picture book landmark enjoyed as much by adults as children, Briggs' incredibly detailed classic charts a day in the gleefully gross and disgusting life of the eponymous monster.

Instead we are left with this dense and contemplative literary work that doesn't talk down to children but rather treats them as intelligent readers and throws in references to the likes of John Milton, Alfred Tennyson, William Oldys, Thomas Carlyle and John Donne.The Bogeymen that live there revel in every kind of nastiness imaginable – especially their day-job of scaring human beings. Fungus the Bogeyman is a lovingly created work of art, with as much care and thought in the words as in the images.