all the wrong people have self-esteem by Laurie Rosenwald - review

all the wrong people have self-esteem by Laurie Rosenwald

OH. MAGAD! This book includes:

1. a DIY update on the Ian Dury song "Reasons to be Cheerful"
2. an advice-for-teens Mad Lib
3. some French and
4. thru 122. many many more useful and funny and brilliantly colored things

PLUS it starts out by saying that nobody interesting ISN'T plagued by doubt. Yeah. Word. This is the NUTS.

Now, you couldn't let it be said that Laurie Rosenwald, the artist who brought us the color book And to Name but Just a Few: Red, Yellow, Green, Blue, which I also loved - isn't clever, and doesn't know she's clever. A native New Yorker who teaches a workshop called "How to Make Mistakes on Purpose," she reports in her author (auto)biography that "by the time she was 35 she had to go to Sweden just to calm down." And she peppers this smart, cranky, deep book with plenty of examples of her own wit: after she blow-dries her hair by sticking her head out the car window, a friend asks, "But isn't that city air - dirty?" To which Laurie mentally replies, "Where do you think the air in your blow-dryer comes from - the Swiss Alps?"

But that doesn't mean she's NOT clever. Look at me: I just found out I am incapable of putting a space between the words "go" and "to" as a result of having learned to code when I was about ten - and people still hang out with me, too.

So give Laurie Rosenwald 45 minutes. Do the Mad Lib. Crack yourself up, and let her crack you up. She may be just a little smug, but she's right.