“If You Give a Donkey the White House”
By David E. Levine
The evil, buck-toothed Donkey is hilarious in David E. Levine’s “If You Give a Donkey the White House,” described as a “fresh, entertaining … political satire of the infinite haplessness of the government bureaucracy.”
“The wry parody, presented in the form of a popular children’s storybook series, will have right-leaning readers hysterically laughing as Levine takes jabs at President Barack Obama and his minions,” says the book’s PR blurb. Among its themes: “the hazard of electing an unknown ‘donkey’ into the White House.”
The art is very solid and the Donkey is such a compelling presence that some readers might imagine the author setting his satiric gifts loose on how Donkey’s predecessor, Elephant, launched that dang unnecessary war and broke the darn economy.
“The most effective method of illustrating political realities is often the simplest – in children’s format,” says Levine. “Volumes of longwinded political-speak have been authored on this subject, but … in the form of a simple, warmly illustrated children’s book, one can easily understand what a dangerous idea it is to allow donkeys to run our country.”
While thoroughly exploring some of the major criticisms of Donkey rule, the book also avoids boring readers by reminding them that Elephants tend to favor policies that benefit wealthy corporate interests at the expense of middle-class or poorer Americans, or that the pachyderm platform is pro-voter suppression and anti-women’s health.
In this partisan, polarized landscape for political satire children’s book parodies, “Donkey” might garner 4 or 5 right-handed thumbs up, along with, alas, an equal number of left-handed thumbs down.
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Book Blurbs editor John Breneman is the author of “Downsized! How I Got Laid Off After 30 Years in Newspapers and Turned My Funniest Sunday Advice Columns Into a Blockbuster E-book.”